For a while today Jessica Hendricks was the only musher parked on the frozen snow covered slough at the checkpoint. Then just before 14:00 Matt Failor arrived followed by Linwood Fiedler, Curt Perano, Kelly Maixner, Wade Marrs, Aaron Peck, Allen Moore and Paige Drobney. Fourteen other mushers have departed Kaltag to make their way along the old portage trail running seventy-five miles from the Yukon River to the Bering Sea. Of the teams that arrived this afternoon, the average portage trail travel time was 13.5 hours.

Failor, driving the Buser “B” team parked the dog team and went to work making them comfortable. The temperature was in the teens but add the sunshine and it felt much warmer. Matt provided his athletes with plenty of water, kibble and frozen snack sticks and well as straw for a comfortable rejuvenating nap. He planned to stay awhile. Next it was time for Matt to act as the athletic trainer, massaging feet, wrists and shoulders. Clearly his athletes were used to the pampering and they loved every minute of their coaches special attention. Matt mentioned that a race fan from Florida had promised him a pizza when he made Unalakleet. Matt had been promising his dogs a piece of peperoni if the race fan came through. Failor’s Florida fan had a plan. With GPS Tracker, the fan would know when Failor and team parked in Unalakleet. Call Peace on Earth and order the pizza to be delivered. Pay by credit card. Just as Matt finished dog chores on the slough, a Peach on Earth employee stopped his snowmachine at the checkpoint door and walked inside with the pizza. Not more than two minutes later, Failor received the long awaited for delicious reward. Bad news for the dogs though, it was a veggie pizza so no peperoni.

Kelly Maixner checked into Unalakleet about an hour after Failor arrived. He was dressed in an orange anorak and was wearing an orange face mask. Until he announced his number, he ws the mystery musher. After dog chores, he went to work stripping his sled of unnecessary equipment. Getting rid of a tail-dragger platform was his major goal. He says he rarely sits down so why have the extra weight for the run along the coast. With the sled renovated, Kelly went inside for some rest and Unalakleet hospitality.

Yukon Quest Champion, Allen Moore, signed in at exactly 17:00. He’d had a decent run from Kaltag and his dogs looked energetic as they followed the trail into the checkpoint. The one question I had for Allen was whether or not any of his Iditarod dogs had been on his quest team. His answer was, “Nope.” Allen’s wife, Aliy Zirkle has at least one of the dogs on her team, cute little Olivia with the blue eyes and black eye liner ran the distance between Whitehorse and Fairbanks in February.

Twelve handsome Siberian Huskies brought Mike Ellis into the checkpoint when it was getting on toward sunset. His dogs were energetic and happy. They played and did gymnastics in the snow while the checker performed a mandatory gear check. I happened to notice Ivy’s eyes. She’s bi-colored with one parti-eye. Wow, what a beautiful girl!