Martin Buser is going to be the first team here. Boy was he moving down the trail. It took us much longer to catch up than I had thought. Of course it did not help that I once got the machine stuck trying to pass a team. Its deep snow here in this beautiful country. I clocked Martin at well over 10 miles and hour and his team was mostly loaping along.
Hugh Neff left short after after Martin, and the distance had opened up a long way. Hugh’s team looked nice though, more of that steady long distance trotting team. That might have to do with Hugh having just come off the Yukon Quest. And steady is not a bad thing.
Aliy was skipoling hard in the hills after Manley. Mining country it is. Reminded me a lot of Ohir country, just bigger trees. Same temperatures. We passed the 3 teams which had gone through Manley. I think they did a wise move. Where they were camped out, it was much warmer, than down in the valley. Specially Jessie Royer had picked an extremely nice and sunny spot, with a killer view too. When I left Manley, it was about 20F below. Where Peter Kaiser, sat it showed about 0F. Jessie was all the way up to 15F ABOVE. That makes a big difference for the dogs and musher.
It will not be long before Martin Buser will pull into Tanana here. He can expect a warm welcome! The trail can only be described as a race track. Perfect, hard and fast. Little glaciers seeping over the trail here and there, but nothing serious. No overflow of any kind and no wind.
Happy trails Sebastian
