I passed Noah Burmeister, Nicolas Petit and Robert Sorlie on the Yukon River. Robert is a few miles out of Kaltag now. He is on the best schedule of the 3 mushers, getting out of the heat of the day soon. After a cold morning the sun is warming things up quickly. No wind either. Passing teams, besides looking at them, tells me a bit about their mental attitude. Nic’s team I can be close to the trail, other than barking at me, the pass swift and they could not care less about me being a distraction. Noah’s teams also passes well, that being said, his leaders know me. Robert Sorlie on the other hand, I have to be careful as his leaders seem to struggle a bit more. I did not dare to pass him a second time, as they did not like passing me the first time.

There are 3 teams out of Kaltag. I can not look at the tracker, internet is too slow here, so you know more than I do… Looking at numbers, I am surprised to see Dallas continuing to drop dogs. He is also not the fastest team on the trail anymore. His dad has that distinction of the front group, and a little further back Scott Smith is eating up the trail. Yet Dallas is traveling about 0.5 miles faster than Aliy. 

Aliy Zirkle is showing amazing mental strength with going through Kaltag and chasing Brent Sass. Both of them are driving 14 dogs, their runtimes are identical coming in here. Brent currently has 2.5 hrs lead on Aliy Zirkle. Dallas is a full 3 hours behind Brent, and to this point traveling faster.

Mitch’s earliest leave time is at 15.41 and very likely Wade Marrs, who has already done his 8 hr layove,r will pull the hook around the same time. With both of them running into the evening, time will tell, if they do a long push into Unalakleet, which can easily be a 10 hr plus run.

Sorry internet is very slow here in Kaltag, so posting is challenging, here are some of the pictures coming in here: