Races
March 14, 2018 by

Right on time, Aliy, Dutch, Chipper, Kodiak, Spark, Clyde, Rodney, Five, Nomex, Driver and Violet have left White Mountain and are headed for Nome!

The weather here in Nome is clear and cool. In White Mountain and Safety right now is cloudy with light winds. We all know that this run along the coast and up over Cape Nome can be brutal at times so we are crossing fingers that the weather stays cool and calm for them.

The trail continues up the Fish River for a while then teams will climb up over Topkok Mountain before dropping down onto the beach. They will pass through the checkpoint of Safety then climb their last hill, Cape Nome where they will see the lights of Nome. We are expecting them sometime around 11pm tonight and we are about to bursting to see them all.

We’re getting the dog yard ready today with straw beds, fleece jackets and blankets laid out. We’ll start preparing a meal for them and thaw some snacks for the finish line. We’ll also be watching the tracker rather obsessively for the rest of the day.

Allen is on his way to Nome and should be here for when Aliy arrives.

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I visited the museum yesterday and got a few pics I think you would enjoy:

Fritz, who, along with Togo, was one of the heroes of the serum run
Look who I found on the wall!

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13 Responses

  • I’m so happy Aliy and dogs are on the final trail into Nome. This has been such a different race with the deep, unstable, punchy snow they ran on most of the way. And it’s so awesome that Allen will be there to greet her. As always, thanks for the fantastic coverage we get on this website. You have outdone yourself again this year.

    Congrats to Joar! I slightly overslept this morning so I missed seeing him cross the finish line by about five minutes. If it couldn’t be Aliy, then I’m glad we have a brand new champion this year. In the interviews I watched he was so proud of his team.

    Now, it’s time to watch the tracker and see the AWESOME Red Team cross the finish line. Go SPKennel!

  • FRITZ!!!! Togo’s half brother!!!

    He is one of the reasons I MUST go to Nome!! For many, many years, Fritz’s mount was here in the ADIRONDACKS!! It was Natallie Norris (Lisbet Norris’s Grandmother) who grew up in Lake Placid and was instrumental with first finding and then bringing Fritz’s mount home to Nome! She saw this mount in a store front in Lake Placid when she was a child….and followed it for years as it moved from Lake Placid to an amusement park in the southern Adirondacks. Then, in 2004, through persistance, some sly negotiating and thousands of dollars of her own money, she finally brought Fritz HOME to Nome, and donated him to the Nome Museum! SO cool he has a resting place IN NOME that puts him at par with Togo and Balto! Togo, Balto and Fritz were all Nome dogs at one point….but only FRITZ beat them back to Nome!

    THANK YOU for the pictures of him in Nome….how exciting!

    And yes, I will be getting up at EARLY morning tomorrow to watch Aliy and the Red Team pull up under the Burled Arch! Love that live stream camera (thank you iditarod.com)!!!

  • Thanks for the update, Moira. I am so proud of Aliy and her teammates . This has been quite the race. I will be watching when they cross under the burled arch no matter what time. Let’s just hope the live feed holds up lol! Go SPK Red!

  • Go Aliy Go!!! I am cheering for you and your teammates! I am so happy for all of you! I will try my best to get up early tomorrow to watch best musher Aliy and her doggies cross the finish line. That’s an amazing accomplishment to make it to Nome! Race to the Finish!
    Thank you for sharing the pictures. That museum must be pretty neat!

  • Wow, what a museum! Thanks for the info Moira. Will be at this computer till Aliy comes
    in tonight. Proud of the whole SP Crew and Kennel! Allen & Aliy the cherry on top!
    Go Red Team!!!!

  • Hey – great photo of the Red Team on the museum wall; fantastic!

    I did watch Joar come in – I had a ton of mixed emotions and responses listening to the announcers, including DeeDee. Watching Joar’s face was a true pleasure.
    ..
    DeeDee compared Nic’s run off the course to when Jeff’s team went off course and stalled and Aliy waited in Safety for it to subside. She was affirming Joar’s honest win, but it also reminded me of how close Aliy’s race was and how frustrating it had been to watch Dallas slip by and then Aliy steadily gaining (because she had the faster team), but could not get by him due to his very careful strategy of not using his head light. Aliy could not be sure she was within call range for him to pull over before No man’s land.
    ..
    Winning this race, over even placing in the top 20 is not a slam dunk. In my view, the YQ is ultimately the harder race; it hones survival and endurance. I suppose that is why I prefer it, but sometimes I think this race is harder in terms of unexpected weather and selecting the appropriate strategy.
    ..
    After listening to Mitch’s very cogent explanation of why dogs ran slower consistently over that trail, it explained to me my earlier question, “Why didn’t the team immediately speed up after a rest and sometimes seemed to be slower?” If I am understanding him, it didn’t matter how much rest they had, they were still going to travel more slowly due to being “tentative”. The faster they went, the more likely they were to “face plant” as he put it.
    ..
    I am looking forward to 23:00 or so tonight to see a very stalwart team come into the chute.

  • Thank you Moira. Interesting and great pictures from the museum. Will be so happy when Aliy and the team reaches Nome.

  • I am so happy that Allen is ok. What a race experience for all involved. Cindy, I’m with you. I’m really happy a new face has risen to the #1 spot (if it couldn’t be the Red Team, of course!) I hope the Red Team has an uneventful and safe finish – and Allen will be waiting for them, along with all of the other SPK crew and their fans in Nome. Well done, SPK, we are proud of you!
    Thanks again, Moira and dog log crew, for the updates, pictures and stories.
    Have fun at the finish line and know that we’re all thinking about you and can’t wait to hear some of the recaps!

  • Welcome Home Aliy and Big Red. I’m SO proud of the race you’ve run. I’m thrilled that Allen is well enough to greet you at the Burled Arch. Your dedicated staff has done you two proud. Excellent reporting to us “arm chair” mushers/worriers who kept checking our computers hourly for info on your progress. Wonderful videos posted from years past so that we’d see what you were going through! Fantastic Job guys and gals! THANK YOU!!!

  • Woohoo, go Aliy, Dutch, Chipper, Kodiak, Spark, Clyde, Rodney, Five, Nomex, Driver and Violet, just about 10 miles to Safety.
    I’m so proud of every member of the SPK family.
    And I’m so happy Allen will make it to Nome to great Aliy under the burl arch.
    🙂

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