Nome finish line

[mira]

Nicolas Varnier is in!

[elsietee]

Remind me again - was it Lars or Matts who was running some of Brent's dogs? I looked at both their vids this morning, and saw dogs in both teams that could have been Brent's.

[mira]

Don't know, but I think Lars brought his own team.. I'm not sure about Mats, I think he might live somewhere in Alaska, so I would guess it's Mats.

[mira]

Karin is just 10 miles out, Allen is 6 miles behind her. The Beringtons is in Safety.

[elsietee]

Speaking of Mats, he showed up in an interview I was listening to yesterday during one of the episodes of this podcast:

http://www.alaskapublic.org/category/programs/iditapod/

This is a more in-depth version (with some overlap) of the reports KNOM are doing. Longer interviews with mushers, using footage (audio-age?) they couldn't fit in their usual daily broadcasts.

[elsietee]

Ok... trying to catch up on vids. Here's the latest crop:

18th-19th - John (8 dogs) and Kat (8 dogs) - 03/15, 5:50 pm

<Native dancers in the chute, with a drum>

<John arrives in the chute and comes to an abrupt halt (lead dog not expecting that, got yanked off his feet) about 20 ft from the arch. Kat arrives and stops next to him, then they both hand-walk their lead dogs under the arch. Someone comments "Wow, looks like a tie". >

John: I never expected that to happen, but she had a really nice team, and we actually ended up travelling together since Koyuk - two runs... two extremely long runs... and her team held up extremely well. Kind of just worked out that way.

Kat: It was awesome - so much fun. And I learned a lot that way. John having been the champion and having done this for so many years, there's a lot he knows and the only way you can learn is by watching and kind of mimicking and being out there. So it was really fun getting to go through some storms with him [see Mats' experience further down the page] and climbing on the hills over here, just to see his way of doing it. So I can take that, and integrate it into my own. It was fun being out there - doing what we love - and it just worked out that we could spend a couple of days on the trail, doing it together.

It'll be tricky now, because I was thinking the loser had to plan the wedding, so now I don't know who will plan it, so it might be postponed another year <laughs>

20th - Linwood - 03/15, 6:09 pm - 9 dogs

<very energetic and animated - waving his arms as he comes into the chute>

Wife(?): Oh good, you're here.

The trail, for the whole way - with just a few stretches here and there - was really fast and hard. Which was really nice because we'd had worries about new snow, but that wasn't the case. But a great trip. This dogs have bought up some puppies

21st - Jason - 03/15, 6:19 pm - 9 dogs

<Jason's dogs were meandering all over, entering the chute, checking everything out. He got them going, then had to stop when one of them was tangled (at which point the dog in lead started yelping and yipping to go), untangled that dog, got someone to straighten them out to the middle of the chute and then the lead dog (decked-out in yellow neon leg covers) ran eagerly to the finish. Jason slumped over the handlebar, looks exhausted>

What a day.

<son Patrick comes over and hugs him and says 'how you doing?'>

That's probably the toughest day of mushing I've ever had.

It was good... it was great... until after Huslia. And then .... well, I... ...I anticipated to get to the front of the pack and stay at the front of the pack, but I didn't realise, really, what it *took* to stay at the front. And the team wasn't prepared to stay at the front, so I backed off. It was either back off in Nulato, or take them to the airport and that wasn't an option. So that's how it ended up.

It was a good race. I anticipated a little bit more, but wasn't prepared ...so next year I *will* be prepared.

It was hot and there was no wind at all - even through the blow hole there was no wind. And I said "man, I sure wish the wind would blow - at least a breeze or something" and there it was - and it started blowing like heck.

[I presume they asked about the dog riding in the sled]:

At that point we'd been working hard all morning - that was about 1 - 2 o'clock - and it was just too much for her - she was done by then. And then it started to blow. ... this was her first time to Nome, so she got a free ride.

[which explains the meandering - presumably she was his main leader. The dog in lead as he came in looked young, inexperienced, and like he was having a blast <grin>]

[elsietee]

22nd - Robert Red - 03/15, 7:33 pm - 8 dogs

<waggy tails>
<Robert goes to show Mark N his equipment and Mark says 'no, no, snack your dogs, say hi to your mom...>

For ID I got four of my Dad's dogs, they're a young group and they're real good. I dozed on and off on the trail <laughs>. But we did good.

[I'm guessing there might be more of this rather truncated interview on KNOM or somewhere - given that all three Redington brothers finished in 7th, 14th and 24th... Joe would be proud ]



23rd - Sebastien - 03/15, 8:27 pm - 8 dogs

<fast-trotting dogs decked out in neon green coats and booties>

Feels so good - beautiful. This country is amazing - every check point, every parts of the trail - sun rise amazing yesterday. Blowing hard, but it was so beautiful. And today come with this weather. It was very nice.

I start only with 12 dogs, so my plan was to try to finish with 12 dogs, and I can't, but - ah - I try something and I can be close to... I was in top 15... I think my team can do it, no problem, but I make rookie mistake - I didn't have any plastic [sled runner covers] for change for two days, so my plastic was total gone, so no sliding the sled yesterday and the last two runs, so I lose the time.

It's OK. These 8 dogs are very strong. Four of them are only 2.5 yrs old. My black leader - I don't know, but she is probably one of the oldest dogs in the ID - she is 10.5 years old. And she do all the race with me for 10 years and nothing happen to her and I always want to take her before retire. She keeps training puppies to go to Nome.

[elsietee]

24th - Richie - 03/15, 8:33 pm - 11 dogs

<fast trotting dogs to the finish>

It went pretty well. Just had a little hiccup yesterday when we went through Elim. I'm really happy with the decision we made. ... I mean, *things* could have snowballed quickly, and we made the best of it, and they came in nicely, so I'm really happy with that.

Q: I just saw you up there with your leader, saying 'I couldn't have done it without you'

<Richie grins> yeah, Willy, he was up there the whole race. My other leaders - one was dropped, one was sick the whole race, and the other wanted nothing to do with being up front. [Willy] was put in a tough position the whole race and he did more than expected. It's hard to explain unless you see it - it was cool.

[reading between the lines and what I think I overhead when he was in the chute - one of his dogs started to mutiny as they left Elim, so before it spread to the rest of the team, he turned around and went back and took a six hour rest. That dropped him from 10-11th to 24th, but is much better than not arriving at all.

The stretch from Elim, over the hills to Golovin Bay, and then Golovin Bay itself seems to catch a few mushers off guard over the years - the hills is where Karin H's team quit on her one year and she didn't know why. Kudos to Richie for nipping it in the bud before it got any worse.

It also shows just how hard it is to tell what's going on when watching the little blips of the trackers going along - ostensibly, Richie seemed to have good speed and I thought was a threat to Paul G ahead of him (the same way I thought Michelle might be a threat to Pete ahead of her - she was at the back of the next group ahead). Interestingly, she too pulled over in the hills and rested her team, allowing three teams to pass her - but ensuring a good finish. It could be that the extra speed seen in both Richie and Michelle's teams, although useful, puts the team in a more precarious position and renders it more prone to faltering in the long term]

[elsietee]

25th - Mats - 03/15, 10 pm - 12 dogs

<Swedish colours - blue and yellow - sled bag and dog coats>

It's been a great journey out there. Lots of long camping trips, but we like it - and this is the best dog team I ever had - loping all the way in to the finish today. Really proud of them, because they are the ones. Everyone is great in weight, they are so happy. This is how you want to be for a long-distance race, keep up the weight and good to the finish line.

This is the fastest time we've had [4th ID], so I'm really happy.

26th - Lars - 03/15, 11:01 pm - 9 dogs

<nice looking fluid, long-strided team. Two lead dogs almost look like siberians>
<scandanavian gabble to family/friends/dogs>
<sponsored by the unfortunately-named "VOM" frozen dog food>
<Mats greets him at the finish>

For me it was a totally new trail, so I took it as it went along. It was a little bit of a surprise when I came to Huslia - and then from Huslia to Koyukuk the trail was very soft - softer than I anticipated, so that made me slow down a little. After that it was a lot of fun on the river.

And after that, seeing the coast again - I did this last year and hours on the trail that I knew - that makes everything a LOT easier. So really just enjoyed it from there.

EXCEPT last night - I was going to WM and I was struck by a blizzard, so I just had to hunker down in the sled with the dogs and - I actually slept on the ice - the dogs were sleeping in the sled. So that was a really cold night - and only five miles from the checkpoint. But I didn't get a chance to see anything - just blowing too hard. Just had to crawl in the sleeping bag even though it was on the ice.

[it looks like he was right behind the trio of John/Kat and Ken... and just got left behind. Shows you how conditions can change from musher to musher, even though they are close. While he was sleeping on the ice, Jason and Linwood came past. I got the feeling Jason was a bit shell-shocked by the end of the race, and maybe those conditions contributed to it.]

[elsietee]

27th - Hugh - 03/15, 11:40 pm - 10 dogs

Is there someone right behind me? (A: not too far away) All of a sudden I looked back and "oooo" [I guess he saw Rick's headlight]. Just so the lady knows - it's 17 YQs and 13 IDs - so this is my 30th. Amazing! People probably thing 'poor Hugh, he had a bad run' - but people don't realise this team consists of six dogs that did the Quest this year, they've *all* done 7 x 1000 mile races or more, this guy right here - George Costanza - has done 11 x 1000 mile races, so people on the internet world are trying to judge us, they don't realise what we're running. Not all of us are running to win races, some of us are running to prove the greatest of our dogs. I'm just having fun with my babies. These are all dogs that I bred myself, and I like to prove that age is just in your mind. These dogs have been everywhere with me and it's been a real pleasure to share my life with them.

28th - Rick Casillo - 03/15, 11:56 pm - 10 dogs

<thick coated, chunky dogs, still lunging gently in their harnesses to get going, looking around for the next instruction>

Q: Welcome to Nome <goes to shake Rick's hand>

Rick: "don't squeeze that hand" [ouch - frostbite?]

The first six days were awesome - probably had the best run of my life ever on dogsled from Kaltag to Unk - it's something I'll never forget. I ran 60 miles without a headlamp, northern lights everywhere, literally sitting on my sled, and I've never seen a dog team work so perfectly - ever. It was awesome.

And then the *next* day is when things changed. We got hit with a bug that knocked these guys... it didn't knock them down - they were eating good - but just didn't have it for a couple of days. That's what I've been battling. Every dog in this team has been sick. But they look good.