On the trail - Circle to Slavens Cabin
Circle
After
taking care of the dogs I went into the fire hall to dry my stuff
and get a hot meal. The volunteers cooked up a storm and I soon
realized, that all the food I send out, I would really not need.
The fire truck was our cloths hanger and a big hot air furnace perfect
to really dry out. The sleeping area was a room to the side, concrete
floor.... but hell at this time in the race you start to sleep anywhere.
All kind of journalists were asking me questions about the race,
not expecting me to be this far up front, well I did not expect
it either. After the long 8.45 run I planned to at least stay 9
hrs and sure some teams would pass me during the break. I could
not really decide what kind of meat to pack for the 150 miles ahead.
I fully packed the sled with all gear and dryfood, but left the
fooddrop bag with the snacks next to it, to make up my mind once
leaving. In the checkpoint I heared that Mark May decided to scratch,
outside parked next to him I noticed his dogs would not eat, what
a shame.
At
10 p.m. the alarm ended my sleep. Boy it was cold outside, but the
dogs looked good, all the little wrist injuries did not swell, some
I could not even find anymore. Everybody ate well again, it looked
like we finally found a working routine. At my last try on the Quest,
the race ended here, in fact I arrived here a full 24hr earlier
this time. My race plan called for leaving at 2 a.m. but 11 hrs
rest would be too long, so I pulled the hook at midnight. It felt
like a jump in deep waters, I did not know the trail ahead. Before
I pulled the hook, I put that dropbag next to my sled back to the
big pile, why the hell was it next to the sled anyhow. Well that
I was supposed to find out down the trail. For a long time I turned
around to look back at Circle, a white flashing beacon still showing
its location. Geez it was cold, again I needed to run and skipole
to stay warm, but the dogs moved nicely. I stopped every once in
a while to specially check on Brownie and Chevy for frostbite, but
the blankets did the trick. Without Cathrines blankets I would have
had a real problem now. With everybody eating and drinking so well
in Circle my plan was to only snack one on the run to Slavens Cabin.
I passed the 20 mile cabin on the right, where a team parked, I
believe John Schandelmeier. 4hrs into the run, which should be little
more than half way, I stopped to snack. But what the hell, no snacks,
where is my meat? All I had in the sled was one emergency ration
of meat, the rest only dryfood and fat. What a disaster, I forgot
all snacks in that dropbag, which I wanted to sort through before
leaving Circle, instead just putting it back to the pile. I really
was not too sure what to do. Turn around, run 4hrs back to get snacks?
Well Gisela and Dieter would most likely be gone anyhow. I could
feed them my emergency snacks now, than the normal feeding in Slavens.
That would still leave me enough for one wetsnack and a full meal
in Trout Creek. I gave the dogs the lamb meat, they all gobbled
it down, the fatty lamb being perfect in this cold. But I also noticed
it was not as cold anymore and to the south it looked like a light
cloud cover coming in. I was still pretty worried about my dogfood
situation all the way to Slavens, which I reached at 7.35 in the
morning, after seven and a half hours running. The temperature was
up a lot, my thermometer only showing 25 below, great. There were
only 3 teams ahead of me, Hans, Zack and Dan, that meant I passed
3 teams on the run, not even noticing, only one team I saw resting.
