A few more in Nik:
- Travis Beals: also mentioned the moguls - makes it hard to keep the dogs into a good rhythm.
- Linwood on his adventure: Had just entered the buffalo tunnels and hit an 8" stump and the carabiner broke. ... he then gets teary - said he needs some composure, he's really tired.
Then talked about pushing his sled, then Mats came along and towed him for miles. And they crossed a river and the dogs were way down the river off trail. His headlight picked up their eyes and saw them all bunched up.
No one is terribly hurt and they were all able to run on to Nikolai. Has a couple of dogs that are a little banged up, but they're all alive - didn't think they were going to be. Said he's helped others in a similar situation and it often results in fatalities. "It was a long night". Dogs were all tangled up in a ball - barking at him. They were on the ice and you could hardly stand up since it was so slippery - he has some screws on his shoes which helped. Said he pulled them off the ice so they could stand up and get them sorted out.
They were really lucky, he said, if it had been in daytime, he doesn't think they would have seen them - his headlight picked up the reflection of their eyes.
- Mitch: Doesn't want to be anywhere else - he's where he wants to be. Too many pitfalls to change anything. Says Nic has a big jump, but did it cost him anything. Sometimes you come off your 24 hour layover and think "uh oh".
- Jessie Holmes: talked about losing his trailer - turned around, not knowing how far back it was. He turned around and met Mitch coming up the trail - had a bit of a tangle since he has a female in heat. Mitch told him it was back there in a creek. He said he still "got here in 8 hours 17 mins, so that's really good" (I'm thinking Jessie is a numbers man, since he's always talking about how long a run took him - to the nearest minute?). Says it would have been a 7 hour XXX min trip without the detour - he has a fast team and he's keeping them fast with lots of rest.
Bruce and Greg talking about how most mushers set up their drop bags so they can pick and choose where they want to 24 - but that last year Jeff King didn't do it very well and it forced him to go all the way to ID - which meant he was way off the pace by the time he got there. Said the trail to ID can be very windy and blow in easily - snow is very powdery, so won't take much to blow over if there's any wind.
Bruce was teasing the rookies who were all having a good time at Rohn - he said to them "well, you haven't seen the buffalo tunnels yet" : ) ) )
Bruce then talking about blankets v. straw. Funnily enough, mentioned how horse owners are tending to not blanket so much - blankets work great for wind, but it flattens down the coat, so it traps less heat, so doesn't work as well as you'd think (the only time I blanket my horses is when it's wet and windy - when it's just cold, they're better off staying out of the wind and staying fluffy).
Talking about the Buffalo Tunnels - the dogs apparently run faster through there because of the smell of the bison who've put in the tracks through the tightly packed bush.