Bill Gallea for Ultimate Iditarod

The second position team of John Baker arrives at Ruby.

STORIES FROM THE TRAIL
VIEW FROM THE FRONT
HOW ABOUT OUR FOUR TEAMS

STORIES FROM THE TRAIL

I’ve been asking all the mushers if they have any stories from the trail that represent interesting, challenging, funny, or even dangerous incidents that you might like to hear. I’ve heard few stories so far, which is a testament to the fact that the trail is relatively benign. The fairly flat, smooth, hard packed, and fast course this year is bad for aspiring journalists.

One tale I heard this afternoon concerns veteran musher Ted English, who has entered multiple Iditarods over the last three decades. Now Ted is old enough to receive mail from AARP (like me), and he has put on a few pounds over the last few years. And I don’t think he‘d disagree if I said he wasn’t the most agile of mushers competing this year.

Ted took a nasty tumble in some overflow coming into Tanana last evening, and arrived quite wet and cold. I guess he looked a bit like one of the ice sculptures which adorn Fairbanks at this time of year. But he dried out and warmed up and was in good spirits this morning when I saw him tending to his dogs. He’s taking a long rest in Tanana before heading on the Yukon River.

Musher Frank Sihler, a rookie, shared with me stories about his lead dod, Wiley. Wiley has been Frank’s main leader for two years, and is the key dog in his team. The interesting thing is that Wiley is blind.

This ten-year-old athlete can’t see at all out of one eye, and can only see shadows from the other. When Frank first started running Wiley he was afraid to be out in the front of the team. But under Frank’s patient and persistent tutelage, he has gained confidence in his musher’s coaching ability, and now follows his commands promptly and without hesitation.

Frank explained that he has developed a certain tone of voice and uses the word “easy” to let Wiley know when the trail ahead is tricky. Then Wiley slows down and takes special care of his footing, listening for directional signals, like ‘gee’ and ‘haw’. When the trail is great, Frank just picks his cadence, and strengthens his voice back up to normal, and Wiley stretches out and paces the team with good speed. Maybe he’s not as fast as Robert Sorlie’s leader, but he’s moving along.

Some folks are surprised that veteran musher and former champion Dean Osmar is not farther towards the front of the pack. But Dean told me that he entered this year’s race not to win, but to commemorate his long and strong friendship with two men who died during the last year: Seth and Ed. In fact, Dean is carrying some of Seth’s ashes, and plans to distribute them along the trail further toward Nome.

Ray Redington Jr., grandson of Iditarod founder, Joe Redington, Sr. mushes swiftly along the Yukon River toward Ruby this afternoon.

THE VIEW FROM THE FRONT

Five teams have arrived in Ruby as of this moment: Robert Sorlie, John Baker, Martin Buser, Jeff King, and Ramy Brooks. Sorlie left here about an hour ago. I was writing and editing photos when he left, so I didn’t see him depart. Robert told Roxy Wright, who is Ramy Brooks’ mother, that he followed his plan and rested only three hours on the river between Tanana and Ruby. So either the trail was longer, his speed has slowed down, or he actually rested longer. We don’t have any good way to know at this point. We also have no information about how long the other frontrunners rested on the Yukon during this last stretch.

Robert arrived before we did, but we saw the next three teams pull in. John Baker’s team was steady, but appeared to be really happy to be heading to bed. Martin’s’ teams looked quite perky. Any difficulties that seemed apparent leaving Tanana were nowhere to be seen here. Jeff’s team still looks the strongest to most observers…but it’s still awfully early. Ramy Brooks, who placed second in 2002, is establishing himself as a frontrunner. No one is surprised by that. We’ll be keeping a closer eye on him from now on.

With the amount of time teams are resting outside checkpoints it is hard to tell whose team is fastest. The mushers get a better sense of this themselves if they are able to travel together. Some of the teams may be shorting their rest a bit now, planning to catch up on the overall ratio of running and resting with the 24-hour layover. That part of strategy will be coming into play in this middle portion of the race. We’ll be doing our best to give you a complete understanding of how that works.


HOW ABOUT OUR FOUR TEAMS

All four of the teams that UltimateIditarod is following are doing well. Last evening in Tanana, Mitch was the most relaxed and confident that I’ve seen him during any of his previous Iditarods. He is exactly on his schedule, and has a full team of healthy, happy huskies. It’s a little disconcerting for Mitch that he’s not closer to the front, given those circumstances. But it’s too early for a racer to deviate from their basic race plan in response to what’s happening with the competition. And he could certainly move up many places if his team stays so strong.

Cindy is also on her schedule. She had to drop one of her favorite lead dogs, Don, whom she purchased from Jeff King back in 2000. Don developed a partial tear of his Achilles tendon, so will have to rest a good long time to heal up. Hopefully he can run again next year. In the past we believed that this type of injury meant that a racing career was over. But we now know that many of these sports injuries can heal, and the dogs return to full, unrestricted activity.

Jeff King, John Baker, and Martin Buser get some much deserved rest in Ruby this evening.

Jim and Tyrell are also on their schedules, which involve taking more rest than their parents’ teams. This is, of course, because they’re running younger dogs. They started about two hours apart, and are still running at exactly that interval. Jim was in great spirits this morning in Tanana. Tyrell had just left when I showed up at the checkpoint after breakfast. These youngsters are hard to keep up with!