Hey, Matt....nice article about Kim in ADN....and Jumbo sleeping front and center
I dunno, if I came all that way, did all that work, went through all I did to GET to the Iditarod trail, I might savor the first part, too. You aren't beat up yet, you aren't too tired yet....but then that wicked little competitive nature better kick in and get on down the trail. It isn't too hard on the sweeps and checkpoints at these early checkpoints, but the later ones....it can drag on FOREVER waiting for the last teams. I'm sure Dean would be happy to have her get the entire team to Nome, but the doggies can go faster. I'm bummed at how stinky warm it is....that makes things slow and rough on the musher....there was an aerial of Jason Barron out in the open with a dog riding in the sled bag and you can see briefly a section of trail that it looked like a snowmachine cut across and they flounder a bit. You cringe whenever your dogs get bogged down and have to swim through....injuries are much more likely in that scenario. Mitch made a comment too about snowmachines ruining sections of trail, wiping out the 4" crust the dogs need.