Carol has living at Bible Camp for the past years, moving upriver from Galena. Her dad was from Sweden, an island called Oland. So of course she and Mats Pettersson had lots to talk about. Thomas Waerner from Norway was sitting at the table too, then me German squarehead, quite the northern Europe Contingent. Mats’s first question to me was, where is my wife in the Finnmarksloppet. Well, matter of fact she is leading right now. That made him happy. Bible Camp opens up in May and stays open until October, when river travel ceases. Over the whole course of the summer, up to 200 kids come here to learn essential life skills. Some of them stay all season and work as helpers. Carol hopes her own children will take over at some point. This sums up why Carol and her family are here: “A few years ago I went to a huge shopping mall in Los Angeles. I walked out with absolutely nothing, there was nothing useful in there. ” We are here because this is where we want to be. People like Carol have found their true calling, in a place most other people would  not be able to survive.

What is going on in this dog face? Hugh Neff was headed out the door, to hook up his dogs. The slow river conditions sure is the main topic amongst the mushers. Those few teams electing to take their 24 hr layover in Tanana might come up with a big advantage. While these teams traveled around 7.5 to 8 miles towards the end of this run, as the snow was getting deeper and deeper, this trail should set up a lot tonight, once it gets colder and traffic on the trail is less. I can see some of the teams coming fresh off their 24 hr layover easily cutting 2 hrs of runtime from the front teams. At this point in the race, that is pretty big. Lets see how this all plays out. Its a dog race!

Here a few more shots taken with the second camera of the run from Tanana to here. Happy trails!