March 9, 2006

• Iditarod bits and pieces

  I’m mildly frustrated here.  The brain fog continues and I’m
  tempted to give in to it and go play a game or read some challenge-free
  fiction.  The frustration is only partially due to defects in
  reception and processing at my end.  Updates at aprn.org and iditarod.com aren’t being posted as fast as I’d like.  I’m going to give you what I’ve got and then go veg out.

  spinksy
  wanted to know how author Gary Paulsen, who scratched very early in
  this year’s race, had done in his previous attempts.  His first
  and only finish was in  ’83 as a rookie, when he came in in 41st
  place.  In ’85, he started the race and scratched.  Since
  then, he has registered once and withdrawn before the beginning of the
  race (last year, 2005), and then this year’s scratch.  (photo
  credit: official Iditarod photographer, Jeff Schultz)

  This year’s trail is harder on mushers than dogs.  DeeDee Jonrowe,
  now in second place and in Cripple checkpoint at the latest available
  update, talked last night to a radio reporter about the effects of the
  soft, snowy trail.  She said that a softer trail and her ability
  to control the sled better over snow than the ice and rocks that have
  been standard trail conditions over the past few years, has made it
  easier on the dogs.
  Day 4 at Puntilla Lake, Trent Herbst and other mushers prepare their teams to leave Rainy Pass checkpoint.
  
  Photo Credit Marc Lester, Anchorage Daily News
  
  I reported Sue Morgan’s scratch yesterday, but didn’t have
  details.  She had run into a tree and may have fractured some
  ribs. 

  Ramey Smyth is moving “funny” today after having hit a tree yesterday and putting something out of place in his neck or back.

  One of Kristina Pawlazczyk’s dogs following that windstorm
  
  at Puntilla Lake yesterday.  Credit:  Marc Lester, ADN.com

  During the night, Martin Buser broke through some ice and got the lower
  half of  his body all wet.  The water was ice by the time he got into
  the next checkpoint, where he got some help from bystanders to chip it
  off his clothing.

  Paul Gebhardt hit a tree at Farewell Lake, cut his gangline, and his
  team ran off and left him.  The next musher through (Swingley or
  King — I heard it, but didn’t put it in my notes — blame the brain
  fog) picked him up.  There was no way they would catch up with the
  unburdened team with two men on one sled, so Gebhardt was dropped off
  at the buffalo camp where a hunter on a snowmachine gave Paul a ride up
  the trail to catch his dogs.  Then, presumably, he went back and
  hitched them to his sled and got on his way.  At the latest
  update, he was catching up again, moving up into sixth place, from
  seventh where he had been at the previous update.

  Iditarod Air Force pilot Chris Urstadt, unloading eight dogs from his Cessna
  

   in Anchorage yesterday.  Photo credit:  Bill Roth, Anchorage Daily News
  Some
  of the canine athletes have been having their problems, too.  Only
  seventeen of the seventy-nine teams still in the race are shown to have
  all sixteen dogs they started with.  There could be as many as
  three more, because the number of dogs isn’t shown in current standings
  for three of the teams.  Two teams are down to eleven dogs, and
  Terry Adkins and Noah Burmeister are down to ten dogs each.
  
  One of Ken Anderson’s dogs made history this year when it vomited blood
  out on the trail between checkpoints.  Ken loaded him into his
  sled bag and rode to the Farewell buffalo camp, where they radioed for
  help.  A race veterinarian flew into the buffalo camp, diagnosed a
  bleeding ulcer, and the dog became the first in race history to be
  med-evacked out.

  Racing dogs don’t have to be pretty, but some of them are.
  
  Rick Swenson, only musher ever to have won the Iditarod five times,
  
  and his team, who are looking a lot better than Rick.
  
  Photo credit: Al Grillo, Associated Press.

  About
  midnight last night, four-time Iditarod Champion Doug Swingley of
  Lincoln, Montana, won the gold for being the first musher to reach the
  halfway point.  He is still there in Cripple, about ten hours into
  his mandatory 24-hour rest.  DeeDee Jonrowe got into Cripple about
  three hours behind him.   Each of them arrived there with
  fifteen dogs.  About two and a half hours after DeeDee, John Baker
  got to Cripple with fourteen dogs.   During the
  morning,  Bjornar Andersen, Ed Iten, Paul Gebhardt and Ramey Smyth
  have checked into Cripple.  None of them has completed the
  mandatory  24-hour or 8-hour rest.

  ‘Way back behind the pack, which is now in the vicinity of McGrath, two
  of the trailing mushers have taken their 24:  Rick Larson and
  rookie Chad Schouweiler.   Sonny Lindner and Terry Adkins
  have both taken their 24s, and are out of McGrath on their way to
  Takotna.  William Hanes, out of Takotna and headed for Ophir, has
  finished his 24.  Of all those who have completed the 24, Jeff
  King and Aliy Zirkle are in the lead in tenth and eleventh places, out
  of Ophir on the way to Cripple.

  At least, that’s how things stood at 9:45 this morning.

  

  • 3:07 pm
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