McGrath is the first place where it’s worthwhile to look at some run times. Before that, to Rohn and Nikolai, there was not that much of a point doing that. At that point you could only tell by the run time, if that musher had a relatively clean run through the nasty stuff, or if he or she got hung up. But about the actual traveling speed of the team, I would not say that much.
Now the run to McGrath was unobstructed, hard packed, well-marked and generally the team should be able to just clip along at whatever speed the musher chooses to have. Hugh Neff did not have a good run over. With 6..37 mph, that is pretty slow. Having no runner plastic and 2 dogs in the bag sure were the key factors. Also looking at the fact that his dog numbers are going down, it tells a clear story. Nic and Aaron are in the 5.30 range, kind of an average run time. Aliy is a little quicker with 5.14 and the appearance of her team here last night reflected that.
Now there are a couple of teams which ran here in under 5 hrs. And that is VERY quick. The first one was Robert Sorlie, with a full string of 16. And now that team sits in Takotna and gets 24 hours of rest. He will have a super powerful team leaving. With 2.08 he already smoked the trail to Takotna.
And then there is Jeff King. 4hrs 25 minutes. That is a league of his own. That is over 10 miles an hour for this run. I had 46 miles on my speedometer. He ran to Takotna in under 2 hrs and so far is the fastest to Ophir. Simply, he is flying. Watch out for the King.
Martin Buser run here is short, under 5 hours. The times are not up yet but it should be 4.57. That is fast, but I would have thought he is a bit quicker after 24 hours rest. Maybe he held them back a bit, or the hard push did take a bit out of the team after all. Remember, Martin ran all the way to Nikolai, on a total rest of 4hrs in Rainy Pass. Going from Rainy to Rohn, through an incredibly difficult trail, then continue nonstop to Nikolai on a trail (that is) even worse and making it to Nikolai with 16 dogs is an outstanding accomplishment. Martin executed a strategy which had never done before, on a trail which had not been this difficult in decades. So technically speaking, Martin is the true leader of the race, once he catches up to the teams who have yet to take their 24 hour layover. He should do so by Cripple…. that is if they all stay in Cripple. And who knows, Sonny might go further, it would not surprise me.
And I better mention Kelly Maixner! Kelly took his 24hr layover in Rohn. He must have had a hell of a ride through the burn with a fresh team. He made it fast, 9.24 and is now enroute to McGrath. Kelly is a few hours behind Martin Buser, but he is right up there and ahead of much of the pack. I sure had him not pegged a one of the front runners. It’s exciting to see a new face in there. I hope he can keep it together!
Happy trails, below are a few pictures of the McGrath checkpoint ” communication headquarters “
Sab
