Its 6am Thursday morning
RED TEAM UPDATE
Aliy and 15 team mates are back on the trail having completed their mandatory 24 hour stop. They have been through Ophir and now are heading towards the checkpoint of Iditarod. They left right on time at 3am and have the first of the two green ticks next to their name.
The trail to Ophir is on an old mining road and the Trail Notes say: “The first part is a 9-mile climb to the top of the divide between the Kuskokwim River drainage and that of the Innoko River, which flows into the Yukon. The rise is about 800 feet on easy grades. Then the road crosses the divide and runs downhill along Independence Creek for another 8 miles, then follows the south bank of the Innoko River for the last 15 miles into Ophir, with possibly a few overland shortcuts across bends.”
The run to Iditarod is a long 80 miles so we expect Aliy will camp her team at some point along the way. This graphic of Winter Safety Cabins shows a few options along the route (the yellow line) so she may choose to stop at one of these.
I took few screen shots from Insider video – it’s still not too late to subscribe!
Aliy sounded upbeat and ready to get back on the trail, as did Rodney who started barking to go.
The weather over night on the trail to Iditarod was windy and a bit snowy with the trail “blowing in” in sections which can make it difficult to even find the trail. There is more snow and wind in the forecast.
There’s a wonderful Insider video of Aliy and Mitch chatting about his sled and how he hauls dogs. The final comment from Aliy is that hauling dogs seems like a lot of work, “but then, it’s not easy to win”.
BLACK TEAM UPDATE
The Black Team continues to rest at Takotna. Allen will have been up tending to his team while Aliy prepared her team for exit, and he will be relieved to see her out safely.
We found an article on KTUU from McGrath that shows a few pics of the Black Team and quotes Allen talking about running the young team. It is a little tricky to tell from those pics who is missing from the line up and we are still waiting confirmation about who he left in Rohn. We’ll let you know as soon as we have something definite.
The Black Team can leave Takotna 6:49pm today.
WOOF WOOF WOOF
GO RED TEAM!!!
Happy to hear Aliy is upbeat…need to see that smile tho! Wishing the team a great run and a safe run!
I think Aliy was missing Quito pulling out of Takotna.
Hopefully Spark will decide Aliy knows what she is doing soon. Perhaps he was missing all the kennel buddies who went to visit and pamper the team in Dawson. “Maybe they’re over here guys, let’s check it out.”
Ha ha! Rodney always has something to say! 🙂 Go Red! Go Black!
Wow, 9:41 AKST; I just checked the tracker a few times and Aliy and her team are making EXCELLENT time across that trail. I noticed that Mitch took two hours and is on the move again and if Aliy does the same, we can expect her to be about 2-3 hours behind the front runners.
Dogs looking good as is Aliy. Just hope the weather isn’t really windy. Go Aliy! Will see the Black Team out tonight!
Go Aliy Go! Do not despair watchers. Joar made good time but others in the past have pushed too hard, too soon in the race (cough, cough, Martin, cough, cough) !!!
Go Allen Go! I swear the cameras stayed blurry so we can’t see who is there on the hay.
Teams are doing great. Race isn’t even half over yet. Who has some Ben Gay I can borrow? Hand’s a little stiff today (and I’m only watching one tracker moving )
I enjoyed the Insider video of Aliy and Mitch too. It was fun to hear them talk shop. The Red Team is moving faster today. In two or three of the Insider musher interviews I watched, they all seemed to think the trail would continue to be soft and mushy throughout the race and times would be slower this year. Who knows, there’s still a lot of race left including the unpredictable coast.
Go! SPK Black & Red Teams!
Yes…we enjoyed that Mitch and Aliy video….that is one odd looking sled…a real behemoth on the trail! Bet he wouldn’t use that sled if they adopted the Yukon Quest rules…..ONE sled for the entire race….and start with 14 dogs.
I see Aliy and the Red Team just got up from their rest at one of the cabin spots. LOVE that map…I have never seen that one before! It makes sense now knowing why they seem to stop in certain places all the time. We usually only hear about the cabins along the portage trail to Unalakleet and the shelter cabins along the coast. I didn’t know these other cabins even existed. Very cool map!
Nice Insider interview with Allen talking about the “puppy” team. The pics of the dogs are so pretty, but then I’m a little partial to SPKennel.
THANK YOU for posting this info! I am happy that Aliy sounds upbeat and Allen sounds laid back but not fried. The race is so long and with soft snow and bottomless trail…euuuuuu! That is just plain awful dogsledding.
Go SPK go! I am so excited to watch both the Red and Black teams make their way. What a great performance by both teams – a true testament to happy and healthy 4-leggeds. GO SPK!
Dawn – yes! – I remember Martin made that push too soon. So did many others before him and after him – over and over. Jerry Austin did back in the 80’s and other mushers did before him and since. If you have strong enough: dog team/ brain / dog team / training regimen / dog team / constitution / dog team / athletic conditioning / dog team / patience / dog team / mental clarity / dog team / decision making experience…we could go on. Oh- and there’s weather and illness and injuries and plain luck. It’s such a long race and now such a fast race that it seems to put everything into ‘hyper’ mode. My mind does a double take when I look at the last place finishers’ times. The race has sped up by monumental proportions in the last couple of decades. If you aren’t training at a high caliber, you might as well not even try. It’s a highly competitive sport now with faster and faster finish times. The times will plateau and probably not make the jumps they used to, just because of biology/evolution, but it’s unbelievable how fast these teams go through hundreds of miles of sometimes horse hockey trails.
I will be watching and cheering on the SPK teams. This is a grand example of what good ‘everything’ can do!
Go Aliy! I am cheering for you!
I liked the video of Aliy and Mitch talking about the sled and how he hauls dogs.🐕😀
I have the Iditarod Insider and really enjoy watching the newest videos; the videos of Aliy and Allen are the best ones!! I like the one where Allen talks about taking a puppy team to Nome. Allen, Aliy and the four legged dogs definitely are champions and great athletes!