Ruby - Kaltag (Yukon river)

[elsietee]

Game of chicken?

• Jessie is *just* arriving in Kaltag, after a 6 hour run (47 mile run, breaking trail for about 35 of those miles).
• Brent is still an hour out and still to take his 8 - so he's behind Jessie by an hour or so.
• Thomas maybe 2.5 hours out... So if Thomas takes 5 hours at Kaltag, he'll still be half an hour ahead of Jessie when he leaves? (ish). But then he'll leave in lead - and have to break trail all the way to Unk, which isn't ideal for him.
• Pete (5 miles behind Thomas) still has to take his 8, so that puts him about 3 hours behind Jessie.
• Aaron (has taken his 8) still has 25 miles to go to Kaltag... at 6.8 mph, ~3.5 hours... which puts him roughly half an hour behind Jessie (assuming a 5 hour rest), and slightly ahead of Brent.
• Wade is 2 miles behind Aaron

Is it going to be a game of chicken as to who leaves Kaltag first?


So in conclusion, in theory, assuming they keep plodding along as now, they could leave in this order:

Thomas
Jessie
Aaron
Brent/Wade
Pete

(Joar and Ryan are 15 miles behind Wade)

Important question? Where's that "First Fish" (year's supply of salmon?) award given?

[Another UK Fan]

Brilliant elsietea! Was thinking around this and got as far as wondering if from Jessie and Brent point of view it's an advantage to be leaving third or fourth. Thanks for doing the analysis, pulling it all together and factoring in the 8s.

[Another UK Fan]

1 Jessie 629 - in Kaltag

On the trail Nulato - Kaltag

2 Brent 625
3 Thomas 617
4 Peter 613
5 Aaron 608
6 Wade 606
7 Ryan 590
8 Joar 590

[COHusky]

good analysis elsietee
jessie has to go after her 8
thomas in the drivers seat with his speed

does one grab the lead? and force the others to chase?

jessie historically finishes strong and has done well on the ice
dont know of thomas' dogs, except they are fast as a team (anybody?)

appreciate you and aukf providing insight places and mileage

[dashdel]

they're going to stack up on the coast.... Its anybodies race to win...... I could be wrong like petit scratching, but this race is going to be lie the old days........

[elsietee]

At this point "grabbing the lead" isn't necessarily in the musher's best interest - that means they'll have to break trail all the way to Unk.

I'm guessing the trail is easier to follow than the one(s) on the river were, but they're still going through fresh snow.

But, OTOH, Thomas can't really hang back, waiting for Jessie to go first... and Jessie can't hang back waiting for him to go first, without losing her advantage over the next group of mushers coming in.

Does Thomas leave in front, then pull over and camp? Making the others think he's travelling all the way and prompting them to follow?

[elsietee]

New vids posted:

Jessie arriving in Kaltag: Dogs look pretty much how they did in Cripple Alert - looking around upon arrival.

She won the "First Fish Award"!! for being the first musher off the river - she says "and boy, it's nice to be off the Yukon!". Bristol Bay Native Corporation - $2,000 and 25 lb of Bristol Bay salmon. Says she should have been first a long time ago!

Asked about her passing Brent, was him being ahead of her any help? She says she didn't see any of his tracks - it was all blown in. She asked him if he was alright, and Brent said he was just tired from breaking trail, so he pulled over to let them sleep for a while. At that point, she didn't think breaking trail was that hard. It was when it really started snowing after she passed him, so she was surprised when she saw him. Thought that he'd be here a long time ago.

Talking about the Shak situation - we'll adapt - at least we knew ahead enough what we're going to do and change. This race is definitely going to be one for the history books. She used to say "The world could have gone to war and we'd never know, just out here blissfully running the 14 dogs with not a clue about what the rest of the world is doing - that is our world - those 14 dogs. Can't say that any more because now the world has encroached on our race and it's completely changed it.

[elsietee]

Brent in Kaltag:

Q: Was it an improvement following a team, versus breaking trail?

Brent: When I was first breaking trail there was no snow machine track at all, so it was non-existent. That's why I stopped. It was like 'this is stupid, I don't need to be breaking this trail right now, you know?'. Figured if he stopped, someone would come along, and probably a snow machine would come along too - you guys. So pulled over and fed them... but then it way better. Before that it was drifted over and the dogs were just weaving back and forth because they were already six hours into the run as it was. Did great once they had a trail.

Not making rocket speeds, that's for sure, but you didn't have to be gee-ing and haw-ing them all the time. For a while, there was a bunch of different snow machine tracks and some were harder than others... and sometimes there were none in a lot of places. It just kept getting worse, so figured he could either battle this or feed them. And the dogs enjoyed that a lot more than battling it. It was a good decision. He made a bad decision on that run from Galena to Nulato last time, and that was the beginning of the issues for him, so you've got to learn something some time. So we lost three hours, but it was well worth it. .

[elsietee]

Tim Pappas in Galena: Said it's warm enough that the snow is slidy, but everything's wet.

Bruce Lee says it's 30° in Kaltag - so it's almost raining.

In the meantime, they were nearly ready to start doing live coverage - and there was a roar like an earthquake - and all the snow fell off the roof - on top of the satellite equipment, wiping it out. So they're still working on it.

And bummer for Richie - around noon, after ~4.5 hours of rest, he started to leave Nulato and got maybe 500 ft out and suddenly all his boys got interested in one female and put the slammer on everything, so he turned around and dropped her, but it didn't make any difference. He switched some leaders around, but it didn't change anything. Has no idea what to do now, so he figures he'll just have to give them some rest. He's pretty disgusted and seemed very demoralized.

[libby the lab]

Live feed us upp.
So bummed for Richie