Dog teams rising to the challenge, or faltering
GRAYLING, Alaska — Dawn broke over the Yukon River as a team of race veterinarians talked in hushed voices to Aaron Burmeister. Burmeister let loose with one of his trademark broad smiles.
He’d been battling canine diarrhea for days, then his dogs got depressed plowing through the rough tundra over to Iditarod. He babied them and babied them, stopping to pet, sweet talk and give little tiny taste treats – all the way down to the river. Finally, they had a sweet run over to Grayling. “I’ve got a dog team again!,” he said.
This is one of those points of the race when many teams either rise to the occasion or show signs of an accumulation of wear and tear. It seems to be a roll of the dice, sometimes, whether the dogs are happy at this point or if they’re flat and listless. Burmeister wasn’t the only happy musher here early Saturday morning, but he was in the minority. Most were resigned to not having the race they’d trained all year for.
As the mushers battle it out for position, the physical distances between them are growing by the minute. This is becoming a race of small constellations of mushers, separated by hours up and down the trail.
Aliy Zirkle, John Baker and Mitch Seavey were still chipper, but their races weren’t going according to plan. Zirkle’s dogs were a little sore, and she was down to nine leaving here. Baker had 10 dogs, and he said they were just tired after working hard to catch up to the race leaders. Seavey said his team didn’t come off its 24-hour layover well out of Iditarod, so he gave them a two-hour break at Shageluk, then motored over to Grayling for his mandatory eight-hour rest before the long push up to Eagle Island.
Seavey expressed the same conclusion I reached yesterday, that a 10-hour deficit at this point would be extremely difficult to make up, considering the trail was hard and fast for the foreseeable future.
Tollef Monson, running John Baker’s second string, was still happy and smiling. He was at Grayling, even though the race updates didn’t show it yet. He came in here with 13 dogs.
Dogs are beginning to be left behind with race volunteers now as teams get winnowed down to their toughest core numbers. The dropped dogs get flown down to Anchorage where friends of the mushers pick them up. The most-dogs-out-of-Grayling was Zack Steer, who continues to pilot a spirited dog team, and seems destined for a top 10 finish, and probably higher. Race officials said his dogs looked the best out of any team going through here overnight.
Martin Buser, the front-runner, was first into Eagle Island at 6:30 a.m. with 13 dogs, taking a whopping nine hours and 24 minutes to run the estimated 60 miles. There were head winds last night. That run can be as short as eight hours in previous years. (Doug Swingley has done it in 7:20 before.) That would be the third long run in a row for Buser’s team, starting back at his 24-hour layover at Ophir.
Buser and Jeff King continued their battle to lead the race at this point, separated by an hour and a quarter. Lance Mackey and Paul Gebhardt were about two hours behind King. Ramy Brooks is having a good run, about six hours off Buser’s lead pace and Ed Iten, still with 15 dogs to match Steer’s numbers, was two hours behind Brooks.
Steer left Grayling at 4:17 a.m., right between Brooks and Iten. He’d rested a few hours at Grayling.
With the exception of the 2007 maverick Steer, those teams have chosen to “run long” as they pursue first place. They started at Anvik and all of them likely wouldn’t stop till they reached Eagle Island.
They will rest five to eight hours at Eagle Island, then make another long run up to Kaltag, where the rest stops will become as short as they feel they can risk, before making another long push over to Unalakleet. The Kaltag to Unalakleet run can take as little as nine hours, but as much as 12. The race won’t let up from there. The strongest team, or teams will emerge as these long drives take place.
Steer, too, may pick his battles and try a longer run or two.
Robert Sørlie was sleeping here as I typed up this story, but word from other mushers and his fans yesterday said he is finally on track again after babying his dogs through a bout of diarrhea. Look for Team Norway to make a strong surge up the trail. It may be too late to win, but I wouldn’t want to have Sørlie behind me at this point.
Iten is still doing well, and survived a battle with a broke belly pan on his sled out of the Iditarod checkpoint. The plastic belly of the sled was shattered, meaning it wouldn’t hold much weight without the contents of the sled poking through. Iten planned to splint it with birch boughs until he could reach Anvik, where Paul Gebhardt switched to another sled, and loaned his to Iten.