Our
race leaders checked in at Ophir overnight and are heading towards the Cripple
checkpoint. Sonny Lindner and Aaron Burmeister are already leading the pack as
of early this morning. The next closest group consists of Nicolas Petit,
Jeff King and Joar Leifseth Ulsom, who have not yet left the Ophir
checkpoint. A number of the leaders have declared their 24-hour layover
(they have to take 1 mandatory 24 hour layover and 1 mandatory 8 hour layover
sometime during the race) in Takotna. It looks like all the mushers have
left the Rohn checkpoint and only 11 more (10 of who are rookies) have to make
it over the really rough part of the trail that took 10 mushers out of the race
yesterday (more on that later).
Sonny
Lindner was the first to reach the McGrath checkpoint, collecting the PenAir
Spirit of Alaska Award for being the first musher to the checkpoint. His
prize includes a spirit mask and a $500 Pen-Air credit for freight or
travel. If he keeps up this pace, he’ll be the first musher to the
halfway point in Cripple, where a pouch of $3,000 in gold nuggets is waiting
for the first musher to arrive.
We
still don’t have a clear idea of who is in first place at this point because of
all those mandatory layovers and the mathematical calculations that make up for
the difference in starting times. Only two mushers, Martin Buser and Kelley
Maixner have completed their mandatory 24-hour layovers at this point.
As
mushers straggle into Nikolai there are lots of wounds from battling with the
Farewell Burn (great pictures from the Alaska Dispatch here
and the Alaska Daily News here)
and lots of tales of survival, rather than racing. A slew of top
contenders with 20 or more Iditarod’s under their belts said it was the worst
they’ve ever seen the gorge, with steep icy downhill’s leading to sharp turns,
not to mention the boulders and trees. Some mushers are openly criticizing the
race officials for keeping the race on the traditional route and taking them
through this rough and dangerous trail. Others said they did not want to
second-guess the trail committee's decision on the route. Race officials said
the decision to keep the restart in Willow was based on trail reports two weeks
before the race. Warmer weather since then made the trail more dangerous than
they had anticipated. An
article from the Alaska Daily News said:
Race
marshal Mark Nordman said Tuesday night that the Iditarod Trail Committee had
seen pictures of the trail and heard reports that convinced them the race could
be safely run on the traditional route.
A
"tremendous" amount of trail work was done, Nordman said, but higher
temperatures in the days before the race started melted the snow cover,
creating a hazardous route down the Dalzell Gorge and across the Farewell Burn.
The
committee made the best decision they could at the time, Nordman said.
"I
don't think that decision is regretted," Nordman said. "But having
said that, it's a very serious thing, losing the trail like that. We don't want
to put people in harm's way. From what I'd seen, we definitely had a trail that
could get through the Alaska Range."
Nordman
said he was aware of the many complaints from mushers.
"We're
concerned about everybody all the way, and I think from everything that was
presented to ITC, we thought the trail was passable," he said.
But
conditions changed drastically between the time of the decision and the time of
the race start, he said.
"This
was as tough a trail as I've ever seen in my 20 years as race marshal."
The
dogs, it seems, fared much better than the mushers. Happily, only 11 dogs were
dropped in Nikolai as of late Tuesday. The injuries were minor – sore
shoulders and wrists. One of Rick Castillo’s dogs had a cut on the forearm that
required stitches, but that seems to be the worst of the injuries to the dogs.
A
total of 12 mushers have scratched so far, 10 of them on Day 3 of the
race. For some reason, I’m not getting official news releases from
Iditarod.com, so I’m having to find the reasons for their withdrawals from
other sources.
·
Deedee
Jonrowe – beaten up by the trail
·
Jake
Berkowitz – sled broken beyond repair
·
Scott
Janssen – apparently broke his leg after a crash.
·
Gus
Guenther - ?
·
Mike
Santos – hurt his foot coming down the Dalzell Gorge
·
Linwood
Fiedler – injury
·
Karen
Ramstead – withdrawn by race officials because of an injury
·
Cindy
Abbot - ?
·
Ellen
Halverson – severely damaged sled
·
Jim
Lanier – popped his Achilles tendon and smacked his head on a stump
·
Jan
Steves – ?
·
Cindy
Gallea – ended her race in Skwentna due to illness
Updates
on injured mushers:
·
Aaron
Burmeister is heading towards the Cripple checkpoint, despite a torn/broken ACL
in his knee. He got a brace for it in Nikolai and is planning on
continuing, saying “I am the weak link; the dogs are great.”
I
suspect today will be fairly quiet, with many mushers resting. I’ll send
an update this afternoon. I encourage everyone to check out the pictures
linked above. They are spectacular.
Kris Leibrand, CAP-OM
Administrative
Assistant to Bernard Seeger, Finance Director
Finance
& Management Services Department
City
of Gresham |1333 NW Eastman Pkwy |Gresham, OR 97030
503-618-2445
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