Daniel Vetsch for Ultimate Iditarod

TRAIL CONDIITIONS
SIGHTS ON THE TRAIL
UNEXPECTED SCRATCH

Karen Ramstead is running a team of Siberian Huskies

Jim Lanier as he travels down the Yukon River.

The mileage begins to add up on this skijor's feet.

TRAIL CONDITIONS

The trip over to Ruby was absolutely gorgeous yesterday with the sun beaming down on the Yukon River warming up all it touched. This made it comfortable for all the people on the trail but slightly too warm for the dogs during the heat of the day. Many of the mushers were allowing their teams to still take advantage of the sun by resting their teams during the warmest part of the afternoon. The dogs looked content on their beds of straw soaking up the sun and getting a good rest before they continued on their way to Ruby.

The scenery was incredible as we traveled down river. It was God’s creation at its finest with mountains rising up behind the tall banks of the Yukon. Then later in the day as the sun began to set on the river, it caused the sky to explode in a multitude of colors from orange to pink to purple.

The trail varied in condition from hard and slightly icy to soft and punchy. The bright shining sun had melted the snow, putting an icy crust on the top and hardening the trail. This made the trail soft during the afternoon and hard and icy as the temperature dropped towards the evening.


SIGHTS ON THE TRAIL

The beautiful scenery was not the only notable sight on the trail. While traveling down the trail on snowmobiles, we ran into a couple of people traveling to the beat of a different drum. First off, about a few miles out of Tanana we came across a man who was skijoring. He was skiing behind a sled loaded with gear and had one dog in front pulling off of the sled. His dog, GeeGee, looked like he had become accustomed to the job and had settled in to walking down the trail pulling the sled and helping out his master. It was a site out of the ordinary on the Iditarod trail with one dog pulling instead of the twelve to sixteen that we were used to looking at.

Farther down the trail we met up with Julian Crabtree who is from South Africa and was on the trail walking to Nome. That’s right, WALKING! He started in Nenana and was following the Serum Route on foot. There were several other people doing the same thing, but they were all miles ahead of him because an injured knee had slowed him down. Going into Manley, he slipped and fell with all his weight on his right knee, which did some damage to the joint. Now if he doesn’t step on it just right it causes him considerable pain and this is slowing him down. Even though he was only able to average about 3 miles an hour he was still determined to keep going and make it all the way to Nome.


UNEXPECTED SCRATCH

Also, there have been a few surprises with the dog teams in the race. After waking up this morning, I soon learned that Jason Barron had decided to pull out of the race. This was very surprising to me because I had expected Jason to do well this year. When I competed in the Iditarod last year I traveled the majority of the trail with Jason and his wife Harmony. All three of us were running puppy teams with the purpose of training the dogs. Both Jason and Harmony had good teams of puppies last year and looked like they would have a fairly competitive race team this year.

He was looking strong at the beginning of the race but quickly dropped off because of injuries and sick dogs. He dropped a couple of dogs because of injuries, but he had to take the majority of his leaders out of his team because of some unknown sickness. It caused his dogs to become incredibly sore and unable to run. Five of his leaders developed this sickness and that is why he was unable to continue. He said, “I just don’t have the leaders I need to make it worthwhile to continue.” So he decided to pull out of the race and give his dogs the care they need.