Knik 200 Race Journal
We made it back to Paxson safe and sound after the Knik 200. It was a great weekend, after a bit of a rough start.
We did a last minute overnight camping trip as Rich withdrew from Iditarod and it was now Laird who was going to gun the puppy team for the Knik 200. We decided to do one more „night out„ to teach him some more camping skills, and that tightened our packing schedule quite a bit. That combined with a bit of bad luck made for some long late nights. First my good old Tundra died on Paxson Lake, it got run out of oil and the engine consequently seized. So after getting back from our Camping trip on Wednesday morning I spend the rest of the day hauling the snow machine back and than trying to plow out the driveway, instead of packing for the race. The plow truck is a very moody old Chevy truck and would die almost instantly each time I would hit the gas. That did not help and it was not possible to do more than one plow in and out and I was glad the truck did not die in the middle of the road. Unfortunately that path was not wide enough for my big enclosed trailer, which we needed to get the dogs to Knik and also the snow machine to get fixed. We had Rudi leave ahead of us on Thursday morning, and he had the food drops packed in his truck, so in case I would really get stuck trying to get out, at least the food drop would make it in time to Willow. After quite a bit of backing up, cussing, more backing up and digging we eventually made it to the Richardson Highway. I either find someone to plow out the driveway properly or the trailer will have to park outside. 
In Knik we stayed with Lynn and Gene Smith, who went all out to host us Musher gang. Gene shoveled out his doglot from 2 feet of snow, so all our dogs could sit comfortable in doghouses, which is very nice, that they are not sitting in the truck and can move around freely. Even better, the doglot has heat pen, as I had several females in heat, plus the whole lot is fenced in, so I can turn the gang loose. With the females in heat, the males would all sit in front of the heat pen, so much for them getting exercise. The cabin we were staying in, was build over his walk-in freezer and most of the time the temperature in the cabin was about the same, as the darn oil monitor stove would quit after a few minutes running. I have always had a dislike for those finicky things and much prefer a wood stove, a stick of wood always burns. Gene and Lynn made a nice Taco dinner for us on Friday night as well as a great mushers breakfast early Saturday morning. 
The mushers meeting was in the Settlers Bay Lodge and I got lucky pulling my starting number 8, Laird nr 5 and Rudi nr 33. The start was on Knik Lake, which was plowed out, but only for trucks and not for a big rig with a huge trailer. I could get in, but for sure not turn around, nor make it to our starting position. Some other mushers were nice enough to switch parking spots with us, and I would simply worry about getting the truck back out after the race.Laird had a good start, in a last minute switch I took Bertha out of my team and took Ibex from his team instead. In retrospect both dogs were not ready for the rest of the team and I should have left with 11 or taken one of my dogs I plan to run in the Copper Basin 300 the following week. I'm trying to run 2 separate teams in each race. 6 minutes after Laird it was my turn to make it to the starting line, my team was going wild, something they usually do not do. Little Skunk and Austin were in lead, screaming to go and all 4 feet in the air. Starting a race is a great rush of adrenaline and I really enjoy the atmosphere. Soon after leaving Knik Lake the trail goes uphill a bit in a wooded area. Even on the uphill I had to ride the brake, so the gang would not run too fast and burn themselves out. I could feel that the team had a lot of “spunk“ and that I should be in for a nice run. Although riding my brake I quickly caught up to several teams, one of them being Laird, each dog being in a nice trot. While passing by I told him: “Hey this is a race, not a training run, you are going a bit too slow, let them go and have fun“. 
After passing Ryan Redington on 7 Mile Lake we were out front with Ryan staying on our heels. We passed and re-passed each other quite a bit I once again had some leader issues. I took Skunk out and put Inuk in. On a swamp after Flathorn Lake, an Airplane tried to land, I assume to have someone take some pictures. Ryan was in front at the time, and once the plane touched down I though, wow, that looks cool, but soon realized, geez this does not go as planned and the plane almost ran into Ryan, just to veer of over a beaver dam, through some trees which it miraculously avoided. Being in the deep snow the pilot had to “gun“ it to not get stuck which left us in a big cloud of snow. Ryan and me both looked at each other: What the hell was that…, that was pretty darn close… Austin, most likely being spooked by the plane, now really did not want to lead anymore so I needed to stop again. I chose Popcorn, which I had not run much at all this season and put him next to Inuk. Pulling the hook I was in for a pleasant surprise, he moved the team into overdrive, we passed Ryan and that was the last of anybody I would see till Skwentna. It was a beautiful run, slowly getting dark after I passed Yentna Station. 
I expected Jeff King to zoom by anytime, but that never happened. Nevertheless with him being nr 32 he was about half an hour faster than me, also Jon Little who was 8 minutes faster. We were in position nr 3 in Skwentna and I was happy with that. All of the dogs ate very well and looked good, rolling around in the snow, having fun and showing no sign of fatigue, pretty nice after a 8 hr and 32 minute run. Those dogs amaze me over and over again. In the Skwentna lodge they had a nice porc dinner waiting for us, as well as some very comfy beds, a real luxury in a checkpoint. After about 4 hrs of good sleep I went back out to give the dogs a broth and some snacks, which they all took happily. Finn did not look smooth on his way up, I walked him a bit, nothing I could find wrong with him, but he still walked somewhat stiff. With him being one of my key dogs, I decided to rather drop him and leave with 11 dogs. Rudi had a great run also, he was about 30 minutes behind me in 6th position, Laird was also in the checkpoint, but I couldn't find him. When the time to go came, the dogs were wild again. I had a little discussion with the checker about my out time, which he calculated wrong by 6 minutes, but he would not see it, and it turned out later that I was right, but I had no choice but to patiently wait. I did not think it would make a difference anywhere and had no hope of catching neither Jeff nor Jon.
The dogs ran fantastic, I had to ride the brake again, the trail conditions were ideal, with the temperature around 10 below it could not have been nicer. This was a nice to remember, dogs running well, the moon out and good music coming from the MP3 player. Quite a few teams were still on their way to Skwentna which resulted in a few head on passes, which all happened without incident. I would sometimes see Melanie Goulds headlight behind me, luckily not gaining on me. But no sign of the teams ahead neither. But that was my mistake. I was surprised when Jon Little came up to me and asked: “Did you know that by Yentna you were only a minute and a half behind me“. I did not and would have worked a lot harder if I would have known it. We mostly run with our headlights off, to not give away our position, but last year I got lost on this race on the river so I would always flick on my light every few minutes, to check if I would still follow the correct orange markers. I did help the dogs ski poling, also to stay warm, but did not call them up. After about 4 hrs I stopped to snack the team, they all ate well and off we went again. On Flathorn Lake I once again checked to see if I was on the trail and could not believe my eyes, there were no sled tracks ahead of me. 
I stopped the team, walked up front and sure enough we were off the trail, following a snow machine track. No choice but to turn around and backtrack, I went for 5 minutes and came to a spot where 2 teams had turned before me… and followed their tracks to the real trail. Luckily Melanie had not caught up to me on my little detour. The last 3 hrs of the run go over some rolling hills, I took it easy and kept on glancing back but no sign of a team. About 3 miles before the finish my dogs started looking back and I could not believe my eyes, there was a team behind me. Off came my parka, out the ski poles and I worked like mad to stay ahead of Melanie and was able to hang on to 3rd place. Rudi also hung on to his great 6th place and Laird came in short before the finishing banquet in 18th position, also good for his first race.
Here are the complete results from the Knik 200:
These were the dogs in our teams:
Sebastian: Inuk, Popcorn, Austin, Skunk, Maggot, Nemo, Ibex, Diesel, Finn, Roadstreak, Saffron, Callie.
Laird: Marmot, Spook, Herring, Battier, Bananas, Orion, Buckley, Susie, Emerie, Ricky, Bertha, Free
Rudi: Salty, Spike, Stach, George, Denali, Storm, Chester, Polar, Onyx, Stevie, Abby, Molly
While I write these lines, we are gearing up to run the Copper Basin 300 next week end.
You'll get the latest informations about the standing of the Bluekennels-Teams on our homepage.
Happy trails, cheers
After passing Ryan Redington on 7 Mile Lake we were out front with Ryan staying on our heels. We passed and re-passed each other quite a bit I once again had some leader issues. I took Skunk out and put Inuk in. On a swamp after Flathorn Lake, an Airplane tried to land, I assume to have someone take some pictures. Ryan was in front at the time, and once the plane touched down I though, wow, that looks cool, but soon realized, geez this does not go as planned and the plane almost ran into Ryan, just to veer of over a beaver dam, through some trees which it miraculously avoided. Being in the deep snow the pilot had to “gun“ it to not get stuck which left us in a big cloud of snow. Ryan and me both looked at each other: What the hell was that…, that was pretty darn close… Austin, most likely being spooked by the plane, now really did not want to lead anymore so I needed to stop again. I chose Popcorn, which I had not run much at all this season and put him next to Inuk. Pulling the hook I was in for a pleasant surprise, he moved the team into overdrive, we passed Ryan and that was the last of anybody I would see till Skwentna. It was a beautiful run, slowly getting dark after I passed Yentna Station. I expected Jeff King to zoom by anytime, but that never happened. Nevertheless with him being nr 32 he was about half an hour faster than me, also Jon Little who was 8 minutes faster. We were in position nr 3 in Skwentna and I was happy with that. All of the dogs ate very well and looked good, rolling around in the snow, having fun and showing no sign of fatigue, pretty nice after a 8 hr and 32 minute run. Those dogs amaze me over and over again. In the Skwentna lodge they had a nice porc dinner waiting for us, as well as some very comfy beds, a real luxury in a checkpoint. After about 4 hrs of good sleep I went back out to give the dogs a broth and some snacks, which they all took happily. Finn did not look smooth on his way up, I walked him a bit, nothing I could find wrong with him, but he still walked somewhat stiff. With him being one of my key dogs, I decided to rather drop him and leave with 11 dogs. Rudi had a great run also, he was about 30 minutes behind me in 6th position, Laird was also in the checkpoint, but I couldn't find him. When the time to go came, the dogs were wild again. I had a little discussion with the checker about my out time, which he calculated wrong by 6 minutes, but he would not see it, and it turned out later that I was right, but I had no choice but to patiently wait. I did not think it would make a difference anywhere and had no hope of catching neither Jeff nor Jon. The dogs ran fantastic, I had to ride the brake again, the trail conditions were ideal, with the temperature around 10 below it could not have been nicer. This was a nice to remember, dogs running well, the moon out and good music coming from the MP3 player. Quite a few teams were still on their way to Skwentna which resulted in a few head on passes, which all happened without incident. I would sometimes see Melanie Goulds headlight behind me, luckily not gaining on me. But no sign of the teams ahead neither. But that was my mistake. I was surprised when Jon Little came up to me and asked: “Did you know that by Yentna you were only a minute and a half behind me“. I did not and would have worked a lot harder if I would have known it. We mostly run with our headlights off, to not give away our position, but last year I got lost on this race on the river so I would always flick on my light every few minutes, to check if I would still follow the correct orange markers. I did help the dogs ski poling, also to stay warm, but did not call them up. After about 4 hrs I stopped to snack the team, they all ate well and off we went again. On Flathorn Lake I once again checked to see if I was on the trail and could not believe my eyes, there were no sled tracks ahead of me. I stopped the team, walked up front and sure enough we were off the trail, following a snow machine track. No choice but to turn around and backtrack, I went for 5 minutes and came to a spot where 2 teams had turned before me… and followed their tracks to the real trail. Luckily Melanie had not caught up to me on my little detour. The last 3 hrs of the run go over some rolling hills, I took it easy and kept on glancing back but no sign of a team. About 3 miles before the finish my dogs started looking back and I could not believe my eyes, there was a team behind me. Off came my parka, out the ski poles and I worked like mad to stay ahead of Melanie and was able to hang on to 3rd place. Rudi also hung on to his great 6th place and Laird came in short before the finishing banquet in 18th position, also good for his first race.Here are the complete results from the Knik 200:
These were the dogs in our teams:
Sebastian: Inuk, Popcorn, Austin, Skunk, Maggot, Nemo, Ibex, Diesel, Finn, Roadstreak, Saffron, Callie.
Laird: Marmot, Spook, Herring, Battier, Bananas, Orion, Buckley, Susie, Emerie, Ricky, Bertha, Free
Rudi: Salty, Spike, Stach, George, Denali, Storm, Chester, Polar, Onyx, Stevie, Abby, Molly
While I write these lines, we are gearing up to run the Copper Basin 300 next week end.
You'll get the latest informations about the standing of the Bluekennels-Teams on our homepage.
Happy trails, cheers
Sab
