SPK Dog Log

Time: 6.00pm Race Mile 483

Aliy and her team are camped about 12 miles short of the Ruby checkpoint, right at Thirteenmile Creek on the Ruby to Portman Road. They are currently in 24th position.

Camping here means we expect she will move through the checkpoint, pick up supplies and continue on towards Galena, breaking the 120 miles between Cripple and Galena into two more evenly spread runs.

Teams must take an eight hour mandatory break at a checkpoint somewhere on the Yukon River so if she moves through Ruby she will have to decide on Galena, Nulato or Kaltag for that rest.

Their speeds on this run have been pretty good and consistently above what they were before the 24 hour break, which you would expect. The trail is described by Don Bowers Jnr as – “The terrain is generally wooded rolling hills for the entire route, with black-spruce taiga (Russian for “land of little sticks”) interspersed with heavier forests on better-drained slopes and in river bottoms, as well as the inevitable open swamp and muskeg areas. The road from Sulatna Crossing to Ruby has some moderate hills with long but relatively easy grades, with a few excursions to timberline.”

After Galena the trail is entirely on the Yukon River for 130 miles.

There is a winter storm warning for the area at this time. Temperatures are warm with highs of around +30F during the day and often times with that, comes snow. Check out the NOAA website for details.

Time 8:50am Race Mile 425

Woohoo! Off they go after their 25 hour 10 minute rest in Cripple. Aliy as all 13 dogs with her. She now has the first of the two green ‘mandatory stop’ ticks next to her name in the current standings. The second tick is the eight hour stop teams must make somewhere along the Yukon River (checkpoints from Ruby to Kaltag).

Unfortunately the live feed from Cripple was pointing in another direction so we didn’t get to see them leave. As anticipated, they have dropped back down the leaderboard as many of those that took their 24s in previous checkpoints back have passed by, so they have left in 29th position at 8:38am.

Seems the trail over from Cripple to Ruby has been difficult and a bit of a slog for the teams that went through overnight and report are that there is ‘weather’ coming as the teams get closer to the Bering Sea coast so there are still many challenges ahead. We’re only half done!

During their long break Aliy’s goal will have been to give the dogs as many calories as they could eat, as much rest as they could get and spend time massaging and stretching so they are fighting-fit ready to take on the second half of the race. She herself will have had a couple of good long sleeps and should be feeling pretty great herself. She’ll be looking to make up some places so needs everyone in tip-top shape for the 550 miles to the finish line.

As for the SP support crew – it was an odd day yesterday. Although we didn’t have to watch the tracker (although we did, of course!) there were a number of other things going on that demanded our attention concerning the happenings in Nome at the end of the race. Things are changing rapidly in the whole country, and indeed the world right now and the Iditarod is not immune to the effects of the virus and we learned yesterday there will be no Musher Banquet, no Meet the Musher and no other Iditarod festivities in Nome at the end of the race, in the interests of public health (see Iditarod announcement). This changes everything for the support crews so we are all just waiting to see what will happen over the next 24 hours in terms of logistics. We don’t know quite what will happen yet.

Time: 7:40am Race Mile 425

Aliy and her 13-strong team pulled into the checkpoint at Cripple at 7.28am this morning. Their run over from Ophir was just under 15 hours including a three hour rest after about seven hours, just after crossing Folger Creek. We were able to watch their arrival into the checkpoint on the live feed and we enjoyed seeing them briefly as they parked in the long term parking area. We have to assume they are staying here for 24 hours. With the time differential they will need to stay 25 hours, 10mins.

They are technically in 7th position right now but a bunch of teams have come off their 24 hour rest behind them and will pass them as they rest at Cripple so she will drop back down the standings when that happens. An advantage to taking the long rest later is the dog team is fresher so she may be able to pick up some places from those that didn’t rest as recently.

Aliy called Allen this morning and she’s doing great as are the dogs.

The Insider interviewed Aliy at Ophir and she again reiterated that she is reconciled to the fact she is not competing for the win and is still enjoying the running. The dogs are great, they’re not sick or hurt, they are simply slower than they ought to be.

A few screenshots of the team arriving into Ophir sees the line up as: Cousins QT and Junior in lead, Spark and his older brother Dutch in swing, Kodiak and his little brother Decaf, brothers Rodney and Five, siblings Chevie and Jefe, Cloud running on her own, with sisters Amber and Violet in wheel.

An ‘Aliy Cam’ from 2016 shows the team travelling along the trail around 30 miles from Cripple. The team was running in the daytime in this video and I expect there is more snow on the trail this year but it will give you an idea or the surrounds.

For those with access to the tracker and who might be wondering – the short ‘blips’ downward on the analytical view are when she stops the team to give them a snack (frozen beef, poultry skin and/or salmon). Sometimes the tracker captures it, sometimes it doesn’t, depending on the signal cycle. She has a regular schedule for snacking during a run, same as during training. The dogs will have their snack, find something to pee on, say hi to their neighbours and if it is warm they’ll sometimes roll in the snow and shake themselves off. Aliy could also take this opportunity to swap dogs around if need be.

While I was up in the middle of the night checking the tracker, the Live feed was broadcasting from Norway – check out one of the background screens!

Time: 5.30pm Race Mile: 357

Since I last wrote, Aliy and her team have moved on through Takotna and Ophir checkpoints and are currently heading towards Cripple checkpoint where, we presume, they will take her 24 hour mandatory stop. Read a detailed description of the trail here.

Through Takotna this morning was an extremely efficient affair. Just three minutes recorded in the checkpoint. As I mentioned earlier she packed her drop bags with “to go” bags ready if she decided to move through a checkpoint. She also packed a “return” bag of all her non-perishable items and equipment such as dog sleeping jackets, fleece blankets, human clothing, harnesses etc, that can be sent home after the race. Had she stayed, all the gear was available but as she went through she didn’t want to spend time sorting what needs to go home. Sleeping jackets, blankets and clothing are waiting for her at further checkpoints.

The team stopped for just under four hours in Ophir, enough to give the dogs a good sleep in the heat of the day and a warm meal, and Aliy a nap. Both Ophir and Cripple are ghost towns now-a-days so are not as bustling as some of the other checkpoints.

Stopping at Cripple for the 24 hour break was Aliy’s plan A so we’re excited that she is sticking with that plan. According to the standings she is in 7th place but that is meaningless as many of the mushers ‘behind’ her are taking their 24 hour break and will leapfrog past her when she stops the team for their long break.

Have you been following the Teacher on the Trail – Kelly Villar’s column? It is an interesting take on the race and her latest entry has this cool pic of Aliy getting a kiss from Spark.

We expect Aliy to stop the team for a short break somewhere along this trail before arriving in to Cripple so don’t be alarmed if you see her tracker paused.

Time: 8.20am Race Mile: 318

Just a quick update from overnight – Aliy and her team mushed into McGrath at 2.12am and spent around just over five hours in the checkpoint, leaving at 7.20am this morning. This amount of time would have given the dogs and Aliy a good rest ready for the trail ahead. Listening to other mushers’ Insider interviews it sounds like the trail between Nikolai and McGrath was a bit soft in sections and therefore slow so a good rest was in order.

Right now Aliy and her 13 team mates are headed towards Taktona where a number of teams appear to be taking their 24 hour break. Aliy has packed for several 24-hour possibilities sending enough food and gear to different checkpoints so she had options and could cover contingencies. At this stage I’m not sure which option she’s going to take the long rest so we’ll have to wait to see what she decides is best for the team. Mushers must ‘declare’ their long stop when they arrive into the checkpoint and check-in (although if they then decide to leave early they can.)

We’ll be keeping an eye on the tracker for much of the day to see what she decides to do.

Here are a couple of articles, one from ADN and one from KTUU who caught up with Aliy in Nikolai where she explains just what I was talking about in my last post. The dogs are happy and healthy but not as fast as many of the teams in front of her.