Part 2: Rohn - Kaltag
The next run to Nikolai is long, about 70 miles and usually broken up into 2 runs. Last year I camped at a spot called "Buffalo Camp" which is about half way. My new plan (the originally was long abandoned) was to run this in one long slow run, hoping to keep the dogs at a solid trott and hoping they would warm out of those sorenesses. It helped that we had fresh snow, nice snow. This stretch of the trail is notorious for no snow, rocks, glare ice and stumps.
It took me 4.5hrs to reach the Buffalo Camp. Some children had made nice welcome signs for us mushers and I had a hard time passing up on the hospitality spot. It was still lightly snowing and we kept on marching towards Nikolai, but instead of the anticipated 4.5 hrs it took me 6 hrs, which made for a long total run time of 10hrs and 20 minutes. Hans Gatt and Jamie Nelson passed me about 2 hrs outside of Nikolai. Arriving in Nikolai I thought, cool another Checkpoint made, another $ 400 earned. Mindgames... While massaging dogs and putting wristwraps on I definitely noticed some improvement. There were a lot of teams here and for nothing in the world I could find a vet. The locals helped us a lot and made a nice cooker for getting hot water for the dogs. The whole crew chowed down as usual. Although I had been here before, my mind was foggy and I could not find the school where we could sleep. Here I was wandering around in Nikolai at 2 a.m. wondering how the hell I can get lost in a place where only 100 people live. I wanted to leave at 7 a.m. but had the same problem as when I arrived, I could not find a vet, and we need a signature in the vetbook before we leave, even if we have no exam. Luckily I stumbled across Vern Starks, off duty, who than took the time to look at my team, which had me leave around 8 a.m. 
The trail to Mc Grath is pretty much uneventful, on a well travelled snowmachine trail, some overland and some on the Kusko River. It was a bit windy and the trail was blown in pretty good in some open places. I was being passed again by Jamie Nelson and some other teams, which did not improve my mood. I had 13 dogs, most other teams were still running the full 16 dog strings. We got to Mc Grath right in the heat of the day at 13.45 and planned to go straight on through to Takotna. Actually now II would have liked to take my 24 hr layover in Mc Grath, but I did not send enough stuff here to do so. When you sit at home and plan everything on paper it all looks so easy. It is only 18 more miles to Takotna, there could be no reason to stop in Mc Grath. My main reason for Takotna is their hospitality and the great food. And I mean GREAT Food. As soon as I left Mc Grath, Herring, a big 70 lb male started to favour his right front leg. I stopped once down the river bank and checked him out to find a sore biceps. Not nice. What to do? Turn around drop him, he is one of my main dogs and has finished all 1000 milers so far. I knew that with 24 hrs of rest and massaging he would be ready to go again. Also Spook another 70 lb dog the vets told me to watch. Ouch, 140 lbs of dogs in the Sled, luckily both calmly accepting the free ride. So much for my thought that the 18 miles from Mc Grath to Takotna would always be a cakewalk. Off went my parka, out the skipoles and running and poling like a madman I worked my way to Takonta in the heat of the day. Bill Pinkham was close and it gave me some reassurance that he would not pull away on me. There is a nice long uphill in there and I was drenched in sweat once I got to Takotna, in a time of 2.36 minutes which was far better than I expected. I pulled into my same parking spot as last year, there were a lot of teams here. There are about 30 teams here, the checker told me and more coming every few minutes. I guess I am not the only one craving their food. The rest in Takotna is very pleasant, a lot of time to talk to other mushers, surf the net, sleep and eat, and eat some more. It is unbelievable of how much this little town of some 40 people goes all out for us mushers. One of the meals they served us was Lobster and Steak. For someone in the city that is even a feast, but considering where we are, in a small mining town in central Alaska, completely off the roadsystem in the middle of March that is unbelievable. Lance was sitting next to me and smiling: „Hey Sab I gotta tell you a funny story. When I came to Stepping Stone in the Quest eating my 3rd plate they told me, man Lance you got an appetite, but nothing like Sebastian. And now when I was eating here in Takontna this morning they told me. Man you can pack away food, but nothing like Sebastian. „We damn near killed ourselves laughing. I should reconsider my eating habits though.
My timing here in Takotna was very nice. With me doing one long tough run from Nikolai to here and getting here at 16.43, with my time adjustment I could leave at 18.23, again my preferred run time in the evening. One hour earlier would be even nicer. The big news was the cold. Paul Claus owner of Ultima Thule Lodge accompanied the race with flying the Norwegian Support Team and came back from Cripple, saying it was 45 ° below there.I had a lot of sleep here in Takotna, one full night and a great 4 hr afternoon nap. One salad and spaghetti meal later I found myself outside packing the sled .It was feelably getting colder. All 13 dogs looked ready to go and I was glad to have made the decision to not drop Herring back in Mc Grath. Exept Finn who had a sore left wrist everybody else was completely injury free, which was nice for a change. We trotted out of the Checkpoint on time, wondering why not just staying here for good.
The run over to Ophir was beautiful. The sky glowing orange, purple, blue a sure sign that it is going to be a cold night. I stopped to but belly protections on Spook, Neuro and Jack, as well as on Tang and Libby the 2 females. I moved all the frostbite prone dogs further back in the team, expect Tang who I need as a leader. Like much of the Quest little Marmot was Tangs partner. All the other dogs I gave some dogcoats. In Ophir I stocked up on some more dogfood, mainly fatty stuff for the cold night. I took half a bale of straw with me also, hoping I would find a camp spot which already had straw on it. My plan was to run 3 more hrs out of Ophir and than camp that is what I told Rick Casillo who wanted to meet up with me there. That would have meant I pull over at 00.30. I came across a huge bonfire, I could see the orange glow from a long way. The only problem was, that I could not find any spot with straw. All places were taken by other mushers. I could tell it was monster cold out and half a bale of straw would be tight for 13 dogs.
Eventually I pulled over at 1.30, on no straw. I decided to put all dogs in 3 big clusters of 4,4,5 dogs and spread the straw evenly. They all curled up next to each other and I put the fleece blankets over them. Each fleece is 36x36 inches and they are double sewn. That makes them somewhat heavy but real warm. The dogs seemed comfortably warm, much in opposite to me. Damn it was cold, I needed all my heat bottles (methyl alcohol) to melt the pot of snow, 2 more bottles than I usually do. Normally I melt some more snow after the dogwater for my thermos, but with no more heat I had to take it from the dogwater. Taking the fleece blankets of the dogs, they were steaming a sure sign they were comfortably warm, also a sure sign that it is damn cold. All the dogs ate well, which I was glad to see. Tang needed her extra ration of hot dogs as usual.I was not too sure of what to do? Try to sleep or just stay awake and try to keep warm. I decided for the sleep version as I was too lazy to make a fire. I put the my foldable seat down first, than my long foamy, than my small piece right were my body would be, than came the ugly part, took my pants off and laid them under my sleeping bag and crawled in that super cold sleeping bag, with my Lobben boots (Felt boots) on, as they would freeze too stiff to get them back on in the morning. Over my Sleeping bag I placed my big parka and right over my face a dog fleece. Quite a few teams were passing by, every sound travelles a long way in this cold and I could hear the mushers form a long way away.
Surprisingly enough I fell to sleep but woke up shivering like hell. No matter what I would do, it would be cold, either staying in the sleeping bag, or getting out and putting my pants and parka on. I had no feeling in my feet and it took quite a bit running up and down the trail to warm them up. The dogs were not too hot about leaving their nice warm blankets either, but it was time to go. Booting up was too cold for my hands , I only managed to put booties on the dogs with the worst feet and than decided to go a mile or so, before booting the next ones. The dogs feet looked great, not even one split in any foot and I wanted to keep it that way. While booting Dave Swatzky passed by and I kept on following him to Cripple. The landscape changes from rolling hills with spares trees to some densely treed river crossings. On one of those crossing the trail made an abrupt turn to the left and right in the middle of that turn was a tree stump sticking up which got caught in my break. The handlebar jammened into my ribs and the dogs got jerked to a dead stop. Nothing seemed to have broken though. I got the sled freed and kept on moving down the trail. A while later I wanted to stop and check the dogs, but I could not get my hook out from where it is hooked into the cross bar on the sled. I also noticed that the whole crossbar was bending a lot. What had happened back at the stump it that my bridle broke (the line which attaches the gangline to the sled) and now my whole team was hanging on my hook on the crossbar my sled. Not nice. On the next uphill I stopped the team and flipped the sled into the deeper snow to make a new bridle.
There were many planes in the air and quite low, a sure sign that the Checkpoint was near. I signed it at 12.46, after running for only 5.5 hrs, I was expecting 7. Once again the distances between the checkpoints seem to be overstated. It only took me total 9.5 hrs running time where I expected more like 12. There were many mushers in the checkpoint with much worse stories about that stump than I had to tell. There were some pretty badly broken sleds there. Once again the Gatt Sled had proven itself. www.gattsled.com. The volunteer crew did a great job to make this stop in the middle of nowhere as hospitable as possible, nice cosy tents with oil stoves. I got my usual afternoon nap and getting ready for another cold night camping.Again distance descriptions about the upcoming section would vary from 65 miles to 90 miles depending on who you talked to (officially the literature states 112 miles). It would end up being more like 65, which was exactly what Jim Gallea, who has run the race, told me. It is about 20 miles to a place called Poorman, another 5 miles to the Slana Bridge and than some 40 miles on a Road to Ruby. Poorman earned his name well, there were many old abandoned cabins and mining equipment. The night would not turn out as cold as expected and it started to get windy instead, real windy. Passing Dave Swatzky we found a sheltered spot in a sharp bend in the road, on an uphill, not my favourite spot to camp. For one it is not nice for other mushers to have to pass a resting team on an uphill, but also it is also harder to get going uphill in the morning. This seemed to be the only spot out of the wind though. Ryan Redington joined me to camp, which was nice, it is nice to have good company and talk dogs.
We stayed for about 5 hrs before continuing to Ruby. A lot of teams passed us in that break, as most people seemed to do the run Cripple to Ruby in one shot. At some point there was a mile marker saying 28 miles, which was good news, only about 4 more hrs to go. Those 4 hrs were pretty windy though and it was nice to travel with Ryan, we took turns breaking trail though the increasingly high snowdrifts. About 1.5 hrs before Ruby the trail crests a mountain and it was blowing really hard up there. The whole scene reminded me of American Summit in the Quest a few years ago. Arriving in Ruby we got a warm welcome, but it would be a cold place for the dogs to stay. The wind was blowing hard, dogdishes, fleeceblankets, my cooker lid all would blow away. I planned to stay for my mandatory 8 hrs here, but decided to leave after 6 hrs. The timing was right, the rest for the dogs pretty poor anyhow and the run into Ruby shorter than expected. Debra and Sandy Bicknell from Juneau were here in Ruby, a nice surprise to see some friends, which lifted my mood.
Out of Ruby. As it was still blowing hard Ryan Redington, Mike Jayne and myself teamed up for the next run. We took turns breaking trail but than the wind started to die down and the run to Galena turned out to be beautiful. The Yukon River is big here and we could see Galena from a long way in the distance. Ryans headlamp would show occasional ahead of me and Mike behind me. In Galena they had great parking spots for the dogs, completely sheltered and the had rooms with real beds for us. Bingo, a much better place to rest 8 hrs. They even would have had showers here. There was a boiler room to really dry out stuff, also nice. I slept like a log and got up at 6.a.m. to hit the trail at 7.30. A bit late for my liking because that would bring us in the heat of the day, but taking the 8 hrs here, we were not allowed to leave earlier. Ryan, Mike and me left right together. After a while I started separating from them and caught up to Rick Casillo. This was probably the first time since the starting line that my team ran nice and pretty much trouble free. I did not think about going Checkpoint to Checkpoint and actually realized that after all, I might make it to Nome. The trail on the Yukon was great, no jumbled ice and no wind today. The dogs chugged along and we made it to Nulato at 1 p.m., much faster than anticipated. Before finding the checkpoint I missed a turn and made a tour of Nulato, a village pretty much comprised of log cabins only. The checkpoint was very well run, great food, very friendly people here. Unfortunately a bit windy for the dogs. Now we started seeing the same people most of the time, Hans Gatt, Jamie Nelson, Peter Bartlett and Brain Mills ahead of us, than Ryan, Mike, Rick and me, a while later behind us Dave Swatzki, Dean Rosiar and Fabrizio Lovati.
I left Nulato after a good rest around 6 p.m. The wind had picked up again and the trail was partly blown in. The dogs ran nice though and we had a fast runtime into Kaltag with a little more than 5 hrs. But also it was only 34 miles, not the 40 I expected. I occasionally could see a headlight behind me which turned out to be Rick Casillo. It is funny, pretty much every day we have been on the race, we have passed by an abandoned snowmachine on the trail. I started to wonder about the stories related to those breakdowns. Like when and how they happened and if the unlucky one had to walk or was travelling with another machine. 2 Snowmachines came our way and maybe that is how people travel here all the time, with 2 machines. The team pulled into Kaltag at 23.18 and I parked besides some Willows, hoping to get out of the wind, but not much luck. For the first time in the whole race the dogs did not eat. The whole team did not eat which was very unusual. Their shit looked normal, so I was really wondering what was going on. They would nibble here and there on some snacks, but did not have their usual appetite. Maybe the run was too short? I got up at 3.30 to try to feed again, but they would still not eat. In hindsight I made a mistake here.Sab
