What a difference a week makes! At this time last weekend, I was in Alaska helping the twins and enjoying all the excitement of the Iditarod Ceremonial Start. Now I'm back in Wisconsin and the twins and their dogs have traveled just over 520 miles through the rugged Alaska wilderness along the Iditarod trail in just under 5 days and 20 hours.
And as of this post, Kristy, Anna, and their dogs have another 477 miles to go.
We last left the twins on the 80-mile stretch between Ophir and Iditarod. After a trailside campout along the way, and what amounted to over a total of 16 hours on this long section of trail, they arrived in the checkpoint of Iditarod around 4:15am Friday morning. Anna was reported in 21st and Kristy in 22nd place. They took a 6 hour rest in checkpoint before hitting the trail again around 10:15am. They each pulled their snow hooks with the same 11 canine athletes in front of their sleds.
They mushed the 55 miles from Iditarod to Shageluk (race mile 487) over the day Friday, arriving around 6:15pm. As was their plan, they took their 8 hour mandatory rest in this checkpoint, ultimately staying about 8 hours 40 minutes. Neither twin returned any dogs home and got back out on the trail again with 11 dogs each just before 3am Saturday.
While I'm sure most of us were sound asleep, the twins traveled 25 miles and arrived in Anvik (race mile 512) at 6:45am. They barely stayed in checkpoint for a New York minute, clearly not needing to stop and return any dogs or even grab much of anything from their drop bags. They were reported out in 22nd and 23rd places. GPS has them about 7 miles outside of Grayling as I write this. Their race plan has Anna, Kristy, and their dogs taking a 5-6 hour rest in Grayling before they embark on the 62 miles to Eagle Island. Note, they do plan to camp out along that section of trail and we should see them make a fairly brief stop in the Eagle checkpoint itself.
BREAKING NEWS - I refreshed the current race standings while writing this and was positively flabbergasted to see last year's champion Brent Sass is now the 2nd musher to scratch from this year's race! He scratched in Eagle Island with an 11-dog team. Iditarod Insider posted a video and while all 11 of Brent's dogs are ok, Brent himself is dealing with an undisclosed medical issue and will be transported off the trail. I can only begin to imagine how heartbreaking that is for Brent, but I also know he would have made the decision that was both best for himself and his dogs. One must make hard choices along the trail of life but hopefully they are choices that allow us to mush again one day.
On behalf of Seeing Double, I wish nothing but the best for Brent and a safe, swift journey for his dogs back to Joe Bush Creek.
After that shocking development, we have 31 teams on the trail to Nome. The top 9 are all reported out of Eagle Island with the remainder of the top 15 teams all reported into Eagle. Three of those top 15 have yet to complete their mandatory 8 hour rest along this stretch. Rookies Eddie Burke Jr. and Hunter Keefe were last in 9th and 10th places, respectively, and I suspect their battle for Rookie of the Year will continue for the rest of the race. Rookie Gregg Vitello remains our Red Lantern and was last resting in the checkpoint of Iditarod.
In other news, it was a very pleasant surprise when the phone rang last night and it was Kristy! She happened to turn her phone on over the last few miles to Shageluk and was happy to find she had reception (Thanks, GCI!), so she lobbed a call into our Mom and this Mad Blogger. Anna was nearby on the trail.
Both twins were mushing along when Kristy called, and a couple times she asked us to "hold on a sec, I've gotta steer!" In between that and issuing some commands to her dogs or yelling something to Anna, she gave us a pretty fulsome update. Net net, it's been a good race so far. The dogs out on the trail with them are all doing really well. As for those that they returned home... we already knew about Tesla and Forrest thanks to our RDC Courtney. Kristy said she returned Bogus because "he just really wasn't all that into it" by the time they reached Takotna, likening him to Sergeant Murtaugh from the Lethal Weapon movie franchise ("I'm just too old for this sh*t..."). She returned Papa Doc from Nikolia after he was showing some signs of soreness in his back legs, likely from the ups and downs of the moguls earlier in the race. Anna returned Chaos from Nikolai and Diego from Takotna for the same reason. All three will recover from their soreness but it was a good idea to send them home before soreness turned to more serious injury.
Kristy said the Dalzell Gorge was actually FUN this year and possibly their best ride ever down the 200 foot drop. They were well prepared for a bit of rain around McGrath, learning from prior years to pack a tarp to keep sled bags and the extra dog coats they carried dry. Most recently they had been enjoying some hard, fast trail. Overall they're happy with they weather they've had, although a few times it got a little too warm. They might miss that warmth on some of the upcoming sections of trail, but at least they've got dry coats for the dogs and gear for themselves.
Kristy has been running Mayhem, Rampage, and Wilbur in lead quite a bit, and Andy even took a few turns. Anna has relied on Drax, Yondu, Kevin and, a little to her surprise, Hannah in lead. That's high praise for Hannah as a 2 year old Iditarod rookie. The vets they have spoken with as they moved along the trail agree that their dogs all look really good.
I asked Kristy if she could send any pictures once they got settled in Shageluk but unfortunately there just wasn't enough bandwidth to get them through the ether. Plus, this IS a race, and they are racing! We may all just have to wait patiently for them to arrive in Nome before we get fresh visual aids.
I'll be back with another race update later this weekend and my next special edition... continuing the theme of genetics started with Joker's heterochromia, I'll share the details of a recent doggy DNA test done on one of the youngsters back at the kennel.
Enjoy your weekend and check back Sunday evening for more!
And as of this post, Kristy, Anna, and their dogs have another 477 miles to go.
We last left the twins on the 80-mile stretch between Ophir and Iditarod. After a trailside campout along the way, and what amounted to over a total of 16 hours on this long section of trail, they arrived in the checkpoint of Iditarod around 4:15am Friday morning. Anna was reported in 21st and Kristy in 22nd place. They took a 6 hour rest in checkpoint before hitting the trail again around 10:15am. They each pulled their snow hooks with the same 11 canine athletes in front of their sleds.
They mushed the 55 miles from Iditarod to Shageluk (race mile 487) over the day Friday, arriving around 6:15pm. As was their plan, they took their 8 hour mandatory rest in this checkpoint, ultimately staying about 8 hours 40 minutes. Neither twin returned any dogs home and got back out on the trail again with 11 dogs each just before 3am Saturday.
While I'm sure most of us were sound asleep, the twins traveled 25 miles and arrived in Anvik (race mile 512) at 6:45am. They barely stayed in checkpoint for a New York minute, clearly not needing to stop and return any dogs or even grab much of anything from their drop bags. They were reported out in 22nd and 23rd places. GPS has them about 7 miles outside of Grayling as I write this. Their race plan has Anna, Kristy, and their dogs taking a 5-6 hour rest in Grayling before they embark on the 62 miles to Eagle Island. Note, they do plan to camp out along that section of trail and we should see them make a fairly brief stop in the Eagle checkpoint itself.
BREAKING NEWS - I refreshed the current race standings while writing this and was positively flabbergasted to see last year's champion Brent Sass is now the 2nd musher to scratch from this year's race! He scratched in Eagle Island with an 11-dog team. Iditarod Insider posted a video and while all 11 of Brent's dogs are ok, Brent himself is dealing with an undisclosed medical issue and will be transported off the trail. I can only begin to imagine how heartbreaking that is for Brent, but I also know he would have made the decision that was both best for himself and his dogs. One must make hard choices along the trail of life but hopefully they are choices that allow us to mush again one day.
On behalf of Seeing Double, I wish nothing but the best for Brent and a safe, swift journey for his dogs back to Joe Bush Creek.
After that shocking development, we have 31 teams on the trail to Nome. The top 9 are all reported out of Eagle Island with the remainder of the top 15 teams all reported into Eagle. Three of those top 15 have yet to complete their mandatory 8 hour rest along this stretch. Rookies Eddie Burke Jr. and Hunter Keefe were last in 9th and 10th places, respectively, and I suspect their battle for Rookie of the Year will continue for the rest of the race. Rookie Gregg Vitello remains our Red Lantern and was last resting in the checkpoint of Iditarod.
In other news, it was a very pleasant surprise when the phone rang last night and it was Kristy! She happened to turn her phone on over the last few miles to Shageluk and was happy to find she had reception (Thanks, GCI!), so she lobbed a call into our Mom and this Mad Blogger. Anna was nearby on the trail.
Both twins were mushing along when Kristy called, and a couple times she asked us to "hold on a sec, I've gotta steer!" In between that and issuing some commands to her dogs or yelling something to Anna, she gave us a pretty fulsome update. Net net, it's been a good race so far. The dogs out on the trail with them are all doing really well. As for those that they returned home... we already knew about Tesla and Forrest thanks to our RDC Courtney. Kristy said she returned Bogus because "he just really wasn't all that into it" by the time they reached Takotna, likening him to Sergeant Murtaugh from the Lethal Weapon movie franchise ("I'm just too old for this sh*t..."). She returned Papa Doc from Nikolia after he was showing some signs of soreness in his back legs, likely from the ups and downs of the moguls earlier in the race. Anna returned Chaos from Nikolai and Diego from Takotna for the same reason. All three will recover from their soreness but it was a good idea to send them home before soreness turned to more serious injury.
Kristy said the Dalzell Gorge was actually FUN this year and possibly their best ride ever down the 200 foot drop. They were well prepared for a bit of rain around McGrath, learning from prior years to pack a tarp to keep sled bags and the extra dog coats they carried dry. Most recently they had been enjoying some hard, fast trail. Overall they're happy with they weather they've had, although a few times it got a little too warm. They might miss that warmth on some of the upcoming sections of trail, but at least they've got dry coats for the dogs and gear for themselves.
Kristy has been running Mayhem, Rampage, and Wilbur in lead quite a bit, and Andy even took a few turns. Anna has relied on Drax, Yondu, Kevin and, a little to her surprise, Hannah in lead. That's high praise for Hannah as a 2 year old Iditarod rookie. The vets they have spoken with as they moved along the trail agree that their dogs all look really good.
I asked Kristy if she could send any pictures once they got settled in Shageluk but unfortunately there just wasn't enough bandwidth to get them through the ether. Plus, this IS a race, and they are racing! We may all just have to wait patiently for them to arrive in Nome before we get fresh visual aids.
I'll be back with another race update later this weekend and my next special edition... continuing the theme of genetics started with Joker's heterochromia, I'll share the details of a recent doggy DNA test done on one of the youngsters back at the kennel.
Enjoy your weekend and check back Sunday evening for more!