YQ: What’s Been Happening Overnight?

At this point in the race, pretty much what we know is what you know. We have no contact with the team and spend our time scrutinising the tracker and the analytics that come with it. Here’s what we have figured out…

Since we saw the team leave they climbed up over King Solomon’s Dome at a good speed, descended and camped at the Indian River at the base of the Dome for a couple of hours. I found a video from 2015 when Allen took a GoPro with him up the hill. They are travelling in the opposite direction in this video but it will give you an idea of the spectacular 360 degree views up there.

Allen took straw with him for the express purpose of camping there so the dogs will have enjoyed a warm nap after their hot meal. Allen said he didn’t expect he would even try to get his sleeping bag out, a two hour stop doesn’t really afford him much time to sleep but he would have rested a little, in-between tending to the dogs.  He took a couple of “real” seam-sealed meals with him to heat up in the dog-water. He took a chicken pesto for first camp and moose lasagna for second camp.

After their rest, they continued over the hills and pulled into Scroggie Creek Dog Drop between 11pm-12 midnight. Scroggie isn’t an official checkpoint so times in and out are not recorded so these are by our calculations looking at the tracker. To us, it looks like they stayed a good five hours there, which is great news. Allen was keen to keep the dogs rested and moving forward so this rest will have been amazing.

We have had official word that Allen left there with all 14 team mates, which is great news. Anyone he might have been worried about, even for anything minor, he wouldn’t have been keen to risk carrying them for 100 miles.

Allen’s going to be seeing a lot of interesting things along this trail. They are travelling near an active trapline and expect to see plenty of moose and wolves in the area. The trail breakers cautioned that along the Steward River trail is lots of willows and they are right at musher head height so to beware of being hit in the face along this area! There will be a lot of bobbing and weaving going on so we anticipate him having no trouble staying awake on this section. Another hazard along the Yukon Quest Trail!

Right now they are climbing the “endless” Black Hills so we will expect to see their speed varying. We are envisaging Chena, Champ and Nomex screaming in delight going up the hills which amps the rest of the team up to continue pushing.

Next stop for the team is likely to be Stepping Stone Hospitality Stop. Next stop for us is Pelly Crossing Checkpoint to continue watching the tracker. Once we leave Dawson we will have radio silence for a while so for that period you will know more than we do!

Thanks Dawson, it’s been amazing! Thank you to the team at the Downtown Hotel for taking good care of us and making us food at all hours of the day!