So I'm qualified for the Quest
The Copper Basin was super tough as hell. It was 300 miles of hell - well at least 200, 100 or so were quite pleasant. The race began on Lake Louise near Glenallen in -43C. The trail was super crappy, I was leaving fairly near the end, and kept my mutts slow to save their energy. This put me almost last on the trail which meant it was churned up and about 12 inches deep of sugar consistency snow. This is really hard for the dogs to pull in, and a usual 5-6 hour run took me over 8, this was very tough mentally, and the slow going of the run was very frustrating - knowing I was only going 6 miles an hour for hours on end was not cool. I think the first 2 teams got a good run on the hard crust, but that soon was broken through, and then (I'd like to believe) got worse and for every team - so my team got the worst of it.
A lot of other people were slow too, but I was saving my team and because my strategy was to finish the race to qualify for the yukon quest, I upped the rest more I think than anyone else. The theory is equal-ish run / rest. Stronger dogs teams can rest shorter, the more experienced mushers know when they can / cannot do this. The longer your run without rest / enough rest the lower your speed becomes. My run time and long rest put me out of the first checkpoint dead last which was a bit disheartening - despite me not really racing in any of the races, being dead last is fairly shitty. In the back of my mind I knew I would pass weaker teams who had raced harder later on, but still at the time it was hard.
The next run was actually on a good trail, but I was stil holding the team back making it fairly long, and it was also alongside highways most of the time making it very boring, again tough on the old head. At the second checkpoint I dropped the first dog, Hoss. He got a swollen foot from a nasty looking split, and I think compensating for this he bagan to lope (trotting is what we want) and by the second checkpoint he was very very tired. Not wanting to risk having dog his size in the sled I left him behind.
The 3rd run was great, the trail was nearly as good as the second run, but in beautiful country. Many of the mushers made this run in day light, but for me it was mostly moonlight, and I got to see my second moon rise which was amazing (the first one was in the Sheep Mountain.) It was a long run of 72 miles, and near the end I bagan to catch a few teams. There was a monster climb of doom up a big mountain, but from the top I could see a headlight below me, so knew I was gaining on another team. After the mountain there are 3 water crossings, but luckily this year they were all frozen! YAY.
After the last - a massive river which usually has a small open water section, we head up to the Alyeska Pipeline, run along this for say 10 miles, then over Summit lake, after which comes a short but mega steep climb. Approaching the steep climb I could see 3 headlamps on it. 2 went up then one came back down so I knew someone was getting help. Unfortunately when I arrived the girl who had stalled was still being helped up - she was leading her dogs, and Sab's friend Martin was pushing her sled up. The sooner she was out the way the sooner I could get up, so I helped Martin with the sled.
I now arrived in Paxson checkpoint with 3 or 4 teams behind me. in Paxson I dropped Roscoe. He begain limping about 15 miles from the checkpoint. I checked him on the trail and found nothing, so let him run to the checkpoint. At the checkpoint I re-checked him and found his wrist was a little swollen. (At each checkpoint we first check all the dogs joints for signs of pain and treat them accordingly - massage. ) I massaged and wrapped his wrist - this helps reduce swelling and keeps the joint warm - and let him rest. Wrists are a common and non end-of-the-world injury. I had 2 other dogs with sore wrists earlier on in the race, and with masage and wrapping in all the checkpoitns, they actually had 100% wrists by the end of the race. After the dogs were rested and I was getting ready to go I walked him around and he was still limping so I left him behind.
The run from Paxson to Sourdough was crappy again! The trail was really bad like the first, but to add a bit more crappyness, it snowed and I had about 2 inches of fresh stuff added to the depth of sugar snow going through most of it. The scenery was really cool though. At Sourdough I had no serious issues, and continued on with all dogs. I did nearly miss the checkpoint though. I was coming into what I though must be it, as I could smell smoke, but there was no noise, and no people. I saw some arrows pointing right painted onto a snow-bank, but I could also not see any sled tracks going in there. I could however see a trail marker straight ahead, and sled tracks straight ahead. thereforeI carried on, but after 5 minutes decided to go back and make sure - coming into Sourdough I could barely see any sled tracks because of the fresh snow, but after I passed there I noticed the tracks were a bit more visible, so I knew they were probably from teams leaving a checkpoint - not the teams way ahead of me on the way in. LUCKY move.
The final run was super sweet, gorgeous scenery, and a nice trail, no dog issues along the way, only back on lake louise did Ed start to look a bit dodgy from time to time, but the end was in sight so we kept moving. At the truck a couple more of the dogs were a bit sore, but they were bouncing after a long rest in their cosy dog boxes in the truck, the only more serious injury was Buckley, who would not have been going further if there was any more to the race. When I got home Roscoe looked ike nothing had happened to him and has been training every run since, and Hoss seems good too. Buckley and Ed are still resting. I ran Sourdough to Wolverine Lodge (lake louise) in about 8 hours, and 5 hours 45 minutes into it at 6:45am, I passed a guy whos team had quit on him, I didn't know it then but Sab had passed him the previous night at 11pm or something - his team had already quit by then. gutted! he ended up having to walk infront of his team to get them to move, and got in at 4 or 5 pm - I finished at 9am-ish.
I don't think you can see fom this how tough it actually was, not sleeping wasn't as hard as I thought, but staying positive when the trail was shitty and I was travelling so slowly, and having 2 such shitty runs in a row really and truely was. I was lucky to have Ed, not usually one of my first pick dogs on the team in this race - when I was hooking up in Chisto (2nd checkpoint) for some reason my mood was improving anyway, but then Ed started getting excited and being noisy - by the time we were leaving I was super happy, and only an hour before I had been super pissed off.
Now I face over 3 times the hell in the Quest! rock on.
Take it easy
Mark
Mark
