Martin Buser continues to delight his fans and confound the serious Iditarod student. He arrived at 1:52am at the front of the pack. Save for a few stops to feed, water, and change boots, he has eaten up about 110 miles of trail in a little less than 12 hours. It appears he is duplicating the blistering pace he set last year in 2013.
Certainly he learned a lot last year and has tweaked his plan (we don’t know if he will go all the way to Rohn.) I think everyone in Finger is in agreement—his 24 minute stop in Finger Lake and exit on glare ice in the dark night was spectacular.
Here’s how it went. Leaders accurately followed reflector lathe across the ice of the lake and arrived at the check in area about 100 yards from shore and our tent camp after gees and haws on ice. Just walking out to the checkers was an exercise in caution on ice—most of us had studs or chains on boots. He signed the checker sheet and then discovered that blue lights ahead marked the water hole for dog water.
Ice flew from the drag, the dogs stayed on the marked trail and arrived at the blue lights. Martin scooped water into square black pans. Most of the dogs lapped up clear cold water. Seconds later Martin was distributing slivers of salmon to each pair of dogs. Most was eaten. Next followed another snack banquet of what looked like ground chicken or turkey snacks. Meanwhile, vets had begun an examination at the head of the team and were working to the sled. “Do you have any concern?” a vet asked. “No, I don’t think so.” The dogs looked powerful and animated.
A cooler was lifted out of the sled’s rear compartment and filled with a black pan dipped into the water hole. We are assuming he is going to stop and cook for the dogs a little further up the trail. The cooler was enclosed in a white plastic bag and stored again.
While the vets continued their examination Martin began replacing blown booties—those that were shredded from the ice abrasion. He must be constantly upgrading booties. Some dogs were good, others had one or two boots replaced. The vet asked about his plans, and Martin said he was going when the vets were done. Martin received his vet book—a mandatory item hauled in the sled—-and placed it in his sled pouch.
The dogs, anticipating a departure, lunged in harness. A moment later he pulled the ice hook, dogs leaving at a lope. He hawed the leaders to the left, followed a ice hardened trail in a big loop to the lake’s edge and exited in direction Rainy Pass
Total time in check point approximately 24 minutes. T’he exit was spectacular, very impressive, powerful, and a statement that Buser had not given up on his very unconventional strategy.
Update: Hugh Neff stopped in Finger Lake to feed, but Kelly Maixner continued. You may recall he has a trailer sled capable of hauling dogs. Apparently, he has been travelling with 12 dogs on the tow line and four riding in the sled. If there was a trail to try this strategy, this is the one. It’s easy pulling on a frozen hard trail.
The trail out of Finger Lake is a technical challenge, to include the notorious Happy River steps, which drop off into the Happy River and several areas known to be heavily glaciated. Even in a good year with 10 feet of snow the ride down to the Happy is a thriller.
Basically the steps are a series of three descents from a high bench to the river floor. They have been groomed and banked by trail breakers. Usually the groomed steps are great for the first mushers and gradually deteriorate as each musher stands on the brake and rips out the base snow. Braking causes unbelievable damage and in some years the trench produced is over your head. This year the damage will be more subtle, but a trail breaker told me that the steps probably had a shelf life of about 30 mushers. After that abuse, the edges of the trail would probably be gone. Traveling to the rear of the pack occasionally has disadvantages.
