CB300: Meier’s Lake

I heard it hit -24F at Meier’s Lake. Woohoo! Ain’t nobody upset about that.

Aliy and team arrived into Meier’s Lake at 2:51pm looking great! Their runtime over from Sourdough was 4 hours 31mins. The line-up as they pulled in was Commando and Junior in lead, Amber and Violet in swing, Chevie and QT, Razz and Jefe, Sanka running on her own and bros Perky and Decaf in wheel. Aliy often swaps dogs around in the team for various reasons, it could be that she wants more experience up front, maybe she will swap the leaders out to give them a break or sometimes just to mix it up for the dogs as it can refresh them a bit to run next to someone new.

The “warmer” temperatures will be great for the dogs to sleep as they can relax their muscles a bit more and stretch out rather than curling up tight to keep warm. They are currently bedded down for a good long rest.

You can see from this pic Aliy has shed her parka for chores so it must be pretty balmy out! Once Aliy has prepared the dog meal, repacked her sled and done all her arrival chores she will get some sleep herself. The handler crew will take turns watching over the team to ensure they are safe and sound. Handlers are not allowed to be ‘hands on’ with the dogs at all except at arrival and exit when they can help manoeuvre the team to and from the parking spot (or in an emergency) but they can watch over them. This also means Aliy can rest easier knowing they are fine.

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Aliy has declared their six-hour mandatory stop (plus extra 28 minutes for time differential) at Meier’s Lake so the earliest they can leave is 9:19pm. There is a BIG climb between Meier’s and Chistochina that everyone will need lots of energy for so she wanted the team and herself well rested before tackling that. You’ll see underneath the tracker map is an elevation map. “The hump” as it is affectionately known is 4,085 feet and is notorious for being a) just a really big hill and b) exposed to the weather so if it is blowing wind anywhere in the vicinity, it will be blowing up there. I haven’t heard reports of blowing yet but Jamey, the trail boss is yet to go over the hill to break trail so we will wait to see if he reports anything back.