Finger Lake to Rainy Pass to Rohn

[libby the lab]

I'll dig around and see if I can find the trail notes!
Found it!
Finger Lake to Rainy Pass wrote:

This is a tough run with some short stretches of extraordinarily difficult trail.

After leaving Finger Lake, the trail climbs steeply over a ridge to Red Lake, runs along it for a mile or two, swings up a ravine, and then follows a series of climbing wooded shelves interspersed with open swamps. About ten miles from Finger Lake, the trail drops down a series of wooded benches toward Happy River, then onto the river itself via the dreaded Happy River steps. Then it’s down the river to its mouth, up the Skwentna River for a few hundred yards, and back up a steep ravine to the plateau on the south side of the Happy. The trail will cross Shirley Lake, then Long Lake (11 miles from Rainy Pass Lodge) and then run along the steeply sloping mountainside above the south side of the Happy River valley to the checkpoint. There are two nasty stretches of sidehill trail in the last eight miles.


Rainy Pass to Rohn wrote:
It has some very tough trail, including the notorious Dalzell Gorge.
The trail runs in the open on the tundra of Ptarmigan Pass from Rainy Pass Lodge to the mouth of Pass Creek, which it then follows northwest up to the summit of Rainy Pass itself. Then there are several miles of sometimes steep downhills and often tight, twisting trail through scrub willow southwest along Pass Fork to Dalzell Creek. The trail then drops into the infamous Dalzell Gorge for a few miles and finally onto the Tatina River for the last five miles to Rohn.


Rohn to Nikolai wrote:
This run breaks into three natural sections: 20 miles along the south side of the South Fork of the Kuskokwim from Rohn to Farewell Lakes and up onto the Farewell Burn, 35 miles across the Burn itself to Sullivan Creek, and then 20 miles north from Sullivan Creek past Salmon River to Nikolai.

[tanglefoot]

Martin B smoked in in second place, so hope he gets top ten this year! Could be a good year for him and seeing some videos of him training, he is really happy with his team.

[elsietee]

So watching Ryan Redington and Martin to Rainy Pass.

As far as I can tell from the trackers, he and Martin ran almost identical schedules up to this point. It's possible that Ryan's snack breaks were slightly longer? (extrapolating from the graphs), but that he only rested on the trail for 3.5 hours, instead of Martin's 4. The graphs equate to ~5.5 hour run from the start, 3.5 to 4 hours rest, then a 7-8 hour run into RP.

Either way, Ryan is through RP and still travelling at 13 miles.

I'm wondering if Ryan's going to try to run a really long run, then take his 24 early, the way Martin did one year (although it didn't pay off for him).

Ryan's approaching the foot of RP. Does he camp there to rest the dogs and go up with fresh dogs (and then do the Dalzell gorge with fresh dogs - sounds like there's plenty of snow), or...?

[mira]

So watching Ryan Redington and Martin to Rainy Pass.

I'm wondering if Ryan's going to try to run a really long run, then take his 24 early, the way Martin did one year (although it didn't pay off for him).

Ryan's approaching the foot of RP. Does he camp there to rest the dogs and go up with fresh dogs (and then do the Dalzell gorge with fresh dogs - sounds like there's plenty of snow), or...?

I think it might pay off to take the 24 hour early this year, or perhaps Ryan will take the 8 hour interior rest at Rohn?

[tanglefoot]

Woth a hard fast trail i think they might run over half way, as times will be fast, then shut down on the return loop and bikt for home knowing they do another 8 before rohn then an 8 just before the finish

[Fool]

A great description of this section of trail from Dallas Seavey: https://fb.watch/46aFmO_NjF/

[elsietee]

For the last 50 mins, Ryan has been camped out just before the final climb to the pass - will keep an eye on his tracker.

Richie was 30 mins faster on the FL > RP stretch, but maybe only rested 3 hours on the trail. I'm guessing he'll do something similar to Ryan with regard to camping just before the pass.

[elsietee]

Ah, and looking at the video of Richie's team coming into FL, I can see why he only rested 3 hours (3h 9 m to be precise) - they were squeaking and lunging to keep going. And again in RP - tails wagging, lunging to go.

Ryan was definitely in race mode at RP - fast movements, but surprisingly didn't seem to have decided what he was going to do when he got there. Asked what time it was, thought about it for a second, looked at the team, then grabbed some hay and went through.

Buser: "The further we go, the better the trail. It was a little soft to begin with, with all the traffic,... but good to ease the dogs into it slower".
It's his 38th Iditarod.

[elsietee]

A cautious Matt Hall, camped out just after the Happy River steps - did he deliberately run long, so the dogs wouldn't be fresh for the Steps? They were on the tail-end of a 7 hour run when he stopped.

[elsietee]

Dan Kaduce in RP:

I'll stay here longer than the front runner teams, but just wanted to get up away from any of the sicker teams...

Hal Hanson (unclear where he was on the trail):

It's a team of two year olds, so a 30-35 mile run is nothing for them - as you can see behind me, they've scratched up all the day and are rolling around and barking at each other. They're not tired and having a really good time.