Video Snippets

[elsietee]

Years ago, when Dallas was just starting out with his own kennel, there was an audio interview online with one of the mushing magazines where he went into great detail about his training, his training philosophy, and his views on racing - starting out with a bunch of race rejects.

For anyone who has that knee-jerk dislike of Dallas' "cockiness", it's worth a listen as it shows a thoughtful, innovative, problem-solving brain at work. And he has just gotten better over the years.

I don't recollect the magazine so can't point you towards the link to it, but if you hunt around you might find it. It's a long interview, as I recall, but quite a fascinating look into Dallas' brain.

[Another UK Fan]

LC so glad you are all okay. What a horrid thing to happen. Hoping you are all settling after the upset.

Just sayin' that I'm not seeing the back-story to HOW he gets there.

Yes - good point. I'd like to know too

[elsietee]

An emotional Aaron B in UNK. Allegedly this is his last race and he's retiring from ID (but he's said that before):

"I'm not planning on racing anybody, I'm going checkpoint to checkpoint all the way to Nome, but they're prepared to go from here to Koyuk on a trail like this - and I can easily do it with these guys. But why? I want to stay a few hours here, in Shak and Koyuk, Elim and Nome...if someone wants to make a push on me, go for it. But it's hard to push someone with a strong and healthy team. They'll make a push and take some speed out of their team, but I'm just going to enjoy it. If the wheels start coming off on the teams ahead of me - they took some big gambles to get themselves in the position they're in, and I wasn't willing to make those gambles myself. And if it pays off for them, kudos to them. Those were big moves - both of them made different ones - and more power to them. To make it work and pull it off is awesome.

I'm just kind of on a joy ride. It's hard looking around and seeing family and friends <his voice breaks> and thinking... I always think about next year, every time I'm on the race, I'm thinking about what I'm going to improve for next year. It's hard not to think about next year.

But I'm home, and I'm enjoying it. This is life. That's the hard part of this year's race for me. But it has been a pleasure driving this dog team. "

[elsietee]

Vid of Brent going through Koyuk:

"It was awesome out on the ice - it was a good rest. I bundled the dogs up so they were just in one big pile, put them behind the sled, put straw down, and they had a great rest. "

Heister: "Have you allowed yourself to think about the finish line yet?"

B: <laughs> NO WAY! Not quite yet. We're not there yet. It has been a good run, but he's still right back there [motioning back on the ice at Dallas].

Q: " Did you see anyone out there?"

B: "Oh, I haven't seen anyone since Cripple."

He had Slater in lead (https://wildandfreealaska.com/slater/) and I think Morello (https://wildandfreealaska.com/morello/)

[elsietee]

Pete Kaiser in Koyuk (after spending 6 hours at the previous checkpoint in Shak):

"It's going good. Happy to get out of Shak - some guys were stuck there longer than I was, but we weren't stuck too much longer than we would have stayed anyway. It was blowing pretty good when we got in over there, and it's always good to get to this side of the Bay, so I'm happy to be over here.

[The trip across Norton Sound] was good - probably one of the faster, better trails I've ever seen across there, and the wind wasn't terrible. There were a few spots there was probably a 20-30 mph headwind, but it didn't last terribly long and then it would go almost calm for a while, then a little bit of wind...so it was good.

[The team] are doing good. Where we're at is probably the best case scenario for them. Just happy to keep moving down the trail and get to Nome at this point.

We're in an interesting bubble of mushers here, I guess battling for between 3rd and maybe 12 or 13th. We''re competing to get to Nome and I think a lot of us just want to get to Nome and be done at this point. It has been a long race. "

Q: Are you concerned about your position leaving here?

"I've just got to give the team the proper rest they need leaving here. I can't chase anyone out after too short a rest for me. I think Dan's got the fastest team out of anyone here, and a full string of dogs - a really beautiful team - so if anyone wants to follow him out, I think they'll have a hard time beating him to WM and then to Nome.

I think I saw him getting ready to leave, so I guess we'll all start trickling out of here in the next three hours. "

Q: Where's your head at?

"I just need to give the dogs the amount of rest they need, it doesn't really matter what people around me are doing. I'll give them what they need and then we'll take off when it's time. "

[elsietee]

Richie in Koyuk (after spending 11+ hours in Shak):

"It's been going good. My team has been doing awesome, ...we had a little "thing" there in Shak last night that I wasn't too happy about. I'm not out here to mess with the weather, ...you know how tough the wind can be out here on the coast, that was really frustrating, but that's part of dog mushing.

Q: So that was a weather decision?

"Yes, in Shak it was really windy, gusting maybe 35 mph, but we got some first hand reports from a guy who came across the ice last night that it was blowing even harder further out. It just didn't sound promising and didn't sound like anything I wanted to put my dogs through at that time. There's more to racing sometimes than that. "

Q: How was it coming across today?

"It was beautiful - a little breezy, but improved throughout the run. Ended up being probably one of nicest runs I've had coming across. "

Q: Happy with your decision to wait?

"Yes, it is what it is at this point. "

"Dogs are doing well, they've had a lot of spunk to them this whole race. It's been cool to watch because we've raced pretty hard the whole time and they've been a lot of fun to be with.

Q: Tell us about your team this year?

"All 11 that I have here raced last year, and previous years, so they're a solid group".

Q: We've noticed you've been eating all your mom's pizza at this point

<laughs> "hard not to, it's my favorite food. Were you guys digging in my bags and noticing all my wrappers?"

Liz: "...yes, all the leftovers the vols have enjoyed..."

"Empty bags of what were pizza... crusts..."

Liz: "Yeah, there's not much left over. "

[libby the lab]

Audio not video but long interview from APR with Brent in WM
https://www.alaskapublic.org/2022/03/14 ... ent-bonus/

[elsietee]

Aaron Peck in Koyuk (4th in) with 7 dogs:

"Doing good. Relieved to get over the Sound - that's always a huge hurdle. [re. the wind] - the first part out by Shak was brutal, ...there were lulls where you were tricked into thinking it was backing off, and then it would come at you even harder.

I made it to the shelter cabin there, and my plan was to give the dogs a break there, and give them a meal and some TLC, so we did that - about an hour and half stop - and the wind had backed off and it was perfect timing to cross.

Going to stick around for a while in Koyuk.

Dogs are hanging in there - not a single issue with any of them which make it easy for me to take care of them. They eat everything I give them, so it's just one step at a time and keep doing what we're doing.

Hope to get some sleep here, but it's often hard to sleep at the check points - I just keep lookign at my watch every half an hour and never actually sleep. I'm afraid that if I do pass out, it'll be tomorrow before I wake up.

[on his way into the building to make some food - what is it?]

"My wife made me a bunch of food for my drop bags - some pasta and some steak - my favorite stuff. I'm starving."

Thanks his helpers looking after the dropped dogs.

[elsietee]

Dan Kaduce 3rd into Koyuk:

"Race going pretty good. Don't want to jinx anything, but it's going all right. [Coming across the Sound] was a really nice relief - it was so windy coming into Shak and we were dreading it, but it died down to - it was still windy - but totally doable. Dogs doing surprisingly well [on ice] - usually don't like ice, but tired enough to run smooth on it now. And they don't have to pull hard on ice.

I've been napping my way down the trail. I've slept almost everywhere coming down the trail - every where I've stopped. This might be the first one that I don't. But we just had 8 hours in Shak, waiting for the wind to die down, so I got good sleep there too. Not going to stick around too terribly long [in Koyuk] - just enough for them to digest some food and then we'll roll again.

12 of the 14 dogs are from last year's team [with Jody Bailey, his wife?] - two more littermates of the rest of the team - so the whole team is just made up of three litters. Doing great. "

Q: Being littermates, do they gel better togehter?

"All these dogs live in a big pen together, all the time, and they're free together all the time. So they sleep on top of each other, they're a family for sure.

Q: This year you have the ashes of Susan Smith (sp?) - a long-time school teacher and vol in Takotna...

"Was requested to deliver her ashes to somewhere near Takotna, so in a really beautiful snow storm one night we ceremonially spread the ashes and I was honored to do that. "

[elsietee]

Jessie Homes 7th into Koyuk - and 4th leaving Koyuk, chasing Dan Kaduce out of there, after only 2 hours 50 mins rest (Dan got 3/5 hours rest):

"Run across the Sound was really good hard, fast trail. Thinks it was the fastest he's ever made it across there. One year it took 9.5 hours, this year 4 hours 40 mins. Just goes to show what the trail conditions can do to the run times.

It was pretty nasty blowing snow last night in Shak, so the three of us who were in the top 5 - Aaron B, Richie and me - talked to a local guy that came by and said it was blowing 40-50 mph out there and it was about zero degrees and those temps can be rough on dogs. Looking at it in hindsight, the trail was good enough that it probably would have been OK,... I should at least have left earlier this morning, but that's ID - you make small mistakes and it can cost you a lot of hours, you're tired, so it's hard to make the right decisions.

Teams doing good - unfortunately had to drop both his main leaders, the most important key dogs, which is kind of sad, but it's also given me the opportunity to work with some of the younger guys and I'm really impressed seeing what they're doing up there in lead, without the guidance of hard mentorship of the best dogs in the kennel.

This team is healthy, they've been eating well, they're rested - it's time to get there as quickly as I possibly can.

Likes to visit with all the people along the trail and stays up talking to them.