ID: Saturday Morning – Koyukuk and Camp

It’s Saturday morning and the top teams are emerging. Once the teams hit Koyukuk there is still over 400 miles to go so it is not clear cut by any means. There’s still a lot of racing to come and a lot of different strategies to unfold.

After “blowing through” Huslia the Red Team continued down the trail before camping for about four hours. There are different strategies in place for this section with some teams running long runs from checkpoint to checkpoint, others making shorter runs and camping along the way, moving through the checkpoint stopping only to re-supply. Seems Aliy is running the latter strategy and she and her team are accustomed to camping. She has timed it pretty well to be camping through the coldest parts of the night being able to conserve some energy.

At the time of writing they are about 15 miles from Koyukuk.

There is a super Insider video of the team in Huslia. She has swapped out Quito and Waylon and is running Quito in lead with Scout for this section, with Nacho a Izzy in swing, then Scooter and Scruggs, Chica and Waylon, Outlaw and Mac, Mismo and Nelson, Schmoe and Sissy with Willie and Clyde still excelling in the wheel position.

Screen shots from Insider video: signing autographs in Huslia; snacking Nacho and Izzy

River running can get a little monotonous so it is likely she swapped them around to mix things up a bit. Running in a different position, next to or behind someone different can just be enough to ease the monotony for them.

The video shows as the team arrives the checker does a “bag check”, this is to check for all the mandatory equipment the mushers must carry down the trail. The mandatory items in the Race Rules are as follows:

– Proper cold weather sleeping bag weighing a minimum of 5 lbs.
– Ax, head to weigh a minimum of 1-3/4 lbs., handle to be at least 22” long.
– One operational pair of snowshoes with bindings, each snowshoe to be at least 252 square inches in size.
– Any promotional material provided by the ITC.
– Eight booties for each dog in the sled or in use.
– One operational cooker and pot capable of boiling at least three (3) gallons of water at one time.
– Veterinarian notebook, to be presented to the veterinarian at each checkpoint.
– An adequate amount of fuel to bring three (3) gallons of water to a boil.
– Cable gang line or cable tie out capable of securing dog team.
– Functional non-chafing harness for each dog in team and a functional neckline

Those of you familiar to our harness system will know we don’t usually run with necklines but each dog is wearing one attached to their collar so, if it is needed, our mushers have ready access. We also don’t use a cable gang-line but each musher is carrying a cable tie out in their sled.

Also in the video you can see that, although she is obviously in a hurry to get her sled packed and on her way, she stops to sign a couple of Huslia pennants for local kids. One young person tells Aliy that her Grandpa is “Al” – Aliy replies “Al Yatlind? (sp) Who I leaned how to run dogs from? No way!” This part of the country is Aliy’s old stomping ground – she used to live in Bettles and run her first dog team in the area.

The Black Team has just started moving again after camping about half-way to Huslia for four hours or so. Splitting the run in half indicates to me that they may stop in Huslia for some time also. We don’t get to hear about or see much of the middle of the pack and we’re missing those sweet faces!

Driver and Kodiak at the Fairbanks Re-Start almost a week ago