White Mountain - Safety - Nome

[mira]

I think that is what they usually do when the mushers gets into trouble at that stretch. The musher are rescued and somebody else drive the team in..

From his facebook page:

Matthew has scratched from the race. It is our understanding that he got into some water and was unable, though he tried, to continue to move forward on the trail. We received a msg from Matthew that he and the dogs are fine. They are cuddled up together awaiting the rescue crew.

[fladogfan]

So sorry to read about this, good they are safe, but what a shame.

[Leaddog]

Several years ago, there was a similar rescue in the Yukon Quest. In that case, dogs and humans all went into the Blackhawk. No doubt that a noisy moving piece of machinery like a Blackhawk is potentially terrifying to the dogs, but don't underestimate the musher-dog bond: most of these dogs will accept just about anything if "daddy" or "mommy" tells them that it is OK. When we started teaching dogs to run on a treadmill, it was amazing to watch: the belt would start moving and the dog would immediately turn and look at the musher. The musher would say "hike", the the dog would immediately face forward and do it. No questions asked.

[flowerpower]

Love it!

[elsietee]

Finally found some time to transcribe a few of the finisher's videos:

Mitch:
"A rebuilding team - a lot of youngsters, 3 yr olds ...showed really good promise for the future - super tough, super happy. Started out taking it easy, but saw that those dogs have the maturity to race at a high level, so went ahead and made a push to the front. We didn't so much make a push, as the dog team didn't slow down.

There's a secret strategy to that - most ppl know that the dogs will run faster if they get more rest, and I was looking at all the 20-something and 30-something year old guys and they were planning their rest stops.. and they were going to stay 2.5 hours, maybe 30 hours and 45 mins. So I said 'I'm going to do like them, I'm going to stay 3 hr 45 mins'... and then I had to clean my glasses, and get a couple more cups of coffee, and some dry socks, ...and eventually if was 4 hours and 30 mins before I left. It turns out being over 60 and taking 45 mins extra rest must have helped us out. <grinning>"

[elsietee]

Brent:

"Lots of memorable moments... leaving Koyuk was probably one of them. We had had a really tough - in-the-heat - run coming across the ice there. I had worried that I'd taken the energy out of the dogs a little bit by running in the daytime - we didn't really have a choice... They came in real slow. We sat at the checkpoint for 4 hours 15 mins and just by looking at the dogs I could see they still had it. We ran out of there great and had a solid run, and from there, things clicked and we had a solid run into the finish like we wanted. "

...

Attitude is everything, that's his motto (has it as a tattoo) - staying positive and keeping the dogs happy - you can see they ate like ravenous wolves at the finish, and had the entire race. And that takes a lot of pressure off him - he doesn't have to stress about them. They're fueled and they can do the runs I'm asking them to do. "And that's worth its weight in gold".

He has another tattoo - "Run your own race" - did he keep to that?

He executed his plan - not the plan he wrote down, but his overall plan about what he wanted to do, his goal. Stick to what he wanted to do, adjust his schedule that he'd made up according to the weather, different conditions. He was forced to not run what he intended to do. Started a couple of strategies, but then had to back off. But was able to adjust and not take the energy out of the team, and get to Nome in the top 4, which was his goal.

[elsietee]

Ramey Smyth:

Replying to "Was there a real memorable moment out there?"

"Watching... <has to stop, choking up slightly> ... watching the leaders and the dogs develop, take charge, 'we can do this' <slightly teary>"




Pete:
"A tough year, for sure. Happy to be here. If you'd told me before the race [that I'd place 14th] I wouldn't have been too happy, but you get out there and you deal with things, and you work around them and make new plans, and once you get there and those new plans work out, you've got to be happy. Happy to be here in 14th with a nice looking team.
...
When you sign up for this race, there's so many things that happen and it felt like this year they had several of them in a row - and every time we'd have a problem and fix it, we'd have another one. But that's just normal Iditarod stuff. Sometimes you just have a few of them and get lucky,... lots of little things adding up. We worked around them as best we could.

Memorable?

"Reteaching yourself to throttle back, and regroup... Races that go smoothly don't teach you nearly as much as the ones that got difficultly. You learn stuff about yourself, when you feel like quitting or being done, regrouping and making it to the finish. I'm glad we made it here because there were def some low moments".

[braider]

Martin is the only musher left with 14 dogs and I'd bet he'll bring that many in. Sass came in with 13 dogs / Royer came in with 12 ...like Monica Zappa still has 12 in WM . The rest are all less than that. Those numbers seem a little low to me ...like that 23 mushers have scratched seems high. Great race yet kind of strange.

[elsietee]

Mille - Rookie of the Year:

<big hug from DeDe>

"I made a mistake yesterday and ended up on a 16 hour run, so I knew if I asked them to do something long today, they wouldn't necessarily think I was sane. ...but we're here <laughs>."

Q: "Do you feel like a rookie in this race? you have so much experience doing long treks in the sled?"

M: "Oh, HECK yeah! Do you know how many mistakes I made on this race, which were massive? Starting with oversleeping 2 hours at the 24. I def made my fair share of rookie mistakes. "

Q: So next time around, there's more room to improve?

M: "There's ALWAYS room to improve. But I don't think you can improve the experience, since it's absolutely magical. "

Q: Asking about her putting this dog team together - from Jeff King and Jessie Holmes - spoke earlier about the difficulty of putting that team together in such a short period of time - did she succeed?

M: "It wasn't me who succeeded, it was these dogs. They did absolutely magnificent. And they came together as a team in a way that I'm beyond proud about.

Q: Any particular dogs she wants to give a shout out to? <she finished with 6 dogs only>

M: <laughs wryly about squeaking in with that few dogs> "All of them. This morning, I left Puma (?Boomer?) in Safety - he was really tired - he didn't quite trust me that we were going to end this today. And Furlin <?> I had to leave him this morning (in WM?) - he's the powerhouse of the team, and that was really tough. <names two other dogs she had to drop>
...
"We wouldn't be here without the entire team.

"The most unbelievable trail moment was the second section on the way to Rohn, when you go through the Gorge. The whole run was beyond magical. It was quite windy - had to go up and over RP - I love when it's windy - and you could see the dogs just diving into it. And it was incredible moonlight - and you look behind you, and it was very calm, incredible lit-up landscape. The whole run - every time you made a turn, it was something new - little rivers, cliff walls, ... I've been telling people if I died the next day, I'd die really happy. ...not that I plan to <laughs>.

"So many magical moments. Coming into the communities where they couldn't have checkpoints for us, they set up cabins, and locals cooked food, and gave us their beds to sleep in, and the kids - their paintings - and then coming in here, with my local friends, and friends from all over the world. It's all magical".

[elsietee]

Jeff Deeter:

"Woo hoo! That was a fun trip!

It wasn't the ideal race, but in the second half I kind of pulled things together and got my mindset correct on looking at Nome as the finish line. "

"When we hit the coast I was able to cut rest and still always have them ready to go. They did a phenomenal job and I was def the weak link in the team. "

Lead dog's name is Bravo, this is his third time crossing the finish line in lead. But this was the first time in single lead. He started the race in single lead, and then led on and off, then the whole time up the coast by himself. So their toughest runs were with him in single lead. He and his brother are Jeff's toughest dogs. They're from Lance's dog, Zorro.

Favorite moments:

"I think 52 below was one of my favorite moments, there, outside of McGrath. That was awfully cold. We've trained for it Fairbanks, but it was still a little surprising to see on ID in mid-March, so that was fun. And then, of course, 45 degrees yesterday going from Unk to Koyuk. So Shak to Koyuk - 100 degree temperature difference. That was probably one of my favorite runs - Unk to Shak - over the Blueberry Hills. Dogs did really great even though it was so warm.