Complete Junior Iditarod Race Coverage

Home Fires Burn at Yentna

Saturday, February 23, 2002 9:30 PM

Tyrell Seavey was the first team to arrive in Yentna this afternoon at 4:43 PM.  He was followed by Cali King just four minutes later.  Within an hour of King's arrival, a group of teams was beginning to assemble in the trees around Yentna Station Roadhouse.

A team arrives at Yentna around dusk this evening.

According to the mushers, the trail has been fairly good, with the only punchy sections around the trail between the Eagle Song checkpoint on Trail Lake and Yentna Station.  The teams have been moving fairly quickly along the three miles of  hard-packed trails up the Yentna River leading to the halfway checkpoint at Yentna Station.

When she arrived at Yentna, I asked Hannah Moderow how this year's Junior Iditarod compared with her first run in 1999 when she was fourteen.  "Well, the first time we ran the race, we knew we were just going to go out and die.  This time, we know we might just make it."  She smiled a confident smile as she said this.  Hannah is running her fourth Junior Iditarod, and has "survived" the three previous ones, finishing very respectfully every time.

Hannah Moderow at the starting line this morning.

As of the writing of this update, 18 of the 19 teams in the race have arrived at Yentna, the 18th of which having arrived just after 9 PM.  Katrina Rix is the only team not into Yentna, and is expected in shortly.

As mushers arrive, they grab bags of food and supplies that they sent out prior to the race, they break open bales of straw for their dogs to bed down on, and they melt snow into water to make warm soup for the dogs.  When these chores are done, the mushers look over their dogs and ensure that everyone is feeling well and happy and healthly.  Once the dogs are sleeping comfortably on the straw with full bellies, the mushers wander toward a camp fire centrally located among the resting teams. 

Tyrell Seavey (right) and Cali King (left) discuss the trail and their teams at Yentna earlier this evening.

The campfire is a Jr. Iditarod institution.  For years, it was a boys against girls competition over who would haul the wood and build the fire.  This year, Tyrell Seavey bought a new video game for one of the local kids in exchange for him hauling the wood and building the fire.  The video game was sent out in Tyrell's food drop bag, and he produced the video game as soon as the fire was going strong.

Because teams must rest for 10 hours at Yentna, mushers have a considerable amount of time to sit around the fire if they so choose.  Some spend many hours telling stories and laughing beside the fire while others only stop by for a few minutes before climbing into their sleeping bags to rest up for the run home.  But no matter how long each musher stays, nearly every musher makes at least a brief appearance at the fire to say hello and hear the "news."

A team runs up the Yentna River toward Yentna Station.  The Junior Iditarod motto is "Blazing the Trail for Future Generations."

While I was around the fire, I heard mushers recalling past Junior Iditarods, Junior Yukon Quest Races, and other fun times on the trail while others were talking about the way that the start time differential works.  The big topic was that Tyrell Seavey arrived four minutes ahead of Cali King, but because King started eight minutes behind, she is really four minutes ahead of Tyrell, and will leave first at 2:57 AM, followed by Tyrell at 3:01.  But wait someone asked, is that right?  A few people looked confused, and then everyone realized that the logic was sound and laughed at the misunderstanding.  The conversation shifted to something else, and another log was added to the fire.

Many people describe the Junior Iditarod as "summer camp at 40 below," and in the sense that a bunch of kids are able to get together to share something so common to them but so rare among their peers, this is an accurate description.  The camaraderie and sportsmanship that is so common to the sport of mushing has its roots renewed with each musher who passes by the campfire at Yentna Station tonight. 

Reporting from Yentna Station Roadhouse on the Iditarod Trail, Jim Gallea for Ultimate Iditarod

© 2002 Ultimate Iditarod, Snowcrest Racing Sled Dogs, Seavey's Iditarod Racing Team
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