At Topkok Hills, waiting for the leaders

Posted by Sebastian Schnuelle
Date: March 12, 2013 2:40 pm

I made it to WHitemountain, passing quite a few teams. Its a beautiful morning out. Calm as calm can be. Passing Lance, Jessie, John Baker, and Martin on the ice. It sure is nice for the mushers going along the sea ice route and not leaving Elim right in the hills. That makes an already challenging run quite a bit easier. Going up past the shelter cabin it is pretty densly treed and we got stuck behind Paul Gebhardt, who eventually had mercy and let us pass. On top of the first hill, we wittnessed a rare even. A pass on the trail. Josh Cadzow who had previously already passed Martin, squeezed his team by Brent Sass. Not an easy task in exceptional deep snow.

Going accross Golovin Bay it was flat as flat can be. Fun to have the machine wide open for a change, we zipped by Ken Anderson skipoling away outside of Golovin en route to Whitemountain. Of course he asked where the next teams behind him were as I slowed down to take some pictures. Pete Kaiser was about 1 hr behind him, and Josh and Brent another 2 hrs behind that.

White Mountain was a flurry of activity as the departure times of Mitch and Aliy were nearing. Looks like a duel between the 2. Dallas commented on how he made up a lot of time, but unfortunately is running out of trail, but has hopes to catch the KING, Jeff King that is.

Just for giggles, I decided to stop in the Topkok Hills, on top of the last one to see if we have internet. We can see cape Nome in the Distance some 30 miles away. The blow hole is calm. And after a second try, bingo the stars lines up and we are connected. So here a few morning shots.