6AM Thursday CrippleCheckpoint—-top 5 leave Ophir in Knot to Cripple—Lanier and Herbst battle for the gold prize—by Joe Runyan

Mitch Seavey, Zirkle, Dallas Seavey, King, and John Baker leave Ophir in a one hour time knot around 4AM bound for Cripple.  Trail breakers I talked with here in Cripple tell me the mileage is a solid 100 plus miles from Takotna to Cripple, and their information is as reliable as you can get.  Despite the debates, I think this number has got to be close. With information available to everybody at the Insider note that Mitch and King posted fast times on the twenty five mile trail from Takotna to Ophir.

So that’s the five leaders.   Let’s switch our attention to another unfolding story line.  Jim Lanier, who I recommended in an article yesterday, is already on the trail to Cripple.  He has not completed his 24 hour mandatory and is mushing to Cripple for the GCI Halfway Prize of 3000 bucks in gold nuggets. Yesterday, it seemed like a glorious idea with a huge percentage chance of success.  He has a large following that wanted him to get the gold, make a nice nugget bracelet for his wife, and accept the gold from April, the beautiful GCI presenter who is waiting here in Cripple, with a pithy and witty acceptance speech.

Unfortunately, Trent Herbst, the guy that edged out Kelly Griffin last year in a side race to Iditarod (the southern route equivalent of the halfway prize.) is also on the trail.   Like a hawk that flies over the same chicken coup for another chance at a meal, Trent is once again prepared to make bank in Cripple for a second time.   He could probably catch Jim Lanier and put the gold in his personal exchequer, also accompanied by a gold miner quality photo with his long frosted beard.

YET, we have another difficulty.   I think Mitch and company, steam rolling off a magnificent 24 hour rest, with the best sled dogs in the world, following on relatively soft trail requiring lots of dog power, are going to eat Trent and Jim for breakfast.  Bet on it if you want, but I think Jim and Trent are out of the money.

camp tools, snow shovel and shoes absolutely essential in new snow

Trail Report

I love my upper bunk bed in the 12 x14 Musher tent, but I just couldn’t lay there any longer, the saws and intermittent snorts and bellows of fellow trail colleagues punctuating the background hum of portable generators, so I got up at 5am. 

Already, the trail breakers were preparing to hit the trail.  John Kimble and Dustin Ashcraft were outside switching a hitch from one machine to the other.  “We completely ripped off the rear end of this machine , so we are switching the drag over to another,” they told me.   One was looking for metric wrenches while the other was going through his machine.

dustin ashcraft, lft, and John Kimble, rt, prepare to launch for cripple, 5am Three feet of new snow to transform

Here’s how the trail breakers work.  One team of six machines breaks out the trail. Two of these six drag a sophisticated groomer that straightens out the trail and takes out the high and low spots.  These six like to stay about a day, at least, ahead of the leaders. 

Meanwhile, another crew of two machines stays about 12 hours ahead of the leaders.  One of these machines also pulls a groomer.  In total, that means 8 machines are on the trail with three drags.

In my opinion, the trail is phenomenal, and not even comparable to the trails I remember racing in the 80’s.  In fact, I can remember a couple of times when Ric Swenson and I put our ice hook in the front ski of a machine and pulled the machine and driver out of a hole with our dog team.  We wanted to keep the machines  going in front of us breaking out trail.   I took a little walk on the trail going backwards to Ophir and it was Ok to walk on—at least at 6am in the morning.

Of course, the first mushers on the trail get the best going.   With a combination of some use, including a couple of touring snowmachiners, warm afternoon temperature, the trail could begin to dissolve into an unstructured bowl of sugar snow for the following pack.

John and Dustin told me that the snow was deep on the order of two to three feet.  “The hardest part was staying on top of the old trail a couple of feet under the new snow.  Its easy to slide off, but once the groomers went over it, we think it’s pretty good.”

The crew is now directed to Ruby, another neglected 65 miles of trail.  Once they hit Ruby, the trail system down the Yukon is established as village residents regularly travel.

The 100 mile run from Takotna

This is a big statement run for the front pack.  Of course, the mushers are going to snack and rest briefly, possibly a few times, on the 100 mile run, but this is a giant test that will separate the teams.  Essentially, this is what the top teams have been thinking about for a year in training.

If you are a big strategy fanatic,  this is big time for you.   What to consider?   The team which must be considered dangerous must be consuming calories reliably, carry a little extra body fat, and be mentally prepared.  Of the top five—-just my opinion—-Seavey’s ravenous packs (plural for father and son)—the veteran King—and Baker are equal.  Aliy is experienced at racing but I am sure her fans are feeling the heat—-she is now running at an elite level, and waiting to see how she plays it.

Jim Paulus— A insider’s Insider looks at the Cripple Checkpoint

Jim Paulus has been in on every structure at cripple and Iditarod. "without help of great guys, we could never have done it."

In a fortuitous meeting in the cook shed at 6am, I meet Jim Paulus .  Jim, a long time builder/carpenter, has assumed the remote Iditarod checkpoints at Cripple and Iditarod ( another permutation of the word, in this case indicating the place on the map of Alaska)  as a perpetual year around hobby.

Every twelve by sixteen structure you see at this remote checkpoint has been engineered and built by he and his associates.  Asked about the design—much of it from donated particle board and 2x4s donated by ABS builders—Jim told me the components were cut to fit in airplanes.  He had all the details of the capacity of different airplanes, but basically all is ripped in two foot widths and six to eight foot lengths.

The tent structures are all built in the winter.  It is not possible to land on the tundra and tussock s in summer.  Interestingly, the structures have survived fairly well intact, even after being left for two years. (note; the iditarod trail bifurcates outside of ophir.  On odd years the trail goes south to Iditarod. On the even years, the trail veers north to Cripple.  Thus, Cripple is visited only on even years.  Cripple is so remote that it rarely, if ever, is is visited on odd years.)

The canvas shell and plastic covered roofs are left to help the structures weather.

interior of the luxurious camp cook tent, complete with oil drip stove, propane stove--all first class alaskan

Why haven’t bears destroyed the place?  As I now can observe, this area of stunted black spruce (the biggest I see are barely two inches in diameter and must be old as dirt) is incredibly sterile.  In 13 years of visiting this camp, Jim tells me they have never seen a moose track, and on only one occasion seen the tracks of a pack of wolves moving through the area.  Even marten, the ubiquitous member of the weasel family, does not inhabit this area.  “We never have had a problem with ravens,” jim tells me, another indicator that this area is just simply bereft of wildlife.  It is the void of a giant arctic desert.  closer to the river, wildlife flourishes.

“the bears  are opportunists and they are not going to waste their time in a place with no food.”  Only one time has a marten raised heck with the structures.  Apparently a group of snowmachiners used the Iditarod trail and stopped for the night.  Strictly against the code of the Yukon, these jerks left some wrappers and food in the cook shed.  A marten moved in and trashed the place.

Note on the code:   Travellers who do not leave remote shelters cleaner than they find don’t make a lot of friends.

Final thoughts

In the cook shack, Jim and colleagues talk about this year’s snow.  Even after days of snowshoeing, the dry snow, transformed by -50 F temps, fails to harden.  Incredibly, Jim tells me that any disturbance and the trail structure collapses.  “Even after a week of snowshoeing, we cannot walk on our trails with boots.”  My group of insiders think the trail on the tundra will quickly disintegrate today. 

End result?  Look for slow tedious traveling.  The front runners will have the best trail.  Everyone else will find a degraded path.