Trail Snippets

This is a forum for general discussion of dogsled racing, with a special focus on Alaska, and is open to all. It is expected that this area will see the most activity during the months leading up to, and during the annual Iditarod sled dog race. Pictures from races can be posted here. Hosting is provided by the Bering Strait School District (BSSD), and the area is open all year. Care to be one of our volunteer moderators? Contact us!

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Re: Trail Snippets

Postby fladogfan » Sat Mar 18, 2017 4:53 am

adella wrote:I am sure this information is somewhere,but I can't find it. What is the amount of money the mushers win?


Adella, elsietee found the info for you. she posted it here;
http://www.iditabuds.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3319

Big difference !
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Re: Trail Snippets

Postby fladogfan » Sat Mar 18, 2017 3:39 pm

Dwayne Edwards Beals is streaming from the meet the mushers.
If screen is black it's because his cam is in his pocket.
Listen and see if you can recognize voices.

Duh, forgot to put address here. :roll: :lol:

https://www.facebook.com/dwayne.beals/v ... =3&theater
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Re: Trail Snippets

Postby flowerpower » Sun Mar 19, 2017 7:22 am

"No matter how little money and how few possesions you own, having a dog makes you rich." - Louis Sabin
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Re: Trail Snippets

Postby fladogfan » Sun Mar 19, 2017 3:29 pm

Neat article flower, didn't realize Laura is only 20 years old. Love that she is living a dream from childhood.
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Re: Trail Snippets

Postby fladogfan » Sun Mar 19, 2017 3:42 pm

All my children have four feet and fur.
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Re: Trail Snippets

Postby flowerpower » Sun Mar 19, 2017 9:40 pm

:shock: :shock: :D Can't believe Hugh is actually getting MARRIED! I remember Tamra saying that he said he wouldn't marry her until he won the YQ or Iditarod, and she was wondering if that was why he hadn't won yet. :? 8-) :D I hope they are very happy! :D :D
"No matter how little money and how few possesions you own, having a dog makes you rich." - Louis Sabin
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Re: Trail Snippets

Postby elsietee » Sun Mar 19, 2017 9:57 pm

This is hardly a "snippet", but loads of good info in here from behind the scenes - from Ken Anderson's FB:


Post-Iditarod 2017 Update
For starters, thanks again to Gwen, my mom, and Josh for doing updates along the way.

I’m up in Nome resting, eating, and reflecting on this year’s race and the past 20 years of my life. As many of you know, this will be my last Iditarod. Our kennel size has dwindled, my leaders are getting older, my drive and focus to compete at such an extremely high level has waned, and family interests have taken front seat.


The race all-in-all went OK but I had to drop several key leaders with injuries and/or sickness that kept me from having any real speed. The leaders I wound up leaning on either weren’t fast drivers or were slightly injured themselves. It’s amazing what the difference having that key leader will make for a team. As I reflect back on the races that we won over the years I can always pinpoint which dog I had in lead and recall the stellar performance that gave us that winning edge. Wade Marrs said this year he had to drop his main speed leader and immediately started slowing down.

The plan again this year was to haul up to four dogs in the sled. I started off with four for about five miles, then went to three for a few miles, then went to two. The trail was soft and I felt with any more than two we were moving way too slow. I know Dallas and Mitch both hauled four all the way to Nenana at least but for one, they most likely have much stronger teams than I and they also weigh about 75 pounds lighter than me which is basically a dog and a half. I rotated two dogs every hour but if you can haul four dogs it greatly increases the run length you can do as well as diminishes your rest time. As it was, Mitch and Dallas both did three sequences of 8 hours on and four hours off getting them to Tanana. With rotating four dogs, their dogs essentially ran six hours and rested six hours, and they were able to travel longer and rest less than myself who had to keep the run lengths to just six hours with four hour breaks to hold the same 50/50 ratio of run to rest that they had. This means they travelled two extra hours each sequence and by Tanana they had gained 5-6 hours on me already.

My travelling speeds were frustratingly slow but that was also somewhat intentional. I felt that any time I went over 9 miles an hour the dogs looked like they were putting out too much extra energy for that tiny bit of extra speed. Plus, the trail was rough and soft until we got to Ruby. I tried to stay upbeat and confident that I was doing the right thing and that it was going to pay off in the end. In some ways it did but it was also frustrating to be getting constantly passed by teams. I think this whole race I only passed two teams while moving, the Berington twins. I did also oversleep twice early on for about a one hour total loss in time. I camped out all the way to Ruby and getting out of my sleeping bag in just my base layer in 35 below wasn’t much fun. My frustration at times I know rubbed off on the dogs and I tried to stay focused on Nome instead of the immediate misery.

We stayed pretty close to my basic schedule but wound up doing an 11 ½ hour run into Ruby because we were so slow moving and the Yukon River trail was so slow. The dogs handled the run fine but it didn’t do much to keep up their speed. We declared our 24 and the dogs actually looked pretty good there. They ate real well but a few of them started to get the diarrhea that was starting to happen with the other teams. I got good sleep but wasn’t eating that well, as I made the mistake of just sending out freeze-dried meals instead of taking the time to cook real meals.

I had stopped hauling dogs back in Manley because the trail was so slow. The trail leaving Ruby was a super-highway so I went back to hauling two dogs. I felt we had a good run to Galena which was to be expected. I still had all 16 dogs and we were moving respectably even with two in the sled. I loaded up on supplies in Galena and ran two more hours towards Huslia. Temps were warming up which was a real nice reprieve. I had somehow frostbit one of my fingertips pretty good early on and it was nice not to worry about them. I stayed just four hours on my stop and did an 8+ hour run into Huslia but wasn’t hauling any more dogs because the trail was a little softer and uphill most of the way. Being that I wasn’t hauling dogs I felt like I needed a five-hour rest instead of a four.

The trail down to Koyukuk wound up being a watershed run for many. It was an “eggshell” trail where it must have been really good for the first few teams but completely fell apart for the successive teams. I camped after just five and a half hours so I could dump my camping supplies early. It would set us up to have a longer run into Koyukuk but I still had the option of doing my 8-hour layover if the run got too long. We were being passed by a few teams again which got me a bit down but after I stopped I could see how lots of the other teams looked and most of them looked just as slow, if not worse, than mine.

We made steady time to Koyukuk and it took us 8 and a half hours. I opted to stay just five and a half instead and save my 8-hour for Kaltag. This would also set me up to not have to run into the afternoon hours on the way to Kaltag. I had to drop Idaho, a dog I borrowed from Torsten, back in Huslia with a sore wrist. I wound up using three of his dogs which I hated to do but they were better picks than my last three. In 17 Iditarods I had yet to use someone else’s dog last minute like that and I would never do it again. There just isn’t the connection with the dog that needs to be there and they’re also not very welcomed by the other dogs. It put my dogs on edge as well as those three dogs and didn’t add to any team cohesiveness for sure.

Several other teams were dropping dogs mostly with sore muscles from running too fast over the rough early trail. This perked me up, as my slow and steady strategy was starting to show its merit. For the first time we actually had a pretty fast time on the next run to Nulato and on to Kaltag. I actually passed Noah Burmeister and Hugh Neff on that run but was re-passed by Noah and caught and dusted by Ryan Redington coming into Kaltag. Kaltag was crowded with mushers who reached into the top-ten which was uplifting to see. I got good rest on my 8-hour but when I went to leave the dog lot was left with only a few stragglers. The plan became pretty clear from here on in. I did have a few sick dogs but the basic core of my team was really solid. All but a few of them had been to Nome before and, although I didn’t have much speed in my leaders, they were solid otherwise. Regrettably, my only card left to play was to march the team up the coast.

We had a steady but slow run all the way to Unalakleet. We were passed by several teams on the fly but re-passed a few of them resting at Old Woman cabin. I had seen run times of the leaders being around 10 hours. As I was nearing Unalakleet it was apparent I wasn’t going to be anywhere near 10 hours and probably closer to 12. The dogs were still moving decently and eating well so I just stayed the course.

Arriving in Unalakleet there was a big pack of mushers there with only the top-10 having left. I stayed a light 5 hours and took off for Shaktoolik. It was a daytime run but the plan was that we’d get to Shaktoolik right around 8pm which was the right time to leave for Koyuk. I wanted to get over to Koyuk as well before the late midnight hours so we could be off the ice and resting during those wee hours. The run across the ice went pretty well and luckily there wasn’t much wind and we could see the lights of Koyuk most of the way across. I had forgotten my 5-hour energy drinks and really fought to stay awake. I actually fell asleep twice on the run and tipped over each time. It’s always a relief to get off the ice and it was the most tired I was the whole race. I distinctly recall signing in with the checker and saying “I hate that damned run….”

Again, there were quite a few teams resting there and my plan was to stay at least 5 hours. We passed quite a few teams resting in Shaktoolik but a few of them rolled in soon after I arrived. Most notably, Jeff King, who had been sandbagging most of the race and now seemed to be kicking in the afterburners. We stayed just over 5 hours and left in pretty decent shape right behind John Baker, Hugh Neff, and Kat Keith.

We passed Hugh relatively quick but Hans passed us within a few miles with a fantastic-looking team. John and Kat seemed to be having a good run and I never saw them the whole way to Koyuk. The plan was to blow another checkpoint and keep rolling to White Mountain- an aggressive move but doable and certainly one that would at least hold my position if not move me up, assuming some teams would choose to rest in Elim.

True to my prediction, there were three teams resting in Elim with Jason Mackey resting comfortably on straw just outside of the village out on the ice. We blew through there pretty quickly and the dogs rolled out of the checkpoint really well. Despite now running through the heat of the day, we made steady time across the ice and up into the hills. Lars Monson left right after me but never caught up. Travelling through the hills I actually started to gain on a team ahead of us which turned out to be Matts Petterson. It was a beautiful day but the wind started to pick up as we neared Golovin Bay. Coming down out of the hills towards the shelter cabin near the bay I could see a team parked at the cabin which turned out to be Matts who later told me his team wouldn’t go into the storm. We passed the cabin and turned towards Golovin and hit a pretty good quartering headwind. It wasn’t really all that bad but apparently enough to halt Matts.

We made it through Golovin without much incident and back onto the ice headed towards White Mountain. It was sunset and Hannah and Geisha seemed to know exactly where we were going and stayed very focused even though the winds were starting to really pick up. We were slowly closing in on John and Kat but I could see Lars catching up to us. About 2/3 of the way across Golovin Bay in the worst of the winds (which really weren’t that horrible), Lars just sort of disappeared and I never saw his light again.

[Lars stalled on the ice in what he termed "a blizzard" and ended up camping for several hours]

He was within a half mile of us at the time. I was happy with the pace the dogs set for once and it was uplifting to be actually catching a few teams and to have passed several others, thus validating my push up the coast and the rest of the lead-up prior to that. We checked into White Mountain just three minutes behind John and Kat for our 8-hour layover. I took consolation in the fact that only the top-six teams had left there and I had actually cracked the top-20 with a good prospect of passing John and Kat and pulling out a 17th-place finish. For most of the middle parts of the race I was running in the low-30’s and upper-20’s with not a lot of signs of teams ahead of me slowing down while piloting a pretty slow-moving team myself. I really didn’t want to finish out of the top-20 for my last run.

I always enjoy the levity and camaraderie around the kitchen table at White Mountain. All the cat-and-mouse is over and people tend to let down their guards and really enjoy each other’s company. We got a good rest and the dogs ate super-well there. We left focused and strong and quickly passed John and Kat. Luckily Lars was several hours back and then Jason Mackey was an hour back with the speedy team of Linwood Fiedler an hour and a half back.

For some reason I always seem to gather myself and focus really well on this last run. To date, I’ve never been beaten between White Mountain and Nome. Unfortunately, my Achilles heel has been carrying this intensity throughout the whole race. It’s something I’ve never overcome and it’s something I’ve finally come to terms with and accepted. It took until this year, however, to finally accept that…..

We had a clean run and managed to keep John, Kat and the others at bay. All but two of my dogs had been to Nome so the team seemed to have good focus and know exactly where we were headed. It was bittersweet coming into Nome. In general, I felt really relieved to have finished top-20 again. However, it felt like a flat performance by both the dogs and I and not the way I wanted to end my Iditarod career.

It’s been a good run these last 20 years. We’ve been fortunate enough to race throughout the country, most of Western Canada, as well as in Europe. It was not just a childhood dream but a promise to myself that I made at a young age that I would someday run the Iditarod. It was a dream come true to cross under the burled arch that first year in 1999. Since then I set my sights on winning. I haven’t won Iditarod but I’ve finished all 17 Iditarods now with the last 16 being top-20 performances, which I’m proud of.

It’s hard to believe this day has come but I feel ready at this point to say good-bye. Thanks to all those folks who’ve given me so much encouragement and support over the years. I hope we’ve put on a good show for you.

Take care and keep in touch,

Ken
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elsietee AT ponyhill DOT org
Repotted english person in the Sierra foothills, CA
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