Yodeling, stoccato barking, long lonesome wails, in the cold still night air at 1am as Wade Marrs pushed the pack out of Tanana in direction Ruby, 120 miles downriver on the mighty Yukon.  Even after caucophony from the Iditarod teams of Wade Marrs, Dallas Seavey, Pete Kaiser, and Mitch SEavey ceased, village dogs were still commenting on their departure.  A bright half moon put a twi-light on the Yukon as bobbing headlights on the far bank gradually disappeared.

Standing on the bank just in front of the community, the river seems immense.  But it is even bigger as I remind myself that we are only looking at a channel.  The trail on the far south bank is not mainland—-it’s only an island—-and on the other side more anonymous Yukon.  The river can be three or four miles wide in places counting sloughs and multiple channels.

The lead four, Marrs, Seavey the Younger, Pete Kaiser, and Mitch Seavey the OLder had all taken five hour rests.  The temperature is about -25f on the high bank but everyone knows that when the trail drops off to the river on a slip just downriver from the checkpoint that the temp will drop 10 degrees.

Dallas leaves with 14 on the towline so my first question to the checker—the person that documents number of dogs and in and out times—-is “How many dogs Dallas.”  Sixteen I learn, so he obviously departs with two already resting in the basket.  Assuming he continues to rotate every 1 1/2 hours many or all of his dogs will be resting a very generous 6 1/2 hours.  The fact that he is at the front and still rotating dogs is a big reminder that the champ is serious.

Nicolas Petit leaves a half hour later having rested his dogs 7 hours—-which is considered a very big rest.   Nicolas arrived first into Tanana.  Certainly we must consider vagaries in schedule and strategy, but the fact is Nicolas and team were a full hour faster from Manley than Dallas.  He left with his complete 16 dog team, and based on his travelling speed and extra rest we can expect that he will make up time and be travelling right with the front four.

I love all this math.  A reasonable person would allow that Dallas team is physically and genetically capable of very fast times but he has intentionally slowed them to conserve the team by training a steadier pace and by hauling dogs to weight the sled.  He is relatively speaking becoming faster to the pack—-not as fast as Petit—-but faster. This is his advertised intent. He likes to begin and finish at 8 1/2 mph and win.  Petit on the other hand has an interesting advantage if he can leverage his speed by giving his dogs longer rest.    With more rest, they may even get faster. Great math.  Maybe we can see it play out over the next several runs.

Meanwhile back with the following pack in the checkpoint

A slight penetrating wind reminds mushers in the checkpoint that it will be cold on the river,  The dog yard is populated with bobbing lights.  One musher is re-adjusting blankets on his resting dogs.  Another is feeding a ration of meat and commercial kibble and hot water in plastic quart pans.  Another musher , Joar Ulsom, is putting on booties made of light weight, very high denier, fabric and securing around the wrist of his chargers with a velcro wrap.  Every dog—that’s 64 feet—has a bootie.  A musher that’s fast can get the job done in a half hour.  

At the same time, a team of two women from the drug testing crew is standing by when a dog urinates,  With skill, a woman catches a urine sample from an unconcerned husky that has just gotten off the bed.   Samples are collected throughout the race to ensure fair competition and dog well-being.

Now its cold and I migrate to the community center and encounter Sebastian Vergnaud,  the French musher and adventurer, who is noticeably alert for very early morning.  His face is not weathered so I wonder if he is careful to use his head gear and big ruff.   He started with only twelve dogs and still has twelve in his team.   A local woman is generously at work at a big food table making sandwiches for mushers.

Ralph JOhanessenn of Norway is drinking a cup of coffee seated at a big round table , relaxed in his under gear, and contemplating his team. It’s easy to join the circle with a couple of fans to talk. The rules require that he take an 8 hour break somewhere on the Yukon and he has decided to do it here.   “I trained my dogs in NOrway with shorter runs, like 4o miles, and I’m getting them time to understand we’re doing 60 miles.”  

My old friend Lynwood Fiedler, who has a long history with Iditarod (he finished second by Doug Swingley), is philosophical when he tells me his dogs have been toying with their food.  He suspects they may have picked up a bug like an air traveller on a crowded plane, and decides to slow things down until they start packing away the food.  They have to the calories.

Jessica Royer, a really tough top ten musher from MOntana, is a durable ranch girl who already has completed the Yukon Quest (a thousand mile race in February from Whitehorse to Fairbanks, Alaska) told me she just wasn’t sleeping well.  Part of the problem may have been the discomfort from three frost bit finger tips that “just really hurt.”  She goes onto tell me she cant believe it happened but she wasn’t paying attention and in a flash she nipped them this evening while feeding the dogs.

Final Thoughts

The trail to Ruby is a WHOPPER, a genuine big jump of a solid 120 miles through absolute wilderness.  Dont ask—there are no warm cabins, no complimentary food bars—-along the way.  Certainly the giant run requires one good rest and that will be fully exposed to wind on the wide expanse of the Yukon.   

Almost half-way to Ruby the mushers will see tall standing bluffs known as the Palisades.  The Palisades are constantly sluffing house size chunks of primordial mud into the Yukon in the summer but in winter the bluffs are temporarily frozen in time.  Often, one can pass under the Palisades by boat or even dog team and see bones and artifacts exposed, to included saber tooth tigers and mammoths.  The water under the bluffs is deep by Yukon standards and could be 90 or 100 feet to the bottom.

Opinion by locals suggests the trail to Ruby will be somewhat fluffy with loose snow and therefore harder pulling.

Team to watch—–Nicolas Petit.  He is the fastest on the trail.  He rested a luxurious 7 hours.  He has sixteen dogs.  My contacts tell me his dogs were voracious eaters—-a great indicator of a team that feels like travelling.  Can he sustain the momentum on this big test to Ruby?