Ruby - Kaltag (Yukon river)

[elsietee]

Richie in Nulato:
A little concerned, but not too bad. At least there's a tent here [sounds like there is somewhere for them to get out of the weather - not just for race personnel, as previously suggested in Galena]. Team going through a bit of a slump <laughs>, but he's still really happy with how they're doing. Been thinking about how to deal with the Shak situation the whole run, but has no idea how he's going to adjust his schedule.

[mira]

The YQ mushers are used to bag drop, but we have seen several times how many mushers that piles up in Shaktoolik waiting for better conditions.

Speaking of Shaktoolik, do we know anything about ice conditions this year? Remember last year when there wasn't sea ice at Nome
Have it ever happened that they have stopped Iditarod short of Nome? Like moving the finish line to Unalakleet for instance?

From the tracker right now:

Kaltag is at mile 629
Jessie Royer, 616, 6.2mph
Brent Sass, 606, 6.2mph
Thomas Wærner, 597, 7.0 mph
Peter Kaiser, 594, 6.2mph
Aaron Burmeister, 588, 6.5 mph
Wade Marrs, 587, 5.9 mph
Nulato is at mile 582

Six teams are in Nulato, Mackey has two miles to go (being at 580)

Richie will come off his 8 hour in Nulato in ~1.5 hour, Joar and Ryan has rested in Nulato for three hours (they have both finished theyr 8 hours yukon rest). Which means that Joar and Ryan may be in front of Richie.

[elsietee]

Greg and Bruce in Kaltag (with Sasha - a filming guy who's been out there on a snowmachine):

Able to upload video from Galena, but not live coverage. Having issues with satellite in Kaltag and Unk - something happened yesterday, so GCI is frantically trying to figure that out. But right now, the only image in Kaltag is falling snow - there's nothing going on. And not much in Nulato as far as resources - not enough internet to do much.

They have some footage of Brent camping on the trail between Galena and Nulato.

The trail (according to Sasha) is pretty variable, lot of wind in some sections, a lot of blown in sections where you can't see the trail to be able to pick and choose, and then there's places where it's nice and smooth, so with the snow falling, it's getting a little sticky and going to slow down a bit.

In past years, by Saturday morning, they'd have teams already into Unk. Holy smokes, this race is going slow. Bruce says it goes back to the very start - with that slow trail on the very first leg. Looks like the race is going to go to 10 days.

Brent and Jessie were hoping to get as much trail done before the storm hit.

Brent stopped for that 3 hours because he didn't want to break trail any more - he let Jessie pass him. So we may be back to the old style race - where mushers have to work together to stay ahead of the mushers behind - then wait until Koyuk to actually race. The years of just plain speed are one thing, but this is a more realistic Iditarod trail.

They say Thomas is sitting in a really nice position - had a nice spot for his 8 hour. But Bruce thought (at the time) that it was better to wait until later to take it. At this point, Thomas has no reason to come up front - the smart place to be is 3rd to 5th position [presumably because you take advantage of others breaking trail].

AK is so unpredictable, if he decides to go moose hunting on the river in the summer and says he'll be back in four days - only a fool would go out and expect to return on time - you might get stuck out there, waiting for a plane to fly, to get out.

Added complication of trail breaking - big wide river with multiple old trails with markers that can confuse mushers as to where the actual trail is. Asks Sasha what he saw. 60% of time the ID trail and the other trails are the same. But if you step off the trail, you're up to your waist in snow, and you can't see where the edge is. He went off trail several times and then had to fight to get back on trail - and choose the right trail - was the hardest. For him it was confusing, so he can only imagine what it's like for a tired musher trying to find the hard snow. That's going to factor into it. And then you have the portage between Kaltag and Unk - going to have lots of fresh snow on it. And the markers look pretty much the same - same colour. The Iron Dog markers have a stamp on them, but you can't see that until you're much closer to it. And with the flat light, you can't see where the trail is underneath the snow, so you're just looking for markers, aiming for that one and hoping that you're staying on the hard trail.

Under these conditions, this is when having a good leader is most important. You need to get out of the way, and let the leader find the hard trail - good leaders can do that. But if you're constantly gee-ing and haw-ing, seeing two markers and the dogs have learned to look for the markers - but it can be mentally stressful on the dogs. But with a good leader, it's a huge advantage. Leaders are really important right now.

And at this point, speed isn't important. It's about grinding your way to the finish line, resting as much as you can, you can't react to what others are doing. Brent stopping is a perfect example of doing what's right for your team. What you need is tenacity.

Hoping to have the livestream up before the leaders arrive.

[Another UK Fan]

GPS showing as follows

position, dogs, mile

1 Jessie 13, 619

2 Brent 13, 611

3 Thomas 13, 602

4 Peter 10, 599

5 Aaron 12, 593

6 Wade 12, 591

7 Richie 14, 582

8 Paaige 12, 582

9 Mithc 11, 582

10 Michelle 12 , 582

[Another UK Fan]

Nulato is mile 582. Resting in Nulato are: Michelle, Mitch, Paige, Richie

Kaltag is mile 629. Running to Kaltag are: Jessie, Brent, Thomas, Peter, Aaron, Wade

[Another UK Fan]

Also resting in Nulato, in position order are

11 Joar
12 Ryan
13 Lance

[Another UK Fan]

Joar is now running - looks like he's on the trail from Nulato to Kaltag

[Another UK Fan]

current positions and mile - all are running to Kaltag

1 Jessie 628
2 Brent 619
3 Thomas 611
4 Peter 607
5 Aaron 602
6 Wade 600
7 Ryan 584
8 Joar 584

[COHusky]

thank you aukf

[Another UK Fan]

You're welcome

Jessie is in Kaltag!

Brent is next with seven miles to Kaltag