IditaProject Forum

More vids from Kaltag:

Ryan's team coming in - look good. Trotting and alert.

Joar's team - lead dog pulling hard. Pic is of Joar's orange "bag" parka.

Awww, on the live feed, a vet just took one of Thomas' dogs out of the team. The dog didn't look very eager to go with that strange man. Awww.

Bruce doing voice over of live feed - talking about Thomas' team - that when they saw Thomas come out, they got up, relieved themselves, started moving around and stretching - ready to go - and he hasn't even finished packing his sled or putting their booties on yet. Normally dogs stay curled up asleep until the very last minute.


...more...

Brent:

Stopping after Nulato was in the plan - he made sure to get heet, etc, in case he needed to stop (his dogs had already gone five hours). It was a really good option, since he got another meal in them - and they "ate like that" <indicating with his head>. Apparently he told Heister during his interview in Anchorage that this was the "new and improved" Brent - that he would be more patient. Brent again mentions the run to Nulato in 2016 being "the start of his problems" that year. So nope, he pulled over - and the three hours he lost just don't matter.

Brent very happy that Thomas is going to lead out - he doesn't want to lead for a change.

Is it stressful? Not yet. He's still doing a good job of not caring what the others are doing. Once they get to the coast, then they start racing and the nerves come in.

But he's happy that he stopped on the trail for three hours - dogs are eating great - not a kibble left in the bowl.

Wade in Kaltag:
That was the longest run he's done so far. And every time he tried to help [poling? kicking?], his dogs didn't like it and were looking back as if to say "what are you doing? you think we need help?". OK, I'll sit back down then. And he'd sit back down and they'd speed up.

Pete:
Not a whole lot of thought process going on right now - hasn't really slept since Takotna, so feeling a little fried right now [he's taking his 8, so will get some sleep]. Be good to get more than a 45 minute nap, hopefully will feel better by the time it's time to go.

Aaron:
Doesn't like the warm weather - says his dogs are going really slow. Much prefer to have -30°F.

Joar:
Not much trail breaking - just soft and sleeting. 6 mph... not much happening. Has Jaeger (sp?) in single lead again. Has lots of strong teams around him, to try to maintain is position. Have to see what happens on the coast. Hopefully not too bad, so they can just keep doign what they have been doing.

Ryan:
People complimenting him on his lead dog. Says he bred to him and everyone in the litter is a leader. Says "so nobody left yet, eh?" and smiles. Bruce asks him if he's got raingear. He says he's got an anorak.

<still snowing lightly in Kaltag. Mushers working bare-handed. Watching Thomas on the live feed bootie-ing his dogs. In the background, you can hear Paige arriving - haw-ing her dogs. Pic is of Thomas taking his bright orange Qrill coats off his dogs>

Robert Redington made a rain coat out of a trash bag... wished he had a hood, so got a second trash bag. Because Nulato is an outside checkpoint, he wanted to keep his gear as dry as possible.

Thomas was attaching his lines to dogs - but suddenly turned around and went over to one of the dogs he'd already attached. Spent a moment with that dog, then went off to ask for a vet. Said something about the dog coughing. They immediately called for a vet to come (and he continued attaching lines). Vet has now arrived (within a the time it took me to type this). Vet checks the wrong dog... Thomas was looking at the team backwards, so it was the "left" dog - but actually on the right of the line. Vet checks the correct dog. It's one of his wheel dogs (King or Kong?)

Dogs start to howl (how on earth the vet can hear lungs with them wowling is anyone's guess).

Anyway, the vet wasn't concerned, and off went Thomas, into the night and light snow.

Fyi Thomas said dog coughed once

I was impressed with how proactive he was - any little thing - catch it quickly before it develops into something catastrophic. Kudos to him.

(but I still have no idea how the vet could hear anything when the dogs started to howl )

Yes, they care about the dogs and you really don't want to bag a dog over to the coast. The race is at a quite critical point.

It is also impressive how fast the vet arrived, oh I wish "people" could have seen these details.

mira wrote:
It is also impressive how fast the vet arrived, oh I wish "people" could have seen these details.

Yes

Elsietee thanks for the updates - made this morning's catch up easier.