Danny Seavey is as cordial and helpful as they come. Back at Skwentna Danny was offering encouragement to Jan Steves as she shared her concern about the Dalzell Gorge. Here in McGrath Danny gave up his Neos over boots to Justin Savidis. The Neos Justin was wearing will never be the same since coming through the burn. Danny had a spare pair of Joe Redington style Wiggies that he changed over to. Inside of the Wiggies, Seavey wore trail running shoes.
Asking Danny if he had any dogs that really did the job for him on the Survivor Stretch, he replied, “Ditka.” Ditka is a nine year old that Danny put in lead going down the Gorge. Ditka isn’t fond of ice and cuts speed to half of what he’d normally run. The good news is that as Ditka slows down so do the swing dogs and thus the whole team. Ditka sort of served as Danny’s built in governor to limit team speed.
Mitch had something similar in mind as he brought two seven-year-old dogs to lead his team to Nicolai. The elder Seavey wanted the maturity and speed (actually lack of speed) and the experience the two older leaders offered. Those two seven-year-old engines limited his speed on the parts of the trail that younger more energetic dogs would have put the pedal to metal for a thriller run.
Danny is running Matt Giblin’s dogs. Giblin suffered an injury prior to the start of Iditarod and asked Danny if he’d be willing to run his team to Nome. While Seavey hasn’t raced in while, he said when you’re asked to help a guy out, you can’t say no. At Skwentna while Danny was getting dressed he joked that he’d actually practiced getting dressed and probably should have but numbers on according to the order the clothes should be layers. “That,” he said, would be assuming I can count.”
Seavey left McGrath with sixteen happy dogs. He figured Ditka might take a passenger position for some of the miles ahead. Ditka and littermates Fridge and Payton got their names from Chicago Bears football greats.
Also Leaving McGrath with 16 happy dogs was Elliot Anderson. Anderson’s dogs rested under bright green jackets for eight hours, green jockeys that would remind one of upcoming St. Patrick’s Day celebrations. Anderson works as Martin Buser’s apprentice musher. It’s a two-year program with the first year working with tours and training puppies and the second year training young dogs for long distance racing. That’s how Elliot finds himself guiding future Buser stars to Nome. His team typically makes a run then rests about two hours longer than the run took. The purpose of the run is to give the puppies a look at the trail and ample opportunity to practice the routine of running, resting and camping. James Volek apprenticed with Martin over the past two years and completed Iditarod last year. Elliot says he’s really enjoying the time spent with the dogs and is happy to see how much they’ve learned. When leaving Willow, the pups might be considered kindergartners. By the time they get to Nome they’ll have had enough experience to be considered high schoolers. Word has it that Anderson’s sled brake is broken. He has a drag pad and big boots to use instead. Beyond that I’m curios what his plan might be. Maybe there’s a sled waiting in Unalakleet.
