SPK Dog Log

As Aliy and the team rest in Galena it reminded me that SP Kennel has a recent link to the village.

Some of you may remember back in May the village of Galena and other villages along the Yukon suffered flooding when the Yukon River suddenly broke from its winter freeze and spilled over its banks. I remember the admiration for the dedication of mushers in the village as they rescued their dogs and ensured they were safe. Click the pic below for a link to the SPK Doglog story about this.

You may also remember that SP Kennel took in 16 evacuated sled dogs for a few weeks until they were able to return to their owner Carlson Malemute (click here for the link to that story).

One wonders if Aliy might get a chance to catch up with Carlson and his dogs while she is in Galena?

Good morning! It’s 9.30am Friday morning Alaska time.

Aliy and 14 team-mates pulled into Galena at just after 6am this morning and are currently stopped. We will bring you information about who she left in Ruby as soon as we can. There are pictures of the team pulling into Galena and we have an idea but it is a little difficult to know with certainly as she does shuffle dogs around on the line every now and again.

As the first musher into Galena, Aliy won a new award for this year – The Bristol Bay Native Corporations’s Fish First Award”. She wins a check for $1,000, 25lb of Bristol Bay salmon, some canned salmon and smoked salmon strips and commemorative jacket.

I remember a story from Aliy’s 2012 Trail Notes where she was coming in to Galena and decided to do some “cheerleading” for the team and spell out G.A.L.E.N.A. – “Give me a G” – oh… whoops…

The Red Team’s camp stop just prior to Ruby allowed the team to head through that checkpoint and continue on to Galena. On paper it could look like she is “cutting rest” because the official rest time recorded in checkpoints is less than some, but if you are able to access the tracker analytics it is clear she is giving the team plenty of rest as they camp along the trail. Aliy and Allen believe that camping can give the dogs an even better rest than in a checkpoint as it is quieter with fewer interruptions to their sleep.

The Anchorage Daily News’ morning update discusses this (click the picture below).

The overall picture is still a little confusing as some of the teams have taken their mandatory Yukon River eight hour stop (Buser, Sorlie, Petit) and others have not (Aliy, Burmiester, King, Seavey, Lindner etc). Once they all have that second green tick on the current standings we will have a better idea of the “real” standings.

We’ve heard the rumours about an error in the exit time during Aliy’s 24 hour break where her leaving time was miscalculated by officials and she left 6 minutes early. I cannot confirm that nor find anything official about it so we will have to wait and see when she does her mandatory eight hour layover on the river.

Allen and his Black Team-mates left Cripple and are on their way to Ruby. The current standings haven’t quite caught up with that information but it looks like they stopped there for about 5.5-6 hours (of course, as soon as I hit “publish” they will update).

One thing I keep having to remind myself is that this race is still just only half over! Breathe, sleep, refresh…

You may be wondering why my insistence on knowing for sure who is dropped from teams before writing in the blog. I’d like to avoid “taking a stab at it” and getting it wrong if I can. We do have a bunch of us who know the dogs well pouring over the photos and videos and if it is truly obvious to all of us we’ll let you know.

Every single one of our racing dogs, yearlings and puppies has an individual dog sponsor and Aliy, Allen and the whole team feel we want their sponsors to be one of the first to know if their dog has been dropped from the team. Sponsors have a vested interested and feel very close to their dog and so, where practicable, we try to email them before we publish it here. Sometimes that’s not possible but that’s our intent.

It’s 9.30pm Alaska time.

Aliy and her Red Team are currently between Cripple and Ruby and they, once again, stopped for just over three hours on the trail. At the time of writing she has about 30 miles to go before getting in to Ruby.

In one of Sebastian’s latest blogs he describes her as “Spiderwoman” as she is double ski-poling. You know she will be putting in every effort to help the team down the trail and likely won’t stop poling until Front Street in Nome.

Aliy and Allen work very hard at their fitness and nutrition throughout the year and right here, right now, is where that starts to count.

Emily Schwing from KUAC radio in Fairbanks is following the race again this year and did a great story from Takotna checkpoint. In it she talks to Aliy, and others, about their schedules and about the temptation to alter their plans in response to other teams’ schedules. Take a listen (click here for the link).

Allen and his Black Team are about 40 miles from Cripple. A quick check of their tracker analytics show they camped on the trail for about 4.5 hours.

The Anchorage Daily News interviewed Allen at Takotna after Aliy left last night. It’s an interesting read. When we opened the link we were faced with this gorgeous picture of Mismo (left) and Felix singing! Meghan and I both simultaneously went “awwwwwww”! It looks like Puppet is joining in in the background too. Click on the picture to link you to the Q&A with Allen.

Horizon Lines is not only a major sponsor of SP Kennel but also of the Iditarod race itself. Horizon Lines is one of the nation’s leading domestic ocean shipping companies and supports the community through corporate outreach programs. We are proud to be associated with the team!

Chica, Clyde and Beemer (along with Aliy, Allen, Ray, Meghan and Moira) visited the office late last week to say thanks!

It’s 1.00pm Alaska time so while technically not a “morning” update, I’m updating on the morning’s events so I’m going to claim it. Sorry for the delay, I’ve been waiting for the official current standings to update so I can give you correct information.

Aliy and the Red Team have pulled into and out of the Cripple checkpoint are are on their way to Ruby. They are technically running in 4th position currently. Note thought that Jeff King and our Two Rivers neighbour Sonny Lindner, who are placed 1 and 2 respectively, have not completed their 24 hour stops at this time.

There are some fantastic pictures of the team in Sebastian’s latest blog! My favourite is this one of the team coming in to the checkpoint – look at those happy faces!

The Red Team’s run time for the Ophir-Cripple leg was 12 hours 31 minutes. Don’t be alarmed at that time comparing it to others as, according to the tracker analytics, the team stopped and camped along the trail for about 3.5 hours. You will see this strategy from both Aliy and Allen throughout the race. As previously mentioned they both enjoy camping so stops along the trail are generally part of their plan.

Overnight the Red Team had a quick run to Ophir and stopped there for about 19 minutes. Aliy is still running with 15 superstars. The next thing to consider for them is the mandatory eight hour rest somewhere on the Yukon River. Mushers can choose either Ruby, Galena, Nulato or Kaltag for this stop.

Allen and his Black Team-mates left Takotna after their 24 and have just pulled in and out of Ophir. Because it is only about 23 miles between the two checkpoints the dogs wouldn’t have been ready for a long rest there, especially having just come off their 24 hour break. They’ll be pleased to be back on the trail and appear to be tripping along very nicely indeed!

He has left one dog in Ophir and we will bring you information about who that is and why as soon as we can. It is likely whoever it is will be flown back to McGrath then to Anchorage so it could be some time before we know who it is.

The Anchorage Daily News has a fantastic video of Aliy and the Red Team leaving Takotna. It shows the SP howl and you can see Allen sending the team on their way. Take a look – click here. It made us smile!

It’s 10.00pm Alaska time.

Aliy and her 15 Red Team-mates left Takotna after their mandatory 24 hour rest plus the two hours for time differential. They left right on time at 9.06pm this evening. The Insider video shows that she’s had a bit of a shuffle around on the line. Quito is still in single lead and it looks like Chica and Nacho in swing, Willie with Waylon, Scruggs and Clyde, Pud and Chemo, Olivia and Boondocks, Mac and Sissy with Biscuit and Schmoe still in wheel (I think). Quito will be revelling in this role, she loves to be the one in control and she doesn’t seem to feel the pressure that some others do when in the same position for so long.

The video shows a fabulous SP howl as they are lined up ready! That means they are all feeling great and are ready to get on the trial. Another thing we noted was a number of them are wearing wind jackets which means the temperatures have dropped a little out there – good news.

Their next checkpoint is Ophir about 23 miles away then 73 miles after that is Cripple. Don Bowers’ trail notes on the Iditarod website describes Ophir as “your last vestige of civilization for a very long while. The trip from here to Cripple and on to Ruby is arguably the longest, emptiest, loneliest stretch of trail on the race, and the checkpoint at Cripple is basically nothing but tent camps in otherwise uninhabited locations.“

Allen and his Black Team are still resting. Their time differential is 102 minutes so we can expect them to leave at 9.01am tomorrow morning (if my calculations are correct). I spied one picture on one of Sebastian’s blogs of Tug resting peacefully.

If you are looking for something to watch or read this evening check out the following articles:

Late last year we had a visit from Tara Young from the Alaska Dispatch who came to the kennel, shot some video and interviewed Aliy and Allen. She has turned that in to part of the fantastic “Voices from the last great race” musher profile series.

Click the pic below to link you through to the first of these video interviews where Aliy talks about being a top female musher.

Click here for another story featuring Aliy talking about the dedication and enthusiasm of the dogs.

Also, espnw.com recently did an interview with Aliy and in case you missed it, here is the link to that story (click the photo below).

As just so you know, Aliy and Allen don’t get all the press! Here’s part of the Anchorage Daily News’ “Meet the Sled Dogs” series. Beemer is a rock star!

And for those interested, here is Lieutenant from Paul Gebhardt’s kennel – he is the Papa to Clyde on the Red Team and Outlaw on the Black Team. Their Momma is the legendary ChaCha, the lead dog at the centre of the picture above. Lieutenant is also the Papa of Puppet on the Black Team.

We have heard word about the two dropped dogs from Allen’s team. They’re both doing just fine.

SCOOTER was dropped in Rohn with a sore shoulder. She is one of those dogs that tries really hard all of the time and on the hard, fast trail developed some soreness. Allen decided, in her best interests, to leave her behind. We were able to pick her up from the Millennium Hotel this afternoon and she’s happy to be with us after having had a great adventure riding in a couple of planes and meeting lots of new people along the way.

BORIS was dropped in McGrath, he was a bit dehydrated and just not feeling 100%. He hasn’t quite made his way back to us here yet but hopefully we will see him soon.

L-R: Scooter and Boris

Allen will be disappointed to lose them both; he was excited to take Boris on his first trip to Nome. Boris has had a great training season and really deserved his place on the team. He ran in Meghan’s Copper Basin 300 team and her Solstice 100 team this season. He is a big dog with a thick coat who tries hard but can sometimes overheat in the warmer conditions. We look forward to seeing him and giving him a big hug when he gets here.

Scooter is one of Allen’s favorite dogs and was one of the first on his list so he’ll be sorry to have had to leave her behind. She is the cheerleader of the team and is always happy. She ran in Aliy’s champion Yukon Quest 300 team this season!

L-R: Scooter with dog drop volunteer Dana; Scooter and Meghan

Thanks for your patience as we got this information.

The March Howler is here! With everything else that is going on I clean forgot to give you this link but while the teams are resting it might be a good time to catch up!

In this issue we look back at the very successful Yukon Quest by Allen and the Black Team and the Yukon Quest 300 by Aliy and the Red Team.

We also look ahead to the Iditarod (a little belatedly, sorry – Moira)

We hope you enjoy it! Click on the picture (right) to link you with a pdf document.