It's Monday morning and mushers have been on the trail for about 17 hours as of this writing. Ryan Redington, bib #20, is currently leading the pack at race mile 150 and closing in on the Rainy Pass checkpoint. The back of the pack has two mushers preparing to check out of Skwentna, and the rest of the field spread out along the trail in between.
Quick update on our field: Rookie musher Sean Williams of Chugiak, Alaska, slated to wear bib #35, withdrew from the race yesterday morning before the start due to a non-Covid related family health issue. That gives us 46 total mushers in this year's competition.
After leaving the starting line, Kristy and Anna both ran for about 5 hours before stopping for a camp out to rest and feed the dogs. Although Kristy would have gotten to their designed campsite first, I do believe they spent the majority of this approximately 4 hour stop together. Kristy pulled into Skwentna around 11:40pm Sunday night, with Anna pulling in 15 minutes later. Neither twin spent more than a few minutes in checkpoint, inevitably grabbing dog food and supplies from a drop bag, straw, and HEET, before hitting the trail again.
After Skwentna, GPS trackers have both twins moving steadily along the trail. Between 1 and 2am, the elevation readings on their trackers showed the steady increase indicative of their start up and over the Alaska Range. They stopped for another planned campout trailside between 3 and 3:30am, again resting the dogs and themselves about 4 hours. This campsite was at race mile 111, and both Kristy and Anna started moving down the trail again around 7am.
Having rested trailside fairly recently, I do not expect to see either Kristy or Anna spend much time in the Finger Lake checkpoint (race mile 123). I suspect they will again resupply before moving on almost immediately for Rainy Pass. About 10 miles before the Rainy Pass checkpoint, they will tackle the Happy River Steps, a series of aggressive downhill switchbacks in the trail. This is a notoriously technical portion of trail, likely made more challenging by deep trenching.
Trenching is caused by the amount of sled traffic and the need for each musher to use his or her drag pad and brake a lot to control the team. The deeper the trench, the harder it is to achieve effective braking and the easier it is to get sucked into a rut and tip a sled. Many mushers, including the twins, will also unsnap the dogs' necklines prior to a section like this. It gives the dogs more freedom of movement alongside the line and a chance for each to find a smoother section of trail to run on. Below are some pictures Kristy's husband, Andy, took at the bottom of Happy River Steps during the 2020 Iditarod. The deepest trench was a whopping 4 feet deep!
After tackling that, odds are higher that we will see both twins take a rest within the checkpoint of Rainy Pass once they arrive, which is race mile 153.
Quick update on our field: Rookie musher Sean Williams of Chugiak, Alaska, slated to wear bib #35, withdrew from the race yesterday morning before the start due to a non-Covid related family health issue. That gives us 46 total mushers in this year's competition.
After leaving the starting line, Kristy and Anna both ran for about 5 hours before stopping for a camp out to rest and feed the dogs. Although Kristy would have gotten to their designed campsite first, I do believe they spent the majority of this approximately 4 hour stop together. Kristy pulled into Skwentna around 11:40pm Sunday night, with Anna pulling in 15 minutes later. Neither twin spent more than a few minutes in checkpoint, inevitably grabbing dog food and supplies from a drop bag, straw, and HEET, before hitting the trail again.
After Skwentna, GPS trackers have both twins moving steadily along the trail. Between 1 and 2am, the elevation readings on their trackers showed the steady increase indicative of their start up and over the Alaska Range. They stopped for another planned campout trailside between 3 and 3:30am, again resting the dogs and themselves about 4 hours. This campsite was at race mile 111, and both Kristy and Anna started moving down the trail again around 7am.
Having rested trailside fairly recently, I do not expect to see either Kristy or Anna spend much time in the Finger Lake checkpoint (race mile 123). I suspect they will again resupply before moving on almost immediately for Rainy Pass. About 10 miles before the Rainy Pass checkpoint, they will tackle the Happy River Steps, a series of aggressive downhill switchbacks in the trail. This is a notoriously technical portion of trail, likely made more challenging by deep trenching.
Trenching is caused by the amount of sled traffic and the need for each musher to use his or her drag pad and brake a lot to control the team. The deeper the trench, the harder it is to achieve effective braking and the easier it is to get sucked into a rut and tip a sled. Many mushers, including the twins, will also unsnap the dogs' necklines prior to a section like this. It gives the dogs more freedom of movement alongside the line and a chance for each to find a smoother section of trail to run on. Below are some pictures Kristy's husband, Andy, took at the bottom of Happy River Steps during the 2020 Iditarod. The deepest trench was a whopping 4 feet deep!
After tackling that, odds are higher that we will see both twins take a rest within the checkpoint of Rainy Pass once they arrive, which is race mile 153.
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Photos, from Andy Pohl, show deeply trenched trail through the Happy River Steps during the 2020 Iditarod.
