On the trail - 40 Mile to Dawson
40
Mile
After
booting up and massaging everybody I left 40 Mile short after 23.10,
in for another night run. I have travelled this stretch to Dawson
in 5hrs before on the Percy but knew from looking at the Quest running
times it would take more between 7 and 8 hrs. It was a little windy,
nothing to serious but it made it feel very cold and the trail blew
over in spots. I could see a headlamp ahead of me, which must have
been Peter Ledwidge and 2 headlights behind me, Frank and John.
My headlight bulb died on me again. Not a pleasant thing to change
while running. Finally I got a new one in, which lasted about 30
minutes. You do not want to hear the cursing I did and put a new
one in again. That one died after about the same time. O.K. something
is off here, never mind I run with my small Petzel before may hands
fall off. The dogs ran nice I kept on coming closer to the light
ahead and the ones behind me faded away. I quickly snacked once
again, everybody greedily gobbling done the horse meat. Horse worked
best for snacks, but has less fat then Lamb, but what ever they
eat counts. The river beside us was wide open and mist in the air.
It felt a lot colder than it was without the moisture. Right in
the first daylight at 7 a.m. I pulled into Dawson City a small crowd
of people waiting for me. Mentally I did not prepare myself for
this moment and the return to civilisation.
Dawson
Markus
set up a nice camp on the campground, but there were way too many
people. Markus, Mike, Roland, Gerd, as well as Torsten with a group
of Tourists. Chaos....... and instead of taking care of my dogs
I had to manage people, a felt in the wrong film, as nobody knew
what to do. It was not their mistake, they all had good intentions,
but I prepared all Quest without handlers, so of course my helpers
no did have no routine and also could not know what I expect. BIG
mistake for the future. Weather I keep on doing all myself here
also (which I think except setting up camp is easily possible) or
I will have one handler with me who also helped me before the race
and knows what I expect. Worst of there was dogfood missing, all
the Eagle dryfood plus the Psylium. Oh yeah I have never written
about Psylium. That stuff is amazing. I did not have any diarrhea
all race, not a drop, nothing. I added a bit Psylium to each feeding,
that�s all I did different from before. Somehow in chaotic manner
we got all dogs bedded down and I left to get some sleep. A vet
checked through them and was concerned about Brownies swollen left
front leg, also his harness rub. The others were all fine, still
with Marmots bit sore wrists, Libbies cut in the foot and Piano�s
abrasion on his hind leg. There were 5 Hotelrooms reserved in the
Downtown Hotel, but somehow all taken by my handlers and guests,
but nobody knew by whom. I almost got mad, but left frustrated to
the checkpoint to find a billet, which I did, a great guy named
John? somewhere on 6th avenue had a nice room prepared for me. When
I got back to check on my dogs, none of them had blankets on, all
laying in straw but not covered from the top. Again I had to hold
back not to explode. I felt they had been betrayed of 6 hr of their
well deserved rest. There was still the dogfood issue, and finally
counting through my bags, I realized 2 were missing, no 7 and 11.
Sure enough they still were in the trailer at the checkpoint. Well
at least all food was there now. In the evening we had a nice dinner
in the Aurora Inn with the guest who came to the Quest, Gerhard,
Ronald, Marko und Birgit, who were guided by Torsten from Nature
Tours of Yukon. Only I had to eat 2 full meals, being even more
hungry as usual. The rest of the time in Dawson went by way too
fast, I felt I could get nothing done. I had a bad cut in my left
hand which I needed to see a doctor, but with all the Algyval always
rubbing the dogs my chances of that cut healing were not very big.
Algyval is great for reducing swellings but really inhibits healing
of cuts.
