Page 1 of 1

Does Cripple not exist this year 2022

PostPosted: Thu Mar 10, 2022 7:55 am
by ThisSpaceForRent
Very little coverage or mention from Cripple this year... What the heck??

I guess the Iditarod Committee and Insider just decided to ignore this CP this year.

GoBrentGo®

Re: Does Cripple not exist this year 2022

PostPosted: Thu Mar 10, 2022 8:28 am
by libby the lab
I think they could not get a livestream there due to weather making it impossible to get equipment there. Just a few videos. Weather doesn't look good for today. Maybe they can get it up in Ruby?

Re: Does Cripple not exist this year 2022

PostPosted: Thu Mar 10, 2022 9:05 am
by ThisSpaceForRent
WOW... a whole 24 seconds of Brent... If they got that out and the 1 minute 15 second Dallas video then they have established they have capabilities... why bury it on the second page instead of chronologically (first page) this is a disservice to subscribers.

Re: Does Cripple not exist this year 2022

PostPosted: Thu Mar 10, 2022 2:49 pm
by Breeze
C'mon, if you live here in this forum, you already know the ITC has few friends.

Re: Does Cripple not exist this year 2022

PostPosted: Thu Mar 10, 2022 4:49 pm
by elsietee
ThisSpaceForRent wrote:WOW... a whole 24 seconds of Brent... If they got that out and the 1 minute 15 second Dallas video then they have established they have capabilities... why bury it on the second page instead of chronologically (first page) this is a disservice to subscribers.


The videos show up on the page as they get uploaded. And once other videos get uploaded behind them, they will bump those "older" videos down the page (and onto the next page...).

From Bruce's report this morning, bad weather hampered their ability to fly into Cripple, so I'm guessing we were lucky to get the couple of videos we did get. They only have a finite number of staff, so they have to decide who to send where/when - given more mushers staying in McGrath and Ophir, it made sense to send the reporters there. This year, it would appear they have two teams - one following the front of the pack, and one following the back. The back is covered by Liz Raines Failor, who stayed in RP, in Rohn, in Nik, and now in McG. There's [ETA} Kevin Bodie in Ophir, catching mushers there, and Bruce Lee seems to be popping in and out. And don't forget they're down a man with Heister stuck in ANC with a bad back.

In terms of getting the videos out, maybe they don't have any way of transmitting from Cripple (possibly due to weather?), so maybe they have to stick any video on a thumb drive and send it to somewhere they can upload it via snowmachine - and if they don't have a dedicated person to do that (you can't be in all places at once), they may have had to wait for someone to be going that direction - and for them to hand off the drive to the relevant person, and for that person to then find the opportunity to upload it. If that's going on, do you wait for the first two teams to show up before sending it? Or do you wait longer? How long? If you send it now, you miss the other mushers. If you wait, people complain about slow uploads.

Possibly when Brent arrived, the camera guy had only just shown up himself and rushed over to the checker to catch Brent's team. By the time Dallas showed up three hours later, they'd managed to set up a camera in the snow, and then also a hand-held - and spliced those two chunks of video together. That requires some time to do... in cold temps... in a tent, or maybe balanced in a quiet spot on your snowmachine... once you've found your power packs, persuaded your equipment to cooperate, and got everything booted up, got your cold fingers to function, etc.

Lastly, those mushers who went to Cripple did so because it was quiet and they and their dogs would get the rest they wanted. Having reporters swarming all over them, shining lights on them (got to remember to carry those lights), asking them questions, etc doesn't help. Usually they wait for the mushers to settle everyone in, and get some rest themselves, then feed and work on the dogs some more before there's maybe a break in their routine where they might be willing to talk to a reporter. And most of them showed up in the dark, or close to it, so no opportunities to even film dogs in the dog area.

Re: Does Cripple not exist this year 2022

PostPosted: Thu Mar 10, 2022 10:20 pm
by ThisSpaceForRent
elsietee wrote:
The videos show up on the page as they get uploaded. And once other videos get uploaded behind them, they will bump those "older" videos down the page (and onto the next page...).
....
And most of them showed up in the dark, or close to it, so no opportunities to even film dogs in the dog area.


Points well taken, I will enlighten up!

Re: Does Cripple not exist this year 2022

PostPosted: Thu Mar 10, 2022 10:38 pm
by elsietee
Sounds like all the comms ppl were headed to Ruby, so things should liven up past Cripple.