Allen in Nikolai

Allen gave me a call from Nikolai about an hour after he arrived. He has had a very interesting race so far!! When we lost him in of Rain Pass, Allen was dealing with one crazy situation after another. First, the race officials wouldn’t allow him to leave the check point when he at 4am. He was putting booties on dogs when they came up and told him the wind was blowing 80 mph on the way to Rohn and that no mushers should leave the check point. Finally at 8am, once it was light, he started on his way down the trail.

Leaving the checkpoint, he has to crest a summit. Cindy Gallea was in front of him. She couldn’t get her dogs over and they got all tangled up. Allen stopped to help her. They ended up tying their sleds together to get them moving. After many stops to untangle dogs, they made it to the Steps before separating.

After getting through all this, Allen was on a patch of frozen overflow. He was out in front of the team, leading them across. He got them all lines out and walked back to the sled. The second he hopped on the sled, 13 of his 15 dogs took off down the trail with out him, the last two dogs and the sled. Blossom, in heat and a bit crazy, had chewed the line in front of her and Hera. Allen had passed a snow machine (mobile) camp a few miles back so he started walking back to them and woke them up. He put Blossom and Hera in the sled and attached it to the snow machine. They took off after the team and found them a couple miles down the trail, in a tangle. All the dogs were fine.

I think Allen was very happy to get to Rohn!

All of his dogs are looking great. He is doing well and sounds very positive and upbeat, even with everything that has happened. He thinks he will spend about 8 hours in Nikolai before heading off to McGrath.