Daniel Vetsch for UltimateIditarod

Elim checkpoint.

The sky was lit up beautifully as the sunset behind the mountains as we traveled into Elim

WEATHER ON THE COAST
A BROKEN SLED


WEATHER ON THE COAST

This morning dawned bright and sunny promising to be a beautiful day like all of the days we have had during the race up to now. Although it stayed clear today the wind kicked up and when it starts to blow on the coast there is no windbreak to stop it. It wasn’t blowing very hard compared to what it can do on the Bering Sea Coast but for anyone who is not used to coastal weather it would have been considered a horrendous wind. We crossed Norton Sound going from Shaktoolik to Koyuk in the afternoon and the wind was hitting us from the side and blowing us around on the machines.

Although the wind was harsh and biting, the day was still beautiful. As we made our way from Koyuk to Elim the sun was setting behind the mountains. The sky was lit up in bright pink and orange. It was so spectacular that at one point I pulled off the trail and stopped just so that I could watch the sunset.


A BROKEN SLED

This afternoon in Koyuk, DeeDee Jonrowe was frantically trying to get a replacement sled for hers because it was broken beyond repair. One of her aluminum runners broke just in front of where the driver stands so that she had no place to stand and her brake was useless.

Most often mushers are very ingenious at fixing broken sleds and usually all they need is a few things like wire, hose clamps and duct tape. With these few things almost anything can be fixed. A broke sled runner however, is not so easy to fix. It cannot be fixed with the tools and materials that the mushers have available to them so therefore a new solution has to be found.

The sled DeeDee had shipped from Kaltag to replace her broken sled.

This is why DeeDee was frantically trying to get another sled. First off she tried to get one of her own sleds flown or snowmachined ahead to her from a previous checkpoint. Most competitors will send a lighter racier sled out on the trail somewhere partly so that they have a faster sled to switch to and also in case they break their first sled. However, if their sled doesn’t break close to where they sent their second sled then they have to find a way to get it shipped to them. This wasn’t looking good, so then she tried to find a musher from the area that she could buy a sled off of. She wasn’t able to get a sled this way either. She knew she wouldn’t be able to leave Koyuk until she found a replacement sled so she continued to look. Finally she found a private plane that was able to fly back to Kaltag and pick up the sled she had sent out on the trail. The sled had to be taken apart so it could fit in the plane and she put it back together when she received it. Through all of this she was able to leave when she had planned.

Breaking her sled was just one small problem for DeeDee compared to what she has had to face. Last summer DeeDee was diagnosed with Brest Cancer. She underwent surgery and chemotherapy to fight off the cancer. The treatment has seemed to be successful but amazingly through all of this she still planned on running Iditarod. She prepared and trained and now after going through incredible hardships she is only a little over a hundred miles from the finish line. DeeDee has shown incredible strength and fought a hard battle.