8PM—Tuesday—-Zirkle in front of pack enroute to McGrath
Aliy Zirkle continues to hold on to her lead position as she and the pack approach McGrath. Baker, King, Mitch Seavey, his son Dallas Seavey, Hugh Neff, Paul Gebhardt, Ray Redington, and Lance Mackey remain in the following pack.
I cant bore you with place and travel times because you have all that information at the Insider and can watch the moving dots at your leisure.
But here are some points for the dedicated fan to consider. Aliy is making a statement leading the pack as her team travels on the wide expanse of the Kuskokwim valley, occassionally portages on oxbow sloughs and cuts the forzen river on a wide bend. If she comes into McGRath first, she will beawarded the Spirit Award in a ceremony that takes about 15 minutes. Baker and crew, following behind, will not be constrained and can pass her at the McGrath checkpoint.
Why? McGRath is a great checkpoint with wonderful facilities and resources but it just happens to be geographically misplaced. Locals use the 22 mile trail to Takotna regularly and therefore mushers are assured of a packed trail. As a result, the lead mushers will almost certainly sign in and out of McGrath in about 22 seconds (I just made that number up) and continue to Takotna. But read on.
Most of the mushers will declare a 24 hour mandatory rest in Takotna. For that reason, it’s possible that Aliy will get left in the snow dust and lose her tenuous grip on 1st place. Of course, it really doesn’t matter at this stage of the race what place she has—-but every minute does matter.
OK, having digested that reality, why won’t the mushers continue past Takotna and declare their twenty four hour mandatory rest in OPHIR, Cripple, or even Ruby and Galena on the Yukon? (Many mushers have gone all the way to Ruby, and Paul Gebhardt actually went all the way to Galena, and with great success.)
Mushers very cautious this year
The reason the mushers will be cautious about going further than Takotna is because the trail from Takotna forward has been layered with two feet of fresh snow over the last several days. Additionally, gusts of winds have blown snow on top of the trail, thus leaving it in bad shape. Going beyond Takotna as leader would be taking a huge gamble as trail breaking is slow and exhausting for a team. As a musher, you would be breaking trail for everyone else, and in the process thrashing your dog team. Everybody would be thanking you, but secretly they would also doubt your common sense.
Tradition of the Iditarod
Although rules do not bind the tradition, it has always been an unwritten rule that the race (that is the ITC organization) at least owes a trail to the leader of the race. Once the trail is broken out for the leader, the trail breakers never go back for the rest of the pack (unless extraordinary conditions are presented, and I can’t think of any right now except a medical emergency).
So consider this. Kelley Griffin is running a very nice team this year and is hungry for some notoriety and a financial boost. She arrives in tenth place at Takotna and notices that nine other teams have declared their twenty four.
She notes that there is a very nice half way prize at Cripple checkpoint, a hundred miles away, and the chance for some fun and a little race coverage. Having nothing to lose, she decides to rest five or six hours in Takotna and continue in direction Cripple.
Beep, beep, beep. The Iditarod sirens go off, the trail breakers resting Ophir are alerted, they mount their snowmachines, check the drag which beautifies the trail, and head out in front of Kelly to Cripple.
Do not forget, as my friend and Insider Bruce Lee pointed out, the Cim and Ramey Smyth are also capable of following Kelly Griffin. These two carry considerable gravitas and the lead pack would take their move very seriously.
Ominous weather reports for the trail
At the same time, Kelly is aware of weather reports which suggest another 36 hours of falling snow. What if Kelly follows on the nicely groomed trail to Cripple, and behind her the snow, and wind, destroy the trail again?
This could happen because she did it last year on the southern route to Iditarod. Unfortunately she missed the halfway prize by minutes because Trent Herbst aced her out.
Finally, another twist
In the Takotna checkpoint community center, I talked to a group of snowmachiners that are traveling along the trail following the race. They are taking advantage of the Iditarod resources on the trail, sleeping and eating quite luxuriously.
“What if Kelly, or some musher takes the trail to Cripple behind the official trail breaker. You guys wont take the trail to Cripple now, because you’re waiting for the Iditarod trail breakers to do it for you, especially since no one has been on the trail for some time. Will you compromise the race by breaking out a trail for the following mushers?” I wanted to mention that an unfair advantage would be given to the mushers resting in Takotna, and the musher in the front would take all the risks. But, I didn’t want to let the burden of guilt distort the argument excessively. I took it easy on them, but they could seriously reorganize the outcome of the race by preferentially giving advantage to the musher right behind their machine.
I was having fun testing these guys sense of fair play. Eventually, they replied that they would not languish at the Takotna checkpoint (famous for pies and homemade meals) but would depart in the morning and pass Kelly (or some other musher) into Cripple. In this way, the tradition of the trail would be maintained. I hope they actually mean it. Better, I hope they actually understand that they could change the outcome of a musher’s race.
Paul Gebhardt, incidentally, is another musher who is quite willing to forge ahead and gamble.
The rewards are risky. If you can land in Cripple on a reasonable trail, and then have snow and wind work during the 24 hours rest of the followers, you could have obtained a big advantage in travel speed. This scenario essentially occured in reality when Dean Osmare won the Iditarod in 1984 by increasing his lead to Cripple on a trail weakened by warm weather. Although he was slower than his pursuers, namely Ric Swenson, he still managed to beat them. They could never regain his advantage over the remaining distance to the finish.
Final Thoughts
Weather confounds pilots as snow squalls limit visibility. Movement of vets, volunteers, and officials has been spotty.
