IDITAROD XXXVIII musher Kirk Barnum, (Bib # 34) scratched at 11:20 Alaska Time (March 09, 2010) in Rainy Pass Checkpoint. The 41 year old musher from Seeley Lake Montana said he scratched in the best interest of his team. Barnum said that he was down to twelve dogs on his team and it was evident that they were tired.
IDITAROD XXXVIII musher Karin Hendrickson, (Bib # 23) scratched at 11:15 Alaska Time (March 09, 2010) in Rainy Pass Checkpoint. The 39 year old musher from Chugiak Alaska said she scratched because of a damaged sled and equipment problems. Hendrickson scratched with 16 dogs on her team.
IDITAROD XXXVIII musher Zoya DeNure, (Bib # 5) scratched at 10:15 a.m. Alaska Time (March 09, 2010) in Rainy Pass Checkpoint. The 33 year old musher from Gakona Alaska said she scratched for medical reasons. DeNure scratched with 15 dogs on her team.
IDITAROD XXXVIII musher Michael Suprenant, (Bib # 30) scratched at 10:00 a.m. Alaska Time (March 09, 2010) in Rainy Pass Checkpoint. The 45 year old musher from Chugiak Alaska said he scratched for medical reasons. Suprenant scratched with 16 dogs on his team.
By Terrie Hanke
Rookie Iditarod musher Celeste Davis bootied her dogs on the Skwentna River as the sun rose Monday morning. She’s running experienced race dogs from the family kennel in Montana. Dogs have been in their family for two generations, mainly in sprint and mid-distance racing. Living in Montana, Celeste has done most, if not all of her training in the mountains. She described those training miles as covering long distances climbing followed by long slow deliberate descents. The trail is always doing something, we don’t cover many miles on flat trails. From that training, she has a team of controlled deliberate runners.
With the trail being hard and fast this year, Celeste feels the team is adapting well to the conditions. Everybody is doing fine except for one dog who just didn’t quite have the speed of the others. She dropped that dog at Skwentna and headed to Finger Lake with 15 healthy happy dogs. While putting booties on the team, Celeste commented that she really liked these experienced dogs. With the miles we’ve covered over the years, I know them and they know me. We have our routine worked out pretty well. They know what to expect of me and I know what to expect from them.
Celeste says it’s been her life long dream to get into long distance racing. She decided to do the big one – The Last Great Race. Celeste says, “There isn’t anywhere else I’d rather be! Freezing, hungry, and sleep deprived while loving every minute of it, enjoying it with man’s best friend.” She calls the opportunity to run Iditarod a real privilege.
Celeste has a degree in nursing and is a member of the Emergency Nurses Association. From a dog’s perspective, having her on the runners would be the next best thing to having a vet riding along. Keep an eye on Celeste as she runs a deliberate race. Her goal is to get to the coast with healthy happy dogs. From there, she plans to pick up the pace a bit for the remaining miles to Nome. She feels mountain training has given her dogs valuable experience and says her dogs are in great shape and ready to roll.
By Terrie Hanke
By daylight on Monday morning, most teams had passed through Skwentna on the way to Finger Lake. The teams remaining would be considered back of the pack and one looked very familiar. The team was using a harness with a wooden spreader to separate and position the harness to the side of the dog’s hips. On the sled was a yellow sled bag with Blackwood advertising. Sam Deltour was driving the Seavey puppy team. Sam took the Seavey yearlings to Nome back in 2008.
Under the instruction of Mitch and Dallas, it’s Sam’s job to let the dogs have fun while experiencing The Last Great Race. How does a musher do that? Sam outlined his plan – run short and rest long, talk to the dogs, sing to the dogs, joke with the dogs, vary the speed of the runs, vary the length of the runs, have plenty of snacks, provide delicious high energy meals with a high fat content, be a great cheerleader and an expert massage therapist.
Twelve of Sam’s sixteen-dog team range in age from 18 to 20 months. Four dogs are between 3 and 4 years old. Those dogs run in lead. It’s important for the yearlings to have a good experience and running behind young but dependable leaders helps build confidence in the youngsters and offers leadership-training opportunities.
Sam appreciates the vote of confidence from the Seaveys in asking him to run the youngsters to Nome again. He’s creating the base for the great Seavey racing machine. Dallas and Mitch will run to Nome this year with some of the same pups that Sam ran in 2008. From the position of standing on the brake and snow hook as Sam donned his anorak, fur hat and mittens, it was clear that the dogs were excited and ready to leave Skwentna. Keep an eye on Team Seavey – Mitch, Dallas and Sam as the race moves down the trail.
By Terrie Hanke
Trent Herbst of Sun Valley, Idaho left Yentna Station at 2012 Sunday evening and rolled into Skwentna at 0525 Monday morning. The distance is 34 miles between the two checkpoints – seems like a pretty slow run. In talking with Trent, he explained his carefully planned strategy of resting between checkpoints and was pleased with his run and the condition of his dogs. The team was ready to continue to Finger Lake and Trent planned to again camp between checkpoints. Why rest between checkpoints? It’s quiet and might fit with the team’s run rest schedule while considering time and distance.
In his fourth Iditarod, Trent is again running young dogs from Ed Stielstra’s Kennel in the upper peninsula of Michigan. These young dogs are on the trail to have fun and experience Iditarod. The general wisdom for puppy teams (18 months) is to rest 1 ½ times the length of the run. When running a puppy team, it’s common to have leaders that are 3 or 4 years old. We all know how important good leaders are, especially when training young aspiring Iditarod dogs.
When Trent cruised into Skwentna, there was an Athabascan style snowshoe strapped to the top of his sled bag. His 4th grade students made snowshoes and the pair Trent was carrying were going to Ruby as a gift to George Alberts, famous for his skill in constructing Athabascan snow shoes. That’s not the only thing the students in Mr. Herbst’s class constructed. They also built his sled! Yes, the one and only sled Trent would depend on to travel more than one thousand miles to Nome was built by 4th graders out of broken hockey sticks. The students had a very active roll in getting Trent to the trail – they measured dog food, made Trent’s food, sorted gloves & socks, counted booties, packed all the drop bags and handled dogs for the starts..
What an incredible hands on, real life learning experience Trent has brought to his students through Iditarod. Don’t look for Trent to finish in the top 20 this year but be assured that the experience of Iditarod 2010 will benefit students, teacher and dogs alike. This early in the race, Trent was very pleased with the performance of his team and the speed of the trail. Being three hours ahead of schedule coming into the second checkpoint is a great start.
It’s snowing hard enough that the aircraft is grounded here at Finger Lake but the teams are still moving up the trail. Most mushers reported soft trail conditions that slowed their planned travel time here and threw a few mushers off their game plan. Some rested at Finger Lake when their original plan was to go further up the trail before resting. For the mushers towards the back of the field, the trail conditions seem no worse or better than the lead pack’s.
We’re beginning to see different musher strategies come into play as they leap frog each other from rest stops. Generally the weather is playing a small part in the competition right now with musher having to re-adjust their run / rest cycles according to the softer trail conditions.
A number of teams looked very strong as they left Finger Lake. Noteworthy were Sebastian Schnuelle, Aliy Zirkle, Martin Buser and Warren Palfrey. Check the Insider video clips for footage of these teams coming into and leaving Finger Lake.
Footnote: It’s been interesting to see long-time friends Sonny Lindner and Rick Swenson traveling together into here and now the new dual of Lance Mackey and Hugh Neff.
We flew into Finger Lake today via the Iditarod air force and now have our Insider film crews stationed along the trail at Skwentna, Finger Lake, and Rainy Pass. I’m at Finger Lake so that I can meet the leaders that will be arriving here just before dawn. We will try to send videos clips and impressions of the trail conditions from the lead teams once they arrive tomorrow morning.
As we flew along the trail today heading here we observed that the trail was well marked with a lot of fresh snow. There has been a wind storm along with the snow and we expect slower traveling conditions than average through the Alaska Range.
We’ll bring you more reports tomorrow on how the lead teams look when they arrive.
The IDITAROD XXXVIII Restart is now a matter of hours away. At 2 pm Alaska time (6 pm Eastern Time), Willow Musher Linwood Fiedler’s team will be the first team to leave the chute. After the countdown, Fiedler’s team will leave Willow Lake in Willow Alaska and head out toward the Big Susitna River toward Yentna and on his way into the teeth of North America’s largest mountain range, The Alaska Range. Seventy mushers will follow, including twenty two rookies in what has been touted as the deepest field in Iditarod Race history.
Spirit of Alaska Radio, the Official Radio Station of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, will provide live coverage of the race on both KBYR AM and KMBQ FM locally beginning at 1:30 pm Alaska Time. The Iditarod Insider will be providing live, streaming coverage of the Restart around the world beginning at 1:45 pm (AT). The Iditarod Insider Tracker will begin deploying From Willow Alaska as the teams leave the starting line. To find out how to become an Insider, click here.