YQ: Central To Circle and Beyond

The trail from Central to Circle can be a frustrating one for mushers and dogs. They spend hours and hours on Birch Creek which winds and meanders for around 50 miles and can become a bit monotonous.

This section can lead to apparent tracker anomalies. It may look like teams are moving extremely slowly here. The trackers ping every five minutes and the straight line between “pings” is quite short so it looks like the teams haven’t moved many miles when in fact they have covered a greater distance, zig-zagging back and forth.

Birch Creek is also notorious for frigid cold temperatures and overflow. The last forecast I heard was for it to be pretty windy in that area making the temperature, with the wind chill factor included, as low as -55F. This is subject to change and confirmation but that is just one of the many challenges of the Yukon Quest Trail.

Because Allen and the team went through Central we expect them to camp on the trail before Birch Creek. He will be looking for the ideal camp spot out of the wind. He took straw and the dogs have the puffy insulated jackets they are wearing plus Allen carries lighter wind jackets that can go on top so they will be just fine.

Once the handler crew says goodbye to Allen and the dogs at Circle we don’t see them again until Dawson City, almost 300 miles and a couple of days later. The teams go through Slaven’s Roadhouse and Trout Creek Hospitality Stops before getting to the checkpoint of Eagle. This is their only resupply stop during the 300 miles and they have a mandatory four hours stop there before Clinton Creek Hospitality Stop and Dawson City.

We’ll hopefully hear from the handler crew in Circle.