Yukon River
1:00 p.m.
March 10, 2006

by Tyrell Seavey

Ultimate Iditarod's coverage of the 2006 Iditarod sponsored by:

It’s getting a bit frosty out there. As tough as we mushers pretend to be there is nothing that makes you say “I want my mommy” quite like a 50 mile an hour gust of wind in -40 F weather. I don’t know how many hours I have spent on a dogsled with my shoulders hunched up around my ears trying not to move so I wouldn’t expose any cracks in my armor to the wind. It seems like us mushers get frozen in that position and even after we come into a checkpoint we waddle around like overgrown penguins. We try to warm up by moving around while at the same time trying to be as still as possible so we don’t freeze. The dogs are a lot better suited for these temperatures and especially with the addition of an insulated nylon coat the cold will not affect their performance until the thermometer bottoms out around -60 F.

Because Doug is fresh off of his 24 hour rest he should continue to out run Jeff for a little while longer but I do not think that he can recover the remaining 4 hour deficit with fast runs alone. If he is going to catch up he will have to cut rest at some point which is not his style. There is a whole gaggle of teams coming over from Cripple to Ruby as we speak and they are by no means out of the race. The run to Ruby is a little shy of 90 miles and is usually run in 8:30-10 hours in the current conditions. From there the teams will try to split the Yukon River into two approx. 75 mile runs. The favorite halfway camping spot is a sheltered nook behind a point in the river called Bishop Rock. I imagine there will be quite a bit of variation to this strategy this year because there will be a few mushers making desperate attempts to get into the top again and a few sticking to the checkpoints and not taking any chances with the extreme cold.

Although he is not out in front where we all want him, Mitch is still in good shape. If you follow the Iditarod Insider interviews you saw him mentioning troubles with sore dogs as he went through Takotna. He seems to have some of his problems worked out now because he is still running 14 dogs (which is plenty for this stage of the race) and posting good run times. I am keeping my fingers crossed for him.