On the way to Cripple. Stopped in at the Carlson Crossing Safety Cabin, that is about 27 miles past Ophir. Got the wood stove roaring and doing a garbage burning session. On musher stopped about 5 miles before here. By the shortness of the straw beds, I assume it was Paul Gebhardt. Another musher camped right at the cabin as there is more straw piles out the front door. Quite a long team, so hard to guess who it was. The trail has been excellent, a little mogely for a snowmachine, but perfect to keep a musher awake. Could not help it but doing some number crunching in my head while driving. Not much else to do, other than enjoying the scenery. Truly feel lucky to be able to go out here.Anyhow. Martin was in Ophier about 12.30 p.m. If he was staying 5 hrs as he said he would do ( not always do mushers what they said they would ) , it would get him out at 5.30p.m from Ophir. Aliy, Nick and some others should come by about Midnight, but have already run a bit more than 2 hrs. So at this point Martin has a lead of about 7+ hours, depending on how you look at it. That is pretty substantial. It all will matter now, how his runtimes are, compared to the others coming fresh off their 24 hr layover. Personally I am going to be particulary curious of how Robert Sorlie, Jeff King and Aliy Zirkle will look. Not that I am counting out mushers like Kelly Maixner with his surprise push to the front, Nick Petit who is kind of a goofy guy. I mean who else carries a stuffed animal along and than sits the darn thing on the ground during the 24hr layover in Ophir with a pile of dogfood infront of the stuffed animal. Only Nick….
There is a huge group of mushers nipping on these leaders, Burmeister if he can overcome his knee injury, Hans Gatt always hungry to win. I do not have stats sitting here in the cabin, so forgive me if I do not mention everybody. Than there is this group of mushers ahead towards Cripple, who come off their 24 hrs even further in the race. One thing is for certain. Martin Buser sure did mix things up with his unconventional move last year, which he than duplicated “ with a twist “ this year. Iditarod 42 is far away from the cookie cutter take your 24 hr in Takotna, Ophier or Cripple scheme. Lots of possibilities for many mushers out thert to shake things up. Its going to be exiting. I had hopes to catch some of these guys pushing to Cripple why they were resting on the trail, but seeing that they have left, I am going to take a bit of a break here, not wanting to pass them en route. Should be in Cripple later tonight! Plus a nap sounds good right now.
Well I could not get the internet to work, so I continued to Cripple. Short before I got here, Jeff King had hooked up and left. He still has not taken his 24hr layover. Sonny Lindner seems to have the same plan. On the way in here, about 2 miles out, I passed Paul Gebhardt.
Happy trails!!!!
Sebastian
