March 6—Cripple—8:30am—Martin controls, pursues King and Lindner in Ruby So, let’s immediately cut to the CHASE. Insiders who have been following the GPS tracker and official time sheet understand that Buser is now the pivotal personality in this 2014 race. By several calculations of my colleagues here in Cripple who have extrapolated travel times, Martin …
March 5 Cripple King leads, Sonny 2nd on trail to Ruby and the Yukon Jeff King had dinner with the checkpoint crew in the newly renovated cook shack. “Do you have some tin foil?” And then wrapped his unfinished steak and potatoes, “I’ll have this at Poorman”, referring to an old mining camp about 28 …
March 5 Cripple 5:32PM King and Lindner in Cripple, but leaving for Ruby This is time for the true race fan to contemplate the great forces at work in the Iditarod. Briefly, here are the players. Buser pushed very hard to Nikolai, but in the grand scheme of things, only about 180 or so miles …
March 5 3:26PM Wed.— Burmeister first to Cripple and declares 24hr After a night and day of maneuvering, Aaron Burmeister has emerged first in the very remote Cripple checkpoint location at 3:26 PM. “I am two hours ahead of schedule,” he said casually. After a check-in on the ice of the slough, volunteers here at …
March 5 Cripple 2:10PM Burmeister leads to Cripple—Could Lindner go Yukon? Our Insider crew has just arrived Cripple. Noted cooler temperatures under very blue bright sun skies. Temperatures last night bottomed at -30F. Sonny Lindner and Aaron Burmeister have been hopscotching across the tundra from Ophir and now it appears the Aaron will be first …
The Takotna checkpoint population has exploded over the night and in a headlight sweep behind the community center/checkpoint one can see reflectors…
Parked just off the main road in Takotna, Aaron Burmeister is in the “transit” parking spot. He can easily haw (go left) his team back on the main trail from town. He intends to stay for five hours, then mush towards Cripple for his 24 hour break. Seeing that his dogs are inhaling offered …
Aliy Zirkle takes control of the Race—First into Takotna—declares 24 OK, there it is. A definitive move to the front, backed up with speed, and Aliy announces that she now controls Iditarod 2014. Five minutes before arrival the Takotna checkpoint cleared with checkers assuming their position just up the trail from the community center. Our …
Part of our crew has now moved to Takotna, about 7.5 hours mushing from Nikolai, where we left the pack recovering from a bruising traverse across the Alaska Range. I am personally bummed about injuries—Burmeister hurt his knee, probably ACL, it appears Jake Berkowitz broke a leg, Hans Gatt flipped and had a divot installed …
The math of the Iditarod once again coalesces into an abstruse blob of dog kibble and chicken fat. Who’s the leader? Buser is in front but pulls up early in Nikolai for his mandatory 24, but Petit and Sonny Lindner (still driving 16 dogs, a comment on his strategy for avoiding disaster down further), to …
