SPK Dog Log

As I write this, the team is traveling up the Yukon River towards Dawson with 16 miles to go.

They spent over four hours at Clinton Creek hospitality stop enjoying the warmth and fellowship before their final run to the halfway point. It has remained more than (less than? Colder than) -40F in Dawson and this afternoon the breeze has started to pick up. Allen will be cold on the river!

Even though currently the team is in first position, Allen is running a fairly conservative race – rest-wise. He has rested more in most checkpoints than ever before in an effort to keep the pace of the team up.

We’ve managed to keep ourselves pretty busy since the team left from Circle. We’ve driven around 1,100 miles, packed and unpacked the truck of Dawson camp gear, built a camp, had a nap and eaten a couple of meals.  All the while checking the tracker and calculating the eta of our 15 athletes. It is now within a few hours of their arrival and we are so excited to see them. This is the hard part… the waiting…

Right now we are doing our final prep ready to welcome the team to Dawson later this evening.

Camp is ready so now we are thawing a bunch of frosted beef snacks and salmon to give the team at the arrival chute. We’re soaking kibble ready for their hot meal and preparing some food for Allen also.

Thanks Padee for lovingly preparing these beef snacks just before we left the kennel. We know the dogs will love them! And thanks to those the Geared Up The Dogs by purchasing beef or fish snacks – this is your contribution put to good use!

When the team arrives they will be checked in by officials where Allen’s mandatory gear will be ticked off. Allen will also go through immigration procedures to enter Canada. Once official duties and interviews are complete Allen will then mush the team to the campsite. This is a change from previous years where Aliy has been able to step onto the runners and take the team over the river. This year, the camp is actually along the Quest Trail so the musher must take the team. The trail is about 2.5 miles so may take up to half an hour.

We will jump into the truck as they leave the chute and will be stationed at various points along the way to ensure he can find our shelter. Camp will be lit up using our Head-lites collars so he can find it.

Once there, the veterinarians will do a thorough vet check of all the dogs while Allen is present and ask about any issues, offer advice and treatment as required, and organise for further checks and urine testing to be done throughout the 36 hour stop.

Moira will then take Allen back to the hotel to get a hot meal, shower then sleep. Aliy, Bridgett and Jeff stay with the dogs to undress them, massage muscles and feet, put their cozy fleece sleeping coats on and cover them all with fleece blankets ready for their first of many long naps here in Dawson. Jeff gets to stay with the team over night to see to their every need.

Waiting… refreshing… getting excited! We can’t wait to see those faces!

The YQ Facebook page is sure to have pictures and videos of the team’s arrival and I will get something us as soon as I am able. Remember also to keep checking our Instagram and Facebook pages as I have been posting pictures directly there.

Here is some awesome video that Bridgett, Jennifer and Scotty got after they climbed Eagle Summit themselves on foot to capture their Dad and the team successfully summiting.

In the first view you can see just how hard the dogs and, indeed, Allen are working up the steep slope. Right at the end you will hear him say “It’s punchy, can’t run” meaning he would normally be running up the hill pushing his sled but the trail is too soft for him to get any traction so his poling and pedalling instead.

Right near the top in the second view you will see the moment Allen stops ski-poling and puts his chains down, some of the dogs look back “hey” but continue when he asks them to.

On the descent you will see Allen crouching down, using his right hand to plunge his snow hook into the trail to slow the team. This is to ensure a safe and controlled descent for everyone.

Enjoy!

As Allen and the Black Team continue towards Dawson, we (the handler crew) have arrived.

After we said farewell to the team in Circle they travelled 60 miles to Slaven’s Roadhouse where Allen rested the team around five hours. Slaven’s always has exceptional hospitality for the mushers and Allen was looking forward to having a delicious meal and drying his gear over the wood stove. As Slaven’s is not an official checkpoint we don’t send drop bags there so the mushers bring everything with them from Circle.

The team mushed another 60 miles along the river to the Trout Creek hospitality stop where he gave the team over a couple of hours rest. He likely wouldn’t have had any rest there himself as the arrival and departure chores take the same amount of time where ever they stay and anything left over after that is rest time for Allen. A two hour stop would not leave him any time to rest.

At 11:10am the team pulled into Eagle in first position. There is still a long way to go in this race so don’t even look for any chickens to count for a long while yet. Check out the Yukon Quest Facebook page for some great images of the team arriving.

We have noticed from this picture that he has swapped out his leaders. Spark and Dutch are in lead here and he has moved Commando and Kodiak back to swing. This is likely to give Kodi and Commando a break as they had been leading the whole way.

There is a mandatory four hour stop for all teams in Eagle but Allen was always planning to give the team more than that. They rested 5.5 hours before he and 14 team mates left for the long climb up American Summit.

The climb up the summit is around 25 miles on the Taylor Highway – in the summer it is a road but in the winter it is not plowed. There’s is about four miles that is above the tree line so it is often really windy up there. The next 20 miles is on the road that goes up and down as they travel through the hills.

The trail then crosses 40 Mile River over a bridge and the then goes pretty sharply down onto the river. The 40 Mile River has pretty steep banks on either side and it’s pretty cold because the sun never gets down into the river due to the geography. It’s not windy down there but the temperature never rises much.

There is one hospitality stop at Clinton Creek, the owners of the cabin let the mushers in their cabin and cook for them. Last year Allen said he slept at the foot of their bed.

After 50 miles of travelling on 40 Mile River the trail T-bones into the Yukon and they turn upriver. The first 20 miles are not a super-highway, although they have been travelled for 100 years. Whereas, the last 30 miles into Dawson is a common trapline trail. The teams will start seeing the lights of Dawson about 3-4 miles out so when you approach town in the dark it is more exciting for the dogs.

The forecast overnight is cold, cold, bitter cold! It’s more than -40F here in Dawson. On the river? Goodness knows but it won’t be comfortable for the humans.

As for us, we left the kennel in darkness and were welcomed into Canada before the sun rose. Once it did it was gorgeous! We passed lynx, elk, moose and just missed a ptarmigan with a death wish. There was little traffic on the road, it’s a long, lonely road.

We stopped at Braeburn Lodge for breakfast, it’s quite a different place when the mushers, handler crews, media and race fans crowd in here in a few days so we took some time to meet with Steve, the owner, and enjoy the hospitality.

This year the campsite for the team is not over the river where it has always been. The river did not freeze well this year so no official ice bridge could be put in to get all the trucks and teams over there. Instead we are in the Bonanza RV camp which is a couple of miles south of town. We stopped there on the way in and started our set up.

Originally we thought we would just go have a look, then we thought “hey, well we may as well get everything out of the truck”. Then, “hey well we could start shovelling the snow, and while we are at it we could start setting up camp”.

Before we knew it we were half done but pretty cold and starving so we checked into our hotel, had a meal and retrieved the drop sacks we sent out a couple weeks ago. After dinner we returned to do more work and it is in pretty good shape. Tomorrow in the daylight we will put the finishing touches on as we await our precious ones.

Dawson is already alive with Quest Fever. In saying that I think Dawson is always alive with events, it is a vibrant town. We look forward to spending a few days here.

For now we are going to try to get some sleep interspersed with checking the tracker. Once they hit town we are all hands on deck so we’d like to be well rested so we can support them the best we possibly can.

Allen and the 14 dogs arrived at the Eagle Checkpoint at 11:10 am AKST!

This is the last stop before heading down the snow covered road to Dawson City.

Here are some photos from Eagle Summit taken by Jennifer Smith.

While the mushers and their teams mush from Circle to Eagle then on to Dawson they cover around 300 miles of trail. The handler crews can’t go that way, it is inaccessible by road during the winter. We get to go on a road trip! From Circle we double back through to Two Rivers; around to Whitehorse on the Alaska Highway; up the Klondike to Dawson City. That is a long sentence… because it is a long drive!

At the end of the journey we set up camp in Dawson ready for their team to arrive. It’s a mission indeed but one we are all happy to do to support our loved ones.

We are about to take off from the kennel and during this drive I won’t be able to update you much. Make sure to keep up to date using the GPS tracker, the leaderboard and YQ Facebook Page.

Circle City checkpoint is the furtherest North we can support the team by dog truck. Once teams leave here we don’t see them again for a couple of days, after they’ve mushed 300 miles.

The checkpoint is the Circle City fire house. The famous fire truck is housed here and makes for a great sleeping spot. The walls are adorned with posters for each musher made by the local school students. It’s pretty cold up here – between -25-30F.

I was speaking with John this evening – he is part of the trail crew who rode the trail from Circle back to Central this morning. He said that the creek trail was beautiful today. There was no overflow and although there was plenty of snow making it perhaps a little slower than normal, there were no wet areas for the teams to negotiate. He also said there was loads of caribou out there today – they rode by a herd of around 50. That will certainly energise the dog teams if they catch sight or smell of them. He also said when he rode it he saw no sign of the forecast winds.

Allen and 14 super looking athletes arrived into Circle checkpoint in the early hours after an approx 13 hour total “run” time that included a four hour rest on the trail. He said the dogs are looking fantastic and made great time to get here. He was also happy that the creek had no overflow! He was in really good spirits and even called across the dog yard to us “who won the Super Bowl?”

Allen’s checkpoint routine at Circle started with him giving antacid to the dogs immediately he arrived at the campsite. Because he then had to wait half an hour before snacking the dogs he set about giving them straw, heating water for their meal and took their booties off. The meal for the dogs is meat, fat and kibble that soaks while they are sleeping. They get that, with a second type of kibble added add calories and crunch, an hour before leaving the checkpoint.

Five got completely covered in straw with only his head poking out. He looked quite content. When Allen was taking his booties off he just lay there and lifted his front leg straight up in the air ready for bootie removal. After half an hour they all got a few snacks of beef, chicken and/or poultry skins then settled down for a nap.

Joe Hardenbrook, chef from Hard Eats had made an amazing Thanksgiving meal with turkey and veges, fired chicken and buns. He remembered Allen doesn’t eat potatoes and that he likes fried chicken. I can see several turkeys thawing on the side ready for the crowds that will arrive later today because the YQ300 teams also come here before turning around and heading back to their finish line at Central. And the turkey soup and peanut butter rice crispy treats? YUM! Thanks also to the community of Circle who also donated home made goods for handlers and visitors.

There is an excellent drying rack for musher gear in the firehouse and a quiet room for them to sleep so it is a checkpoint I know Allen looks forward to after the frigid Birch Creek. He will sleep for a little while (I really do mean a little while, perhaps an hour?) before feeding and dressing the team and packing his sled ready to leave for their run to Slaven’s Roadhouse, Trout Creek and Eagle.

As soon as we say goodbye to the team and watch them run off into the distance we will clear the camp spot and quickly jump into the truck back to Two Rivers to get ready for the drive to Dawson (more on that later). I won’t be able to post again until we get back to the kennel so keep an eye on the Quest website and Facebook for updates.