I am sitting in Willow. While the mushers most likely will enjoy one last comfy night at home with their family, I traded a nice hotel bed for Tim’s workshop floor. Time to get acclimatized for the trail. Naw, just kidding, it’s simply easier to start right here on the snow machine, than having to drive out from Anchorage in them morning. The iron dog is almost packed. We are sitting at the kitchen table talking possible strategies.
A fast trail out, is going to be a given. It did not snow much here in Willow. Hard and fast it will be. Talking to Martin Buser today, I could tell he was not looking all that cheerful. ” Martin how are you doing ? ” The answer came back: ” I have pneumonia “. Not good. I guess he will not do any crazy run all the way to Rohn, as he did in 2013, or to Nikolai with shorts rests in 2014. But maybe somebody else will? Quite a few teams ran hard into Rohn in 2014. Most of them had problems later on in the race.
Heat of the day will become a factor this year. It’s warm. Now combine that with low snow in the burn, that means no cooling off for the dogs. They can not ” dip ” for snow, to stay hydrated and to cool down. That should be a major consideration for a team. Yet, that could also turn into being so warm, that there is water standing on top of the ice… time will tell.
A few mushers were pretty clear on wanting to 24hr in Takotna. Others were having their sights set on Cripple and who knows we might see a few go even further. It’s worth while getting 1st to Ruby. A good meal waiting there for the 1st musher, and hopefully that musher can share the 1st to the Yukon feast with the Yukon Fox Emmitt Peters, 1975 Champion. Yesterday trying to sort out some phone trouble I can into Emmitt at GCI, also getting a new phone. I ended up giving him a ride to another store, not often you can do that with such a legend. I hope to see him in Ruby in a few days. The mushers schedule will determine where and if I can take a 24 hr layover too. Last year that ended up being Huslia, could have not been a nicer place. I try to do it McGrath, but gut feeling tells me that will not be the case in 2016.
Here a few more shots from today’s Ceremonial Start, enjoy….
