Yukon Quest recap
As mentioned in my previous newsletter, just getting to the starting line this year was a nightmare, having the worst dog handlers ever.Even once at the starting line, my luck was not changing. Right while we were hooking up the team Rolf was walking around the hookup area, taking pictures and stumbled over Finn, my main leader. To say that I was livid, is an understatement. Finn broke a toe and needless to say had to be dropped in the race. Not even 2 miles out, I noticed Maggot limping. Taking a closer look it seemed to be in his right shoulder and I put a shoulder coat with heat packs on it. What a start of a race. I might as well have started with 12 dogs.
On the run to Braeburn Maggot would eventually smoothen out. As usual I was passed by many teams. The trail was a rocket fast highway, which was not going to change all the way to Dawson City. On one hand that is nice, on the other hand it is dangerous to not over run the dogs. I stopped for mere 2 hrs on the way, giving each dog some watery soup, making sure to not over feed. Arriving in Braeburn there were many teams in the checkpoint ahead of me, much to my surprise, considering the short break I took. The dogs ate very well and I bedded them under their fleece blankets. Grant took watch over the team so I could go inside. As usual I did not sleep during the first rest break, I am simply not tired enough.
In Braeburn I packed straw for a campout and headed out as the 2nd team on the trail. Once again many teams caught up and passed me. I got my “ usual “ camping spot at the end of Mandana Lake, a perfect sunny place, a bit off the trail. The only difference was, that I had arrived here much earlier than in the past and the sun was just coming up. That would mean, that I have to leave in the early afternoon, a bit off schedule….. Little did I know, that this would be the beginning of me being really off schedule and mainly having to run the grave yard shift throughout the middle of the night. While examining my team I was shocked. I found a total of 6 shoulder injuries and 8 sore wrists. You gotta be kidding me…., I thought. Well I never train on hard and fast trails and I had let the dogs run close to 9 pmh. A stupid mistake with now meant a lot of massage work for a long time to come. I hardly got any sleep during this stop. The remaining 2.5hrs to Carmacks flew by in a hurry and the twisty, windy trail is always fun. My team was not the prettiest of sights and I did not plan to spend any time in Carmacks. While arriving there, Thomas Tetz one of the race judges demanded that I be friendlier to the people. Entertaining the crowd was the least of my problems and I surely did not feel like talking to anybody. Thomas ended up “ riding my ass about me being not friendly enough “ for most part of the race. My food drop was not packed to go though this checkpoint. On top of that our bags had been tied shut with wire by who ever shipped them. I use a knot which is easy to untie, but now with the wire and me having no wire cutters I had to cut each bag open. That is painfully slow and annoying. After some 20 minutes we were back on the trail . Hans Gatt quickly passed me on the Freegold Road and left me in the dust. About 3 hrs past Carmacks I pulled over for a Campout. Dang it was cold. 40 below. Not fun, specially knowing all of the massaging I had coming my way. I had to change my usual routine, to actually stop and massage the worst cases, before I do anything else, before they stiffen up. I had carried warm water from Carmacks, so cooking up the meal went relatively quick. With not having gotten any sleep to this point I did crawl into my sleeping bag and got about an hour of cold sleep. While resting many teams passed by.
Hooking up the team, I still had all 14 dogs, I was getting serious doubts about some of the dogs. Finn I would have to drop no matter what. The same counted for Nemo, his left shoulder would not improve. Maggot also would look rough each time I leave. So did Taod and Austin. That was not looking promising. Govenors, Tetsas and Grismans wrists were improving quickly. Over time I have learned not to be too quick on dropping dogs, because once they are gone, they are gone. But also, each dog which makes it into the 36hr layover often makes it into the finish. So in Pelly I decided to only leave Nemo behind, in hindsight I wish I would have left Finn also. I did leave him next chance I had in Scoggy Creek. In Pelly Thomas was nagging me once again that I needed to be friendlier. That rather made my mood worse, I am a dog musher foremost and only entertainer after that. I am well aware that I have a “ social responsibility “, but everything at its time and with my team looking rough as it did, I did not feel like being cheery, nor giving interviews. I got 2 hrs of sleep, which felt really good. Each time when I leave Pelly my sled is loaded up high. Each time I think I packed too much, just to find out that once I arrive in Dawson, that all of my dog food has been used up. I left near noon, not my preferred time of the day, but it was foggy, cold and overcast. Dan Kaduce passed me on the run to Stepping Stone with a very sharp looking dog team. That is what I like about Dan, each race I see him his dogs look great and he always does decisions clearly in the best interest of his team.
A few hundred yards before Stepping Stone, the first sign announcing burritos and lasagna appeared. It is soooooo hard to resist to stop here, but my plan was to split up the run to Dawson into 3 runs. My team to this point could not handle any long runs. The longest run into Pelly had been 6 hrs. This is unusual for me, as I like to run long. You can run a tired dogteam. You can run dogs with minor injuries. But you can not run a tired and injured dogteam. And unfortunately that is what I was dealing with. I stopped after a total of 8hrs runtime, 7hrs would have been better for the team. My parking spot was also not ideal with being on a downhill slope, but I wanted to stay in the “ high country “ to have it a few degrees warmer. The dogs once again ate very well. To this point not one dog had skipped one meal. That showed me I was running them within their limits. I got 2.5hrs of solid sleep here and felt “ brand new “ once I go up. But what was this heaving thing on my sleeping bag. While sleeping the dogs must have been restless, as 3 of them had chewed their necklines. Tetsa decided to sleep right on me while Governor had made himself comfortable on my pants, which were now frozen to the snow, and Skunk had moved in with Inuk an Grisman on their straw patch. Luckily none of the dogs had the idea to chase after one of the many teams which passed my camping spot.
We left at 11.30 p.m. urghhh, night shift. Where is my 5 hr energy drink? Michelle Philips and Dallas Seavey passed me during this run. I eventually re-passed Michelle and could see Dallas´s headlight in the distance ahead of me most of the way. This run is a series of small ups and downs though a large burn area. The trail goes foreeeeever and I had a hard time staying awake Arriving in Scroggy there were a lot of teams parked there. I dropped Finn, took some straw and was out on the trail within 5 minutes. Hans Gatt followed me, which meant that by now he was one full run cycle ahead of me, as he would for sure run straight to Dawson, while I still had to rest along the way for 4 hrs. Hans once again passed me quickly and left us behind. I usually run to a mining camp about 3 miles short of the switch backs. Right before I got there, the dogs had to wade through some nasty overflow. That was lucky, as I stopped to camp a mere 400 yards after that. The dogs greedily devoured their meal, except Austin. And that is not usual for him at all. He is the biggest eater I have.
After 4hrs we pulled the hook. So far at each rest stop I had been able to get out on time. The best recipe is to drink half a gallon of water before laying down. That alarm clock works without fail.
Austin, Toad and Maggot did not travel right. I was getting very worried having to load them. So I decided to run them uphill and each long downhill stretch to load at least one of them. Coming of King Solomon`s Dome I loaded Austin and Toad for the remaining 22 mile run into Dawson. The trail was fast and I still had to ride the brake with both big dogs in the bag. I am certain that this move saved both dogs, as both ended up finishing the race with me. A mile before town, I stopped and put both back in the team. They eagerly pulled after their nice rest. I was very glad to arrive in Dawson at 22.49 pm., about 2 hrs ahead of my schedule. That schedule is not much of a schedule, rather a loose guideline. Now we had 36 hrs to work on the dogs and make their life as comfortable as possible. The crew had set up a nice camp. But when it came to the comfort for the dogs they had a real brain fart. I had ordered 5 bales of extra straw. Not realizing that they had not been used, I turned the dogs loose to run in the dog shelter, just to find them laying on snow and ice on little patches of straw. What the hell? What do you think all that straw out there is for? We are here for 36 hrs, so we might as well use the stuff instead of having it as a camp ornament. Grumpily I gave orders to get the dogs up again and fill up their spaces with straw. As usual my camp spot was totally at the end of the campground with meant a long walk to the road. Screw that, I sleep in the tent, never mind the hotel. Half of my day would be gone by with walking back and forth. After all I live in an Arctic Oven tent all summer long.
Jessie was also in Dawson after just having finished the Quest 300 with Nathan and Rolf. Boy that woman is tough and gets by on no sleep at all. Besides my team, that meant she had to deal with another 36 dogs on the truck. The 36 hr break in Dawson flew by and in next to no time I had to leave. The team looked sharp, many of them were barking to go. I decided to leave with all 12 dogs. This was quite a gamble, as they were not totally issue free and the next 150 miles offer no chance to drop a dog. Leaving the Campground I noticed the brake hitting something but did not pay any further attention. About a mile out I wanted to stop to switch Maggot to the left side of the gang line, but could not find my brake bar. No way. It broke in half and both pieces were just dangling there. It seemed the most senseful thing to turn around and go back to the checkpoint. I HATE turning around. That means going the wrong direction. But it also really screws with the dogs heads. After a mad scramble for another brake bar, missing tools, much cussing, I was back out of the checkpoint another 45 minutes later. On the upside, it could have had not happened in a better checkpoint than Dawson. Upon my second time leaving, the dogs were not as jazzed up as before, real bummer. The run to 40 mile cabin was uneventful, it started to snow lightly. The trail markers were spaced very far apart, often a mile or more. Boy good thing it does not blow, or it would be impossible to find the trail.
At 40 mile cabin I quickly grabbed some hot water. Sebastian Jones was at his cabin and had a big pot of water going over the fire. Places like his, the “ unofficial rest stops “ on the trail make a huge difference. Hot water in the middle of nowhere, a warm place to dry your cloths. Haywire Harry was also here with his snow machine and Sebastian invited me to stay for dinner with them. I had a hard time to not take them up on it, but my goal was to run to the border, mainly to put me on a better running schedule and get me off the grave yard shift. The border means a couple of spruce boughs on the trail. Allen Moore was camped out there, so I kept on going for 30 more minutes until I found a good pull out, far enough from the trail.
The last 30 minutes of the run were fun, as the team was chasing a fox down the trail, barking and yipping to go. Sure enough that Fox was hanging around camp. First I was worried that the dogs would not rest well, but after their meal they quickly curled up and took no further notice of the little critter. I tossed some frozen chunks of meat for the Fox, which it eagerly gobbled up. It came within 10 feet of me and seemed quite relaxed. It started to snow quite a bit. I had left my bivy bag in Dawson and was not looking too forward to rolling out my sleeping bag. Half of it I was able to cover with a large garbage bag, and over the top half I put my parka. Nonetheless when I woke up 2.5 hrs later, everything was soaking wet. As long as I make it to Eagle in one shot, a long 75 mile shot, that should be no problem.. This was my first time to make the run Dawson to Eagle in 2 runs. Leaving at 3 a.m. that should mean I should get to Eagle around 1 p.m. finally on a good schedule. We reached the Taylor highway bridge much quicker than I had anticipated, which was nice. I noticed the wind picking up. Wind on this run is not a good thing as American Summit is looming ahead. We reach the Highway at mile 112 and around mile 136 the climb begins. Once we are at mile 143 we are through the worst part. But this year those were some very long 7 miles. At Mile Post 139 the wind was in full force, determined to push us off the mountain. Grisman did not like this and took us twice down in the deep snow in the ditch. I swapped him out for Skunk. Skunk and Inuk were now in lead. The blowing snow was fierce, it felt like being sand blasted. I had to stop several times to rub the dogs eyes free of ice, so they could see. The side hills and snow drifts were getting worse. All for sudden my team came to a dead stop and I could see some shadows ahead. Oh no, I got off the trail was my first thought, but when I walked up front there were 2 snowmachines stuck in the trail. One of the drivers led my leaders past the machines and I was very thankful for that. They informed me that 3 teams were right ahead of me. 3 Teams? I wondered who those were, but could not spend much thought on that and had to fight hard to keep the show on the road. Somewhere in the inferno we must have passed the liquor store, but no sign of it. Finally after what felt like an eternity the road started to go down hill and visibility was improving. Dang that was nasty. I stopped, changed booties on most of the dogs, changed some iced up fox tails and continued towards Eagle. The team was visibly mentally down. I could not blame them. This run was much longer than anticipated. On the way to Eagle there is always some ugly overflows, but the trail breakers did a nice job to make them passable with freezing in some spruce trees as “ guard rails “. In Eagle I learned it was Hans Gatt, Brent Sass and Ken Anderson who were ahead of me. The forecast was for more wind, and colder temperatures. I decided to drop Maggot, he had made it much further than I anticipated and with him being prone to frostbite, I felt it was best to leave him behind. He was one of my hardest pullers and now I am down to 11 dogs. I never liked driving small teams, 11 is still o.k., but there was not much room for more errors here.
In Eagle I was pretty worked up from the harrowing experience up on American Summit. No matter how hard I tried, I could not fall to sleep. A real bummer considering I almost stayed 7 hrs. At least all my gear was dried out nicely. The Eagle Crew also feeds us very well and it was nice to see Scarlet and Wayne Hall. Hans, Ken and Brent all left about 1.5hrs ahead of me. Their tracks in the snow told me the tale. They must have had a hell of a time to find the trail. Markers were once again far and few in between and their trail meandered over the vast expanse of the Yukon River. The closer we got to the Trout Creek Cabin, the more the wind died down.. That run normally takes about 5hrs, it took me 7.5hrs this time and any hope to be on a good running schedule were out of the window again. Not stopping in Trout Creek was out of the question and I was glad to retreat to the comforts of Mike Sager´s little cabin. Moose Stew and home baked cookies were waiting on the kitchen counter and I managed to get 2 hrs of sleep again. Mike has opened up his home for all of the past 28 years during the Yukon Quest, kudos to him. Once I got up all of the other mushers, there were 7 of us in total, were already outside with their teams. It was a funny atmosphere and everybody was just lolly gagging around. Well, if we do not want to over winter here, somebody has to go out and break trail. As it looked, that somebody was going to be me. Fine, I thought to myself, considering there is 7 of us, sure we will take turns. As it turned out I was mistaken in that assumption. It was going to be a loooooonnnngg day ahead. On some stretches the trail was clearly visible, even clear blown free of snow, on other stretches it was wiped from the earth. The Quest has always had issues with the trail being poorly marked. This year was no exception. It was funny to hear Thomas Tetz later on in the post mushers meeting pipe up, once we complained about he marking, that these issues existed 10 years ago when he ran. Where he is right he is right. But for my part I think, what has not been fixed in the last 10 years, will not be fixed in the future neither, so not much point to even whine about it. The worst part was going past the Kandik River and Cabin. The dogs had to jump through deep snow drifts and often I had to walk ahead to the team for long stretches at a time. I could not find the old trail base, so we ended up marching through bottomless sugar snow. None of the teams from behind would catch up. Although I could see them, each time I stopped, so would they. I told to myself : “ Just pretend they are not there and that you are alone, than you would also have to go forward “. Rounding the bend past Biedermans Cabin, one of the most scenic spots on the whole quest trail, we got a little break, as the wind had not played havoc with the trail and it was easy going for a few miles, just to turn nasty again. I had stopped every 2.5 hrs to give the dogs some fat snacks, lamb and turkey skins, but finally after 8 hrs the dogs and I ran out of energy. Hans pulled up and took over. Considering he had already broken out the trail to Trout Creek and considering he had a dog in the basked I was even more surprised that none of the other teams would take their turn in trail breaking. Kudos to Hans!!! We finally arrived in Slavens after almost 10.5 hrs of runtime. Thankfully by now the team seemed to be able to take these long runs. I was very pleasantly surprised by a little dog called Moss ( she is laying on the couch with Inuk and Skunk as a write this ), one of Aaron Burmeister´s dogs. She is a tiny little thing, a furball, full of positive energy. I never had any hopes of her making my team, never mind finishing, but she was a solid dog all around.
With all of the past runs having taken much longer than anticipated I was feeding my last dry food and fat. Once I would leave Slavens, all which was left in the sled for food was one bag of tripe snacks, not the ideal thing in these cold temperatures. Hans seemed to have the same problem, as he asked me if I had any extra food. Slavens is a very welcome stop, good food, warm water for the dogs and real bed for us to take a nap in. I was going to leave at 1 a.m, but once I woke up at 10 p.m and saw Hans was packing up to go, I did the same. Might as well, the earlier we make it to Circle, the better as there we could dig into our food drop bags again. Hans left 10 minutes ahead of us and though out the night I could see his headlight ahead off and on. It was a cold night, my thermometer hovered between 40 and 45 below. While passing the 40 mile cabin I could see a team parked there, I assumed Dallas Seavey. There were some pretty interesting stretches of jumbled ice on this run. At least they broke up the monotony of the river travel but also had a good warm up factor. No sitting on the seat in jumbled ice. Trail marking had somewhat improved lately and pie plates announced the upcoming cabins, this one read 21 Mile Cabin, 1 Mile ahead. 21 miles, that would mean aprox. 3 more hours to Circle. This run was yet another grave yard shift. The moon was up and some beautiful northern lights were dancing overhead. Upon arrival in Circle I joked that I had almost gotten a “ moontan “ on this run.
Betty cooked up a storm in Circle and the checkpoint was well organized. I badly needed to change my runner plastic, which turned into a lengthy ordeal, as I had only 8 foot plastic here ( my runners are 9 foot ), but my spacer pieces would not fit and I need to cut them to length, but only had a knife for cutting. I am traveling with a fancy lupine handlebar LED light. The light is great, but charging the batteries is a hopeless case. They neither take, nor keep the charge in cold temperatures. I am glad I had rigged up a 9 V system with the old non recharable D cells, as it seemed I had to rely on this one set of batteries. In Circle I could not get the other ones to charge at all. Well maybe not everything is this world is made up to work at 50 below.
Circle means there are 250 more miles to. Time to position for placing. Hans was for sure putting some pressure on. I would have liked to at least rest 6 hrs here, but Hans left after 4 hrs. Many very nice looking teams had arrived short after us. Notable Dan Kaduce, who had made the run to Circle more than 2 hrs faster than us. I knew, that if we stayed too long, we would pay for it in the end. So I packed up and left, after close to 5 hrs. Upon leaving the team looked, uhm well, horrible. Several dogs limping. I stopped many times, changed sides, partners, leaders and about an hour into the run they started to look good. Real good actually and they picked up the pace. I had been traveling with a GPS all along. Very rarely would we reach 7 mph and now they were clipping along at a steady 8.2 to 8.4 miles an hour. Nice I though to myself, specially knowing that this would be an at least 10 hr run. I stopped at Carl Cochrines Cabin and we had a brief chat. Carl informed me that Hans had just left 10 minutes ago, and Hugh about 3.5hrs ago. No shit….. I thought, the race is on. I had not seen Hugh at all on this race, he usually was half a day ahead. Back on the river, I sat down, got both ski poles ( better said trail markers, as the poles had broken a long time ago ) out and settled into a steady poling routine. By the time we had reached the highway bridge, I caught first sight of Hans ahead of me and we were steadily gaining. I stopped to snack the dogs, they all ate well and went back to ski poling until we caught up to Hans again. Not wanting to pass him ( yet ) I stowed the poles away and just followed. It was cold. Hans´s team left a trail of ice fog on the river. After 2 more hours I stopped again to snack. By now it was long dark. Coming around a river bend I could see Hans´s light ahead, but it was shining all over the place. Once I got within ear shot, I could hear Hans yelling: Sebastian, come here, I am in big trouble. It took me a bit to grapple the situation. I anchored my team and while walking up front I started to sink into overflow. This was not good. Hans was wet from waist down. He had untied his dogs from his sled and they were coming in a ball towards me. I quickly went back to my sled, got both hooks ( my dogs had no desire to go into that overflow ) and tied out Hans´s dogs in between. They were pretty iced up and wet too. Next up was what to do with Hans. He needed to get out of his boots asap, and I gave him my spare socks. Hans was froze up pretty good and he could hardly bent down. After a short discussion of what to do next, I said best to turn around as I was certain we had missed the turn off in the trail. Nobody in their right minds would put the trail through here and that we must have missed a marker. Hooking up Hans´s dogs again, turning mine around we went back 400 yards just to find the first marker. We were on the trail. Not good. Turning the whole show around again, we went back close to the spot where we got stuck before. I set out on foot to the left, just to sink in over my knees in overflow. I tried to my right, with the same result. The overflow was from one side of the river to the other. The only option I saw was to go back even further, where I than made a trail all the way to the shore and kept on wading thought the deep snow overland. After about 400 yards it looked like I had bypassed the worst of the overflow and connected back to the main trail. That connection had overflow about a foot deep. It took me a while to make it back to our sleds and I was drenched in sweat. Hans needed more hand warmers and I had some in my vet kit. When I opened it I came upon the little thermometer in there which read minus 47 Celsius, about minus 55 Farenheit. Being wet as we were, by now my boots had run full of water too, this war serious stuff. I was getting worried about Hans, but decided against making a fire here on the river and first getting off it, so we hopefully would not get wet again. My team only reluctantly went thought the detour, the snow was deep and they had a hard time to pull my heavy water logged sled though it. I had taken all of their dog coats and foxtails off, so they would not get soaked in the over flow. It took us near an hour to completely get off the River and to find a stand of small trees, which had enough substance to them to make a fire with. Against better judgment we camped right in the trail, as I was certain who ever would come from behind would appreciate a fire too. I had collected 5 trail markers ( sorry to the mushers from behind ) for fire starter. I used my remaining methyl hydrate to light a blazing fire in my cooker filling it up with wood. Hans sat down beside it and we peeled him out of his boots, which were blocks of ice. I had some more spare socks and vapobarier socks in my parka and Hans had some cabin boots. That with an array of dog coats, hand warmers and some old feed bags we used to rig some temporary boots out of. By now I was getting very worried about my own feet, even while moving around a lot, they were getting cold. I had nothing left to change into so the only option was to quickly make it to Central. I bootied up my team which was a very painful exercise in these temperatures., plus I had to put all their fox tails and coats back on. Hans was doing the same with his dogs. I ended up pulling out of camp ahead of him and had somewhat bad feeling about leaving without him. I was very glad that when I turned around later I saw a headlight bounce down the trail, which meant he was also on his way. I ran as much as I could with the dogs, to keep my feet from freezing. Once we crossed Medicine Lake the trail went on the road, just to go back into the ditch a few hundred yards later. I was very tempted to stay on the road instead of running in that damn ditch, but that would have netted me a hefty penalty. The ditch trail was slow, painfully slow, but at least that way I had to work a lot which kept my feet warm. I could see Hans roar by me up on the road getting to the warmth of Central as quickly as he could. Upon my arrival he was already inside while some volunteers took care of his dogs.
Same as upon arriving in Eagle, I was pretty worked up once getting into Central. My hands were barely functioning and taking care of the dogs was a slow process. I could not wait to get inside. There was a big warm up tent rigged up outside with a Diesel heater and I put my whole sled in there. Short after us, more teams would arrive. Some very wet, others near dry, who had obviously found the detour. At this point I did not care much about my standings anymore. I was just glad to be in Central and be there in once piece. I went to bed, without setting an alarm and woke up 3 hrs later, feeling much better. In the checkpoint there was a lot of confusion over if Hugh Neff had made it to 101 or not. Officially he had not checked in there. There was different weather reports, from that it would be calm up there, to 50 to 70 mile an hour winds. I did not know who to believe.
My plan was to leave Central latest by 1 p.m. which would mean that I reach Mile 101 5hrs later, around 6 p.m, in the last daylight. But the fact that Hugh Neff, who had left at 4.30 a.m. had still not checked into Mile 101 by noon, made me wonder if that was a good idea. Dan Kaduce who was parked next to me had packed up and left. Ken Anderson was doing the same. Well, if I do not want to get stuck on the summit in the dark, it is leaving now ( I had rested more than 8 hrs ) , or waiting until tomorrow. So I packed up and left. I decided to travel light. It is 28 miles to Mile 101. I just took some snacks with me, no feeding. Either I would make it over the summit and be fine, or I would have to turn back and scratch. Yes the “ s “ word did cross my mind. I decided to turn my Ipod on, something I had not one very often on this trip, to listen to an audio book, to keep my mind from worrying too much about Eagle Summit. Right after the road crossing, I stopped, fed the snacks to the dogs and continued. My sled was near empty except for the mandatory gear. The closer we got to the tree line, the more the wind picked up. The summit in view, I could see the snow drifting down the mountain, a full ground storm war raging. Oh no, not good. I passed a spot where a team had rested, I presumed Hugh. Leaving the treeline the wind hit and Skunk and Inuk who were in lead zig zagged up the slope, just to swing to the left, out of the wind and completely turn around. There was nothing I could do to prevent that and we ended up back in the spot where the trail leaves the treeline. I turned the team around and made a second attempt. This time, I maybe got another 100 yards, before the same thing happened. Grrrrrrr, I was getting mad. I had Tetsa in swing and she seemed to be the instigator. So once I had the dogs turned around for a second time I rearranged their order, leaving Inuk and Skunk in lead, but putting Grisman and Saffron in Swing ( which was a long shot, as Saffron had quit on me going up Eagle Summit in 2007, but she seemed motivated now ). I put Tetsa and Toad in wheel as they seemed the most unwilling to go. The 3rd attempt was going much smoother and we were steadily climbing. The wind was coming in hard from our left and I was worried about frost bite in my face. Normally I keep my big red parka off on this climb, but with not having a face mask on , I needed the big hood up, to not freeze my skin. Even my hands I had to keep in my big fur mits. I started to sweat a lot. All for sudden I could see a red light up ahead. Not sure what it was at first it turned out to be the tail light of a snowmachine. And next to that snow machine were 2 dog teams. 2 Teams meant Hugh Neff and Dan Kaduce, as I had passed Ken Anderson earlier on. About 300 yards before I reached them I could see one team turn and head down the mountain in my direction. Nooooo, please noooooo. Please do not let my dogs get the idea to follow them. Dan barreled down the mountain to my left, snow hook in hand trying to stop his team to no avail. My team did not seem to pay attention and continued their march. Upon reaching Hugh´s team the snow machine took off up the mountain, Hugh was saying something to me, which I could not make out through the wind. Worried that my gang would stop next to his, I continued up. The dogs had lost their earlier hesitation and were making steady progress. It was me who had to call them to stop every once a while to take a breather. Finally we arrived on the first saddle and went down the other side. The wind subsided a bit here, by no means being calm, but not being in full rage anymore. The steepest part of the climb was still ahead and I was wondering how that would go. The trail was marked really well here, really really well, no getting lost here. Well step by step we inched out way up. The trail had more grip than in previous years and when stopped, we would not slide backwards. I do not know how many times we stopped on the way up, but I could feel the trail gradually leveling out and knew the worst was behind us. The first big tripods came in sight and soon I could look down the valley the other side. WE MADE IT over. Holy shit, we made it. I did not have much time to enjoy the view, as I was cold and froze up. I could feel frostbite in my face on the left side. Better get off this damn mountain quick. There was good snow cover on the downhill side and I kept the dogs trotting down the hill. It slowly started to sink in, that I was the first team who made it over Eagle Summit. Not in my wildest dreams would I have thought, that I am ever in first place in this race. Strangely enough it did not matter to me one bit. Upon arrival in Mile 101 the checker asked me if I stay or go though. What was he thinking? Of course I stay. Going though was not even crossing my mind. I needed a break so did the dogs. Yes we were traveling only 5.5 hrs, but those were very intense hours. This was the 3rd time during this race, that I had come to the limit of my abilities. First American Summit, than the overflow on Birch Creek and now Eagle Summit. I bedded down the dogs, Anette Kriller one of the vets gave them a good check, they ate well and I headed to the mushers cabin to dry out my gear. I was soaked to the bone. Of course I was mobbed by the mob ( journalists ). And they had all kind of questions. This was a repeat of the 2009 race, where I gained a lot of places going over Eagle Summit. But 2009 was much less dramatic than this one. I still did not care about the lead, I was just glad to be there. Soon enough Ken Anderson showed up in the checkpoint. Instead of packing up at once, I decided to lay down for at least 1 hr. I joked with the checker…. This will be my most expensive nap of my life. Once I got up Dallas Seavey had also passed thought the Checkpoint and I left 3rd team out.
The dogs were sleeping under big mounts of straw and I promised them that soon enough, they could stay sleeping. The 4 hr break did them very well and they left sharp and focused. I once again decided on traveling light, knowing Rosebud Summit was coming soon. This next run to Two Rivers was the first uneventful run in a long time, pretty much since we ran the 40 mile river many days ago. Full moon, northern lights dancing and a well running dog team. Nice. There was some wind up on Rosebud, but nothing like we had seen before. I took the dogs tuglines off for the descent to make sure we have a controlled run down hill. I saw neither Dallas or Ken on this run, but made up quite a bit of time on both. It took us near 7 hrs to reach Two Rivers. Here Jessie, Klaus and Ollie were waiting for me, it was 5.30 a.m. when we got in. Brent Sass got in a few hours later. He kept on staying up and chatting, somehow that guy seems to need no sleep. They had a small, but nice cabin for us to warm up. 1 bed, 2 cots. The 4 of us, Ken, Dallas, Brent and me did quite a bit of joking around. Ken had been slapped with a 30 minute time penalty for not checking out in Mile 101. That could have been 2 hrs but Hans Oettli reduced that to 30 minutes. A good decision, as we were all in agreement that a penalty over checkout should not influence the race outcome. A monetary penalty would be more appropriate, but not possible within the reading of the rules.
Time to hook up one last time. I decided to leave with all 11 dogs, very well knowing that Austin and Toad were my speed bumps. But they had worked too hard to be deprived of the privilege to reach the finish line. I decided to help a bit more than usual and after letting the dogs warm up for 30 minutes I called them up and pedaled and skipoled. At first they responded well, we passed Ken much earlier than I had anticipated but soon Austin was going off his tugline. At the mile 27 road crossing people told me that we were 33 minutes behind Dallas. We made up 11 minutes, and the road crossing was about one third of the way. Right here and than I decided to back off. I rather finish in 2nd place, than pushing real hard and risking to load Austin and Toad. After all I feel my team picks a certain speed for a reason, a speed they can sustain. 2nd was more than I had hoped for at the beginning of the race and certainly more than I saw realistic during the race. In Dawson I had joked that the only way I do well in the Quest, is if the weather turns bad. Well I got my wish. More than my wish.
There is certain races which will linger in the mushers memories for a long time. Together with the 2009 Iditarod, the 2011 Yukon Quest is one of those. Failure and triumph are very close together. One minute we are racing, the next minute we are surviving. Friendships for life are made in races like this, friendships can be destroyed in races like this. The line is fine. In hindsight, I would not do anything different. I feel I did right by my dogs, as they were a beautiful sight at the finish line. Between Skunk, who I got from Lance, and Tetsa who is from Jessie, Lance and Jessie had a competition who would barked the loudest. After all, we are only half way to the end of this years journey.
Thanks for all who made this journey possible, you all know who you are. Your help is greatly appreciated. For my dog handlers from hell this winter, you also know who you are. You have made my life so miserable, that it motivates me to do the best I can. Jessie, the Mc Donalds burger really hit the spot at the finish line. Thanks for all you do and put up with.
I CONGRATULATE DALLAS SEAVEY FOR RUNNING AN OUTSTANDING RACE.
The Team: Dropped: Nemo, Finn, Maggot Finished: Skunk, Inuk, Saffron, Austin, Diesel, Grisman, Govenor, Moss, Toad, Muncho, Tetsa . This was my 12th Thousand Miler since 2004 This was Austin’s 12th Thousand Mile finish since 2004, thanks Trevor!
Sab
