SPK Dog Log

It’s 10am Alaska time. Feeling: Amazed at technology to enable us to watch live from rural Alaska.

Several teams have pulled in to Nikolai this morning. Aliy and her mates arrived at 8:58am as the fourth team in. Watching the live feed the Insider set up in the checkpoint we were able to see the team arrive and Mismo and Five were leading them in. Aliy will switch the dogs into different positions on the team during the race to make things interesting for the dogs and renew enthusiasm now and again. Sometimes the lead dogs just need a break from decision making or team mates get bored of running next to each other after a few hundred miles.

The dogs were not wearing jackets on arrival – it is still very warm up the trail – but we saw Aliy dressing them in puffy insulated coats to sleep. Aliy has in her sled two types of dog jacket – a light wind breaker the insulated coat that she’ll mix and match depending on weather. Also in her drop bags she has sent various other fleece lined coats and fresh, dry coats to switch out the ones the dogs have worn.

During the live broadcast we also saw the vet team doing physical exams on the dogs. There is an army of volunteer veterinarians up and down the trail providing hands on checks and giving advice to mushers and ensuring the dogs are in tip-top shape.

Nikolai is the first village along the trail the teams will travel through. Up to now the stops have been at lodges, roadhouses, or even private homes. There are three ‘ghost towns’ along the route that have a population of zero – Rohn, Ohpir, and Iditarod.

During the night the team stopped to camp around the Tin Creek area at mile 209 for around 3.5 hours, a favourite place to stop of Aliy and Allen over the years. Several mushers were camped in the same spot.

From their camp it was 54 miles to Nikolai and now the team have settled in to rest again for a while. (I say “for a while” because I actually have no idea how long they will stay. Aliy had several race plans and contingencies depending on how the dogs were looking and the weather etc, so honestly your estimate is as good as mine)

After a rest here in Nikolai they will set off for McGrath, some 48 more miles down the trail. A quick overview from the Don Bowers Jr trail notes: ” The trail cuts cross-country southwest from Nikolai toward McGrath, running along a series of lakes and swamps interspersed with wooded stretches to Big River. It then runs west down Big River for a few miles to the Kuskokwim River, then down the Kuskokwim to McGrath”

We are hoping to bring you some pics or at least updates from down the trail as Allen and Aliy’s Dad Doug are hopping a plane to visit a couple of checkpoints along the way. This is also very weather dependent and then, once there, very internet dependent – but I will update with anything I hear.

For some different coverage you can check out KTUU Channel 2’s online coverage – they have a couple of reporters travelling the trail including race veteran DeeDee Jonrowe and contributions by Libby Riddles. ADN (Anchorage Daily News) also has reporters and photographers on the trail (Note: their content is behind a paywall)

It’s 8.15pm Monday evening – Feeling: encouraged that the evening is cooling down

Summary

After spending three hours at Finger Lake this morning, Aliy and the team ran through the technical trail down the Happy River Steps and climbed up to Rainy Pass checkpoint on Puntilla Lake, where she rested the team for another 3.5 hours in the heat of the day. They then successfully navigated the Dalzell Gorge to Rohn where they have just left after a quick 45 minute rest, mainly for Aliy to resupply her sled for the run over to Nikolai.

I was driving with Allen today so I asked him to tell us what the trail is like for the 75 miles between Rohn and Nikolai checkpoints.

I have another few sections of trail recorded so I’ll post them when the team is moving through those areas.

Earlier today

It’s been a warm day here in Two Rivers today – in the last week or two we have noticed suddenly there is some heat in the sun rather than the weak, watery winter sun of the last few months. Comparing our temperatures to what is out on the trail it appears they experienced about the same this afternoon – hovering around 30F – so we have a very good idea what Aliy and the dogs were feeling.

It’s not ideal conditions for running dogs but mushers will be trying to get into a run/rest schedule that means the dogs are resting during the warmest part of the day – where possible. Resting in the sunshine is great for the dogs to stretch out relax without the need for extra jackets and blankets or them curling up to conserve heat. Tig, the kennel labrador was doing just that in the lounge this afternoon, she found a patch of sun and was so totally relaxed she snored for an hour straight.

An Insider video of the team coming in showed happy wagging dogs without too many tongues hanging out – in fact we could spot some frosting around their faces so the temperature may have decreased a little on their run up to the checkpoint. At that point Mismo and Dutch were still leading the way.

If you have the Insider GPS Tracker package you can click on the analytics of each musher to get a more in-depth look at their run/rest schedule to date. You can see from this screen shot the green line is speed and you’ll see the first three hours camp off the trail, three hours in Finger Lake then 3.5 hours in Rainy Pass. The blue line is trail elevation so you can correlate a team’s speed with the terrain they are moving along.

Another Insider video shows the team getting up ready to leave Rainy Pass – guess who is making the most noise – yes, those usual suspects Decaf and Jefe. That is one of the reasons Aliy chose those two boys as her team mates – their enthusiasm! You’ll also spot Aliy is leaving the checkpoint with her waders on – they were rolled down to her calves with duct tape around them ready for easy conversion to hip-boots if needed. So far I have not heard reports of the trail between Rainy and Rohn so we’re not sure if she utilised them or not.

On the section of trail between Rainy Pass and Rohn the teams climb up to the Rainy Pass summit then down the infamous Dalzell Gorge. Here is an “Aliy Cam” video from 2016 through the Gorge.

Next stop – Nikolai.

BTW for those asking – Scooby is back at the kennel. Thanks to Amanda and the Smokin’ Ace team who brought him home in their truck, let him sleep at their home last night and gave him breakfast. Thanks Amanda and team! He is busy telling his neighbours Cayenne and Chevie all about his adventure to Anchorage for an 11 mile run, then his ride home in a box the famous lead dog Keeper might have slept in, and his doggie hotel stay.

Its 7.00am local time. Feeling: relaxed the dogs are settling into routine.

Overnight Aliy and her team rested three hours at their camp spot on mile 74 before moving through Skwentna checkpoint and on to Finger Lake, arriving around 5.30am. There she and the team are currently resting. Teams are leapfrogging each other, and will do for the entire race, as each musher has a different run/rest plan for their dogs. Some will run longer and rest longer while others will take shorter runs and rest shorter, and you’ll notice some stay mainly at checkpoints while others choose to camp out on the trail. Strategies will vary widely and for that reason it is near impossible in the early stages to answer the question “who’s winning?”

Aliy will camp the team both in checkpoints and out on the trail. There are pros and cons to each option and Aliy sometimes prefers to camp out, especially in the early stages of the race, to give the dogs and herself better rest. There is a general ‘hubub’ in the checkpoints as teams and visitors come and go that can be distracting for the dogs, particularly the younger ones, and also the humans. There are only three mandatory checkpoints stops – one a 24 hour rest at any checkpoint along the way, an eight hour stop on the Yukon River (checkpoints Shageluk to Kaltag), and an eight hour stop at White Mountain.

From Finger Lake the trail becomes tricky as the team navigates what Donald Bowers Jnr describes in his trail notes as “some short stretches of extraordinarily difficult trail”. From his notes: “After leaving Finger Lake, the trail climbs steeply over a ridge to Red Lake, … then follows a series of climbing wooded shelves interspersed with open swamps. About ten miles from Finger Lake, the trail drops down a series of wooded benches toward Happy River, then onto the river itself via the dreaded Happy River steps. Then it’s down the river to its mouth, up the Skwentna River for a few hundred yards, and back up a steep ravine to the plateau on the south side of the Happy… There are two nasty stretches of sidehill trail in the last eight miles.” Our team thrives on ‘tricky’.

The trail report the mushers received at their meeting mentioned some sections of overflow (water) after the Rainy Pass checkpoint. For this, Aliy packed Allen’s waders! She took this selfie for me to share with you while the team is moving through that section. Lookin’ stylie!

If you have the Insider check out the first “Run Dogs Run” from the Ceremonial Start featuring Mismo and Spark right at the start, rearing to go!

To find out more about the trail click here to link to the Trail Map then click on each leg description to link you to Donald Bower Jnrs trail notes for each section.

It’s 9.30pm local time. Feeling: Relief to have them on the trail.

Currently, Aliy and her team have stopped to camp at mile 74 on the Yentna River, about nine miles short of Skwentna. They blew through Yentna checkpoint this afternoon at 6.36pm. Aliy will rest her team a few hours here and they will start to settle into their race routine – a far cry from the Ceremonial Start and Restart fun/chaos of the last couple of days.

Earlier this morning, when we arrived at Willow the temperature was around freezing or just above, with big fat flakes of snow plopping around us – enough to make everything pretty but just a little bit damp. The forecast for the race is for warm weather and more snow with the odd storm thrown in as a possibility. Fresh snow will slow down the race as the trails won’t be hard-packed racetracks.

The staging area today was in the Willow Community Centre carpark – we would normally park down on Willow Lake but for various climate related reasons it was unsafe to do so this year so we were up off the lake. The start chute was set up on the ramp, sloping down towards the lake and there were thousands of spectators lining the route for at least a couple of miles.

Right away we let the dogs out of the truck for a watery, meaty snack to hydrate before their journey then popped them back in for a couple of hours to nap. I peeked in on Rodney during that time and he was sound asleep. Aliy, in the meantime, packed her sled and made sure she had everything she and the dogs might need until their first resupply point. She also took time to get focussed and into her own race-mode.

About one hour before ‘go time’ we got everyone up, harnessed and bootied them then tried to keep an aura of calm around the truck. Once the other teams started to leave though that went out the window a little, especially for Decaf and Rodney – it was just too exciting.

The whole crew of Zirkle/Moores navigated the team to the line slowly and safely and after final high-fives and hugs we send them on their way. We were very pleased to get the team on the trail and onwards towards Nome. All the dogs and Aliy were pleased to get going also. Now it is just Aliy and her team mates for the next week.

Here are some pics and a video of the team leaving the line – we have more pictures and video to sort through and I’ll share them with you over the next few days.

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Photos by Barbara Swenson, Karolyn and Moira

We did things a little differently this year for the Ceremonial Start video – here you will see some of the behind the scenes preparations that go into the start, plus the first mile of the run. Hold on for 4th and Cordova!

What a great time! Aliy, Allen and their 12 team mates enjoyed their run through downtown Anchorage – it seems to just get bigger and bigger each year with more people out on the trail supporting the race and mushers. Pop it on your bucket list, it is a unique experience!

Here are some of our favourite phone pics from the morning, more pics to come later…

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