Copper Basin 300 Race Report
Now that I am writing these lines one week has already passed since the Copper Basin, exactly a week ago, we were resting in Chistochina. Time is just flying by and much happened in the past week.
On the way back from the Knik 200 we did some shopping and Rudi picked up his friend Stephan who is going to stay with us until Rudi has to fly home after the Copper Basin. While we were gone to the Knik 200 dog handler Rich, who had already withdrawn from Iditarod, decided to leave without notice, so all for sudden the problem of where Stephan was going to sleep got solved by itself, we had an empty bedroom. The time after a race is always filled with unpacking, fixing, washing stuff, but of course also with training dogs. For myself it ialso means catching up on emails which need to be answered so the tours at home can keep on running smoothly. As soon as we had unpacked, we started loading up the trucks again with gear for the CB300. The food drop bags were filled we precut meat, bagged dry food, booties which were exactly counted per team, medication for the dogs, dog blankets, dog coates and all kind of other stuff. Last year I had 6 food drop bags for the CB, this year 16 in total, I was determined to travel light and did sent complete sets “of everything“ to each checkpoint but Tolsona.
Once we arrived in Glennallen on Friday afternoon we dropped of the dog food and proceeded to sign in at the Legion Hall. It is very nice to see the similar faces who are involved in organizing this great event, it's like visiting good old friends. After the mushers meeting we went to the Brown Bear Roadhouse to draw our starting positions, something I am always dreading. True to my bad luck in it, I once again drew the second last number, 25 of 26, arghhh. A few minutes later there was another draw for 500 dog booties from Kipmik products, John Cooper, and my number was drawn, that sweetened the pain of starting in the back of the pack a bit. The Copper Basin is known to have poor trail at the beginning of the race, so starting late is a definite disadvantage. The meeting war nice and short, a few beer later and we were out the door to drive back to Paxson, much earlier than we thought. About 5 miles before home, the road was blocked and a big truck had to be pulled out of the ditch. So much for getting home early. I still had to pack my sled, make a decision of who to actually take on the race and load the truck for an early morning departure. 
Rudi left ahead of me at 5:30. I am not necessary an early morning person and squeezed out every minute of sleep to basically fall from the bed in the driver seat, while Laird loaded the dogs. Passing John and Zoya on the road to Glenallen in the middle of a corner finally gave me the adrenaline rush I needed to be wide awake. John´s comment was later that it must be a Canadian thing to only pass in corners. I was still struggelig with the decision of who to take for the race and had one extra dog in the truck. Saffron or Roadsteak was the big question and after all I opted for little Saffron.This was my team:
Inuk, Popcorn, Maggot, Austin, Franky, Tang, Saffron, Skunk, Libby, Par, Gas, Diesel.
Yes you are reading right, my good older leader Tang was in the lineup. This was going to be her test, if she still has it in her to run a longer race.
Rudi had pulled lucky number 11 and this was his team:
Salty, Spike, Batman, Polar, Onyx, Stach, Herring, Sumo, George, Stevie, Abby, Denali.
Rudi had a smooth start and my gang was with the exception of Par quite as usual at the starting line, I like that a lot. Chicken Gerry´s handler came to hold my brake as he had time and I had left my crew in Paxson to continue to train the dogs, but also to be well rested to help us there. Rudi´s friend Stephan drove the truck and would also take my dogs in case I would drop any in Chistochina. My start was also smooth but soon after I pulled the hook my fears of a slow and punchy trail became reality. The dogs were slogging through deep sugar snow and could not find any rhythm. I did catch several teams before Gakona and got there in 1hr 45 minute, a pretty average time. Luckily there was less and less snow until we ran over a combination of rocks, grass and snow, which I much preffered, at least we were moving at a nice clip, who says we need snow to do so? I could feel that the team had good power up the hills and even several hours into the run I had to ride my dragmat frequently to keep the team at a slower pace. Inuk and Austin did a fabulous job in passing teams, much to my surprise and we made it to Chisto in 5hrs and 17 minutes, not record time, but only Allen Moore and William Kleedehn were faster, no surprise with William pulling number 3. 
I got a nice parking spot, close to the water and food drops and after checking my dogs by Nene de Wolfe, one of the great vets on the race, point out a slight swelling on Diesel´s right hind leg, most likely just a bruise form all the willows sticking out of the trail. There is a section in the trail for about 4 miles, where there is more willows than trail, not very nice for the dogs. All dogs ate very well and I had to be careful to not overfeed them, as they would easily take more, but that would slow them down. My plan was to stay here for 6 hrs but when I came back outside to check on my dogs at 20:30 I was surprised to see, that most teams had already left the checkpoint. Out of fear that if I would wait any longer and let more teams get out ahead of me, we would have to content with a bad trail once again, I quickly booted up the dogs and left after 4hr45 minutes. They left very strong I put Tang in lead but she could clearly not stay in front of the pack. I stopped changed her for Popcorn besides Inuk in lead, and same as in the Knik, they speed the team up another notch. From Chisto the trail mostly goes uphill and we quickly started catching teams, which is not only fun for me, I could tell that the dogs were enjoying it also. If a new headlight would come into sight, I could feels a surge of energy and had to ride the brake. One of the teams I caught was Rudi, who left about 10 minutes ahead of me and he was also moving nicely. There is a spot in the trail called “Posty`s“ a post box in the middle of nowhere which usually takes 3 hrs to reach. We were there in 2:45, shortly after the trail turns left and it was over with the fast and hard packed snow. At this point, little did I know, that this was not going to change till the end of the race. 
After about 4hrs running we came to Excelsior Creek, which is always open. Tang in lead would not even have blinked an eye and pulled the rest of the dogs through the water, but not so Inuk and Popcorn who put on the brakes and were looking for a way around it. Not wanting to risk a big tangle I ran up front, pulled the leaders though the water, which was the end of my dry feet. As it was time to snack anyhow I stopped a few minutes after the water, took the dogs booties off, rebooted the ones needing it and snacked the whole team, which as usual gulped down the meat. Pulling the hook I could see a bunch of headlights behind me, which all but one quickly feel behind again. That one belonged to Allen Moore and he eventually caught up to us and passed. The wise man stayed 6 hrs in Chisto, same as the last race I fell for the mistake of taking off too early and thus loosing some speed. I was happy having him climb the big hill ahead of me, giving my team something to chase, as I have to admit that my sit down sled has the disadvantage, that I can help less on really long and steep up hills. The trail down the mountain can be super fast and thrilling, but in the deep powder snow, we almost had to help the dogs in some spots. Arriving at the Gakona River I was glad to see that we did not have to go in the water we encountered earlier in the season in training. As this was home turf for the dogs, we gained some speed and I re-passed Allen. The dogs did not know, that Paxson was not the end of this trip. 5.5 miles past the Gakona the trail hits the Alyeska pipeline and turns north, until we cross the Richardson Highway and exit onto Summit Lake. Summit Lake is above tree line, thus often windblown, also this time, and we were following a snowmachine track through deep powder. While sitting I could nicely help the dogs with the skipoles and 2 headlight appeared infront of me. Once the trail leaves Summit Lake we have to master a short but steep climb, the dogs thinking they were home in 4 miles, just ran up that slope and I had to ride the brake once again on the remaining 3.5 miles on the Denali Highway. It is tempting to let the dogs go faster, but it is easy to hurt a dog on the gradual down hill to Paxson. About 300 yard before the checkpoint the team has to go right by the driveway, which the handlers had nicely blocked of with straw bails. Other than Maggot who almost slipped out of his harness trying to go home, most dogs did not even look over. Nice. We pulled in after 8hr32 minutes, again not a fast time, but for this race it was, only matched by Allen Moore and Zack Steer.
My friend John who came up from Fairbanks greeted me as well as Laird who led the dogs to a good parking spot. I was happy with their performance, they all ate very well again and did not seem very tired. I waited till most of them curled up and put a fleece blanket over them, to keep them warmer. Some dogs literary wait for the blankets and love them, others yet again will not stay under them for nothing in the world. Chicken Gerry walked by and mumbled something about breakfast, which sounded good to me. After some nice bacon, sausage and eggs I got some good 4hr sleep in the Lodge, that with the one hours I got in Chisto was more than in any other CB300 before already. Our out time was scheduled for 13.26, about 30 minutes after Zack Steer. I liked the idea to not leave first but finally not having a chewed up trail. The trail got rerouted back to the pipeline to avoid Paxson Lake which had too much overflow. That would add about 1 hr runtime to Meiers, plus one more mountain. Before leaving I needed to fix my sled, a bolt on the seat part was broken once I was working on it, I also changed the runner plastic. It was snowing big fat snowflakes, so much for having a nice fast trail, instead the dogs were wallowing through fresh powder. It stopped snowing for a few hours, the sun even came out, but the joy was not for long and it started snowing again. The pass through my usual burger stop in Meiers went uneventful, Manja was there to guide the team through which helped a lot. Ahead were a series of hills, I took my parka off and packed in the sled and started running, kicking and skipoling behind the sled. I could see Zacks footprints in the snow ahead of us. After several hours of up and down the trail finally hits a series of small lakes before returning to the pipeline and than 5 or so miles later reaching Sourdough. I was drenched in sweat but the dogs looked once again good rolling into Sourdough, we clearly made some time on Zack. 
While taking care of the team I could see a whole bunch of teams come in, one headlight after another appeared. Sourdough does not have a warm shelter for us to sleep and I had sent an extra bale of straw here to sleep on. Zack even had a small tent, not a bad idea for the future, as it started to snow, and I constantly woke up when it snowed into the sleeping bag. I was in race mode and told Manja to wake me up at 1 a.m., which she did. “Does anybody bootie up“. No was her answer and I told her to wake me up at 2. Same question, same answer, new instructions to wake me up at 3. I did not want to leave the checkpoint first and rest here as long as possible, but I also did not want to let Allen leave too much ahead of me. Finally at 3:45 I crawled out of the warm sleeping bag. What I joy to put on frozen cold cloth. Dishing out a wet snack to the dogs warmed me up. Maggot was peeing dark yellow, although his skin did show no sign of dehydration, I wanted to avoid by all means having to carry a 70 lb dog on the way to Wolverine and dropped him here. I sure would miss his power. Chicken Gerry came over to briefly talk to me and told me he was going to scratch, something he had mentioned earlier in Paxson, but seemed more determined to do so now. I sensed there was not much use in trying to convince him to keep on going and kept on booting my dogs. This is one of the difficult parts of racing. Many of us mushers are good friends, and there is only one 2nd, one 3rd place and so on. While I had a great run, it was disappointing and sad to see that he did not, specially knowing how much he also has put on the line this winter. 
Right when I finished booting the dogs, Allen was ready to leave the checkpoint and I left a bit quicker than I had wanted. After a long 6hr 30 minutes rest, all the dogs have to relieve themselves and the start is everything but fast. Shortly after leaving my headlight went dark and I realized that I had forgotten to change the batteries. With it being 4.30 in the morning, daylight was hours away. I thought about turning around, as I had no spare light, but no way, I cannot do that and was hoping the batteries would have enough juice, so I could at least flick on the light at main turns in the trail. That worked fine, but I could also clearly see, that Allens Team had more speed than mine. Darn, I wish I would have stayed the 6hrs way back in Chisto. The trail is mostly flat here, and I got to use my seat a lot, maybe too much as when I got to Crosswind Lake, Kirk who waits on the take to give us mushers some soup and water informed me that Allen had passed through 30 minutes ago. Well that was it for sitting down, having him shave of half on hour on me, got me worried that somebody would catch me from behind. The trail was slow and it took us lot longer to get to Crosswind than usual and I was sure that this was not going to change all the way to Lake Louise. Once again I pedaled, skipoled and ran most of the way. The trail on Lake Louise was almost completely blown in and it was slow going. This run has taken me as little as 5hrs30 minutes and this time it was taking 8hrs and 29 minutes, for sure not a speed record. Getting closer to Wolverine Lodge, I could see Alle leave the checkpoint, his team looked strong and smooth and I lost hope to catch him. I also knew that I still had some mandatory time I had left to rest, in my foggy state of mind I did not know exactly how much and was told to stay 36 minutes. I arrived at exactly 1p.m. and it was strange to see Chicken Gerry stand there, this time as a spectator and not a musher. He muttered something about 6 to 8 inches of more snow in the forecast, I tried to ignore that. I was going to make my decision of how long to stay here dependent on how well the dogs ate. I could get some hot water in the lodge, so feeding would not take long. The whole gang chowed down good and the decision was made to waste no time her and go as soon as we can. I should have dropped Par, as on the way to Tolsona he would not pull much. 
Leaving shortly after my allotted time I could see John Schandelmeier arrive as well as another team which I could not identify. Technically they also still had to do some mandatory rest and was hoping none of them would be able to catch me on the remaining 50 miles. The team left a bit sluggish and put good old Tang with Skunk in lead. I was glad to have the old lady with me. I kept on telling the pair: “Hey Tang this REALLY is your last one, and hey Skunk better remember this trail for next year“. Tang probably thought, yeah right I heard that before. The vets were very surprised to hear that she is close to 10 years old. It started snowing very heavily, so Gerry must have been right after all, and soon I could hardly see Allen´s tracks ahead of me. Trail markers were also few and in between, so I left Tang in lead, knowing she would not set the fastest pace, but she also would not steer us off course. This run to Tolsona is normally well traveled by snowmachines and fast, taking about 3.5hrs. not so today it almost took 5 hrs of deep snow slogging and I made it to Tolsona at 18.26. I decided to drop Par her and continue right way. 
We were on the trail for basically 14hrs straight now, with only the short break in Wolverine, but the team looked strong and left the checkpoint well. Stopping at the end of Tolsona Lake, I dished out one last snack of Lamb meat which they happily took. The dogs were more energetic than I expected them to be, I think they knew that the finish was near, maybe near in miles, but not in running time. This was slow going again and it was snowing so hard, that I had to turn off my headlight, otherwise I was too blinded by the reflecting snowflakes. Even the good old ACDC in the MP3 player could not make the time go by fast. While sitting down I kept on skipoling, hoping the dogs would honor my efforts to help. What a relief when after 3hrs15 minutes a small sign appeared, 2 miles to Brown Bear Lodge. Cool , that means 5 miles to the finish. Once we came out to the parking lot of the lodge, there was a fresh skidoo trail in the ditch and the dogs responded with excitement a stepped up to a full lope. Great I thought, but after a few hundred yard the snowmachiner had turned into a driveway and we were back to a slow go, but at this point I did not care, the finish was near and I was more than happy with the teams performance. I did not expect to finish in 2nd place, but most certainly not to finish at 22.23 at night. Normally we finish the CB around lunchtime. => Final results Copper Basin 300, 2007
I had a nice welcome in the finish, Eric, Brett and a lot of the other race officials and volunteers were there to welcome me and to help unhook and feed the dogs. My truck was parked at the finish line and after loading up the dogs and sled I decided to take a room in the Caribou Hotel instead of driving home, being afraid to fall to sleep at the wheel. I also wanted to see Rudi finish, but only woke up once he was standing in the room as I did not even hear the alarm go of. He had finished at 4.50 a.m. in 8th place also with 10 dogs, a great accomplishment.
The next evening the last musher, Terry Williams just made it in time for a great finishing banquet in the Brown Bear Lodge, with great Mexican food. We all received our prize money, only 11 of 26 teams had finished and my peers voted for me to receive the sportsmanship award also, not sure for what, but I gladly took it.
One nice part about racing is all the great people we get to meet. Year after year many of the same volunteers organize the races. I always look forward to the folks here at Copper Basin, as they put on a great show. There are very rewarding moments, like after this race when someone came up to me and said: You probably do not remember me, I met you years ago here in your first race and had to kick you out of the checkpoints, you were taking so damn long. I believed in you that time and look where you are now. I am happy to see you doing so well, he continued and you will be in the top 5 in the Iditarod soon. That is a very nice compliment and it was a great moment, although I do not expect to be there anytime soon, there is too much I still have to learn. I already look forward to the next Copper Basin, as this race indeed holds something special for me, with being the first race I ever ran in 1998, at the time rather unsucessfully.
After our return to Paxson we were fighting with all the new snow. With the plow truck not working we could not drive to the house or doglot and it took us a while to get everything back in order, well somewhat order, as Rudi already had to leave the next morning back to Whitehorse and than catch his plane to Germany. That trip did not go without incident, we were surprised to see Rudi return about one hour after he left. His friend Stephan had put the dogtruck in the ditch about 10 miles north of Paxson. Luckily no real damage and nobody hurt, but we spent the remainder of the day trying to free the vehicle, despite a big winch on my truck, unsuccessfully and had to call a bigger towtruck after all. Manja put it very nicely: “Traveling with you gets never boring“.
I had some hope to run the Klondike 300 this weekend, put things simply got too tight timewise, with the late return from the CB, the truck in the ditch and the Yukon Quest Food Drop lurking around the corner. So I guess the next weeks will be busy with packing and training only.
Just a quick warning, my race reports will be less frequent now, as it gets too close to the races and time gets even tighter as it was before. But I am sure that Andy, who does this website, will have great updates while I am out on the trail. Thanks for all your encouraging emails I hope you follow along on the PC, enjoy the ride.
Sebastian and Team
One nice part about racing is all the great people we get to meet. Year after year many of the same volunteers organize the races. I always look forward to the folks here at Copper Basin, as they put on a great show. There are very rewarding moments, like after this race when someone came up to me and said: You probably do not remember me, I met you years ago here in your first race and had to kick you out of the checkpoints, you were taking so damn long. I believed in you that time and look where you are now. I am happy to see you doing so well, he continued and you will be in the top 5 in the Iditarod soon. That is a very nice compliment and it was a great moment, although I do not expect to be there anytime soon, there is too much I still have to learn. I already look forward to the next Copper Basin, as this race indeed holds something special for me, with being the first race I ever ran in 1998, at the time rather unsucessfully.
After our return to Paxson we were fighting with all the new snow. With the plow truck not working we could not drive to the house or doglot and it took us a while to get everything back in order, well somewhat order, as Rudi already had to leave the next morning back to Whitehorse and than catch his plane to Germany. That trip did not go without incident, we were surprised to see Rudi return about one hour after he left. His friend Stephan had put the dogtruck in the ditch about 10 miles north of Paxson. Luckily no real damage and nobody hurt, but we spent the remainder of the day trying to free the vehicle, despite a big winch on my truck, unsuccessfully and had to call a bigger towtruck after all. Manja put it very nicely: “Traveling with you gets never boring“. I had some hope to run the Klondike 300 this weekend, put things simply got too tight timewise, with the late return from the CB, the truck in the ditch and the Yukon Quest Food Drop lurking around the corner. So I guess the next weeks will be busy with packing and training only.
Just a quick warning, my race reports will be less frequent now, as it gets too close to the races and time gets even tighter as it was before. But I am sure that Andy, who does this website, will have great updates while I am out on the trail. Thanks for all your encouraging emails I hope you follow along on the PC, enjoy the ride.
Sebastian and Team
Sab
