March 11, 2008

• Iditarod Day “11″

  A second dog has died in this year’s Iditarod.  About 10 PM Sunday, Blake and Jennifer Freking, a married pair of mushers from Minnesota running the Iditarod together, were stopped to snack their teams between Galena and Nulato, when a snowmachiner going about 40 MPH ran into Jen’s team.  Alaska State Troopers were called and presumably are investigating.

  Lorne, a three-year-old female (left above, in a photo from the Frekings’ website) died immediately, and three-year-old male Aries (right) was seriously injured.  Aries was taken to Nulato school, given IV fluids and painkillers through the night, and flown out to Wasilla Monday morning for further care.

  In an email posted on the website, Jen and Blake said:

  After 3 hours of sleep, we went out to feed and the dogs were all quite
  perky and ate great. At the time of the accident, we were both sure our
  race was over. However, on the long run to the checkpoint we realized
  we would be working through this tragedy whether we were on the trail or
  scratching. If we were not traveling together as we are, it would be
  harder to go on. But we have each other for support and company. We just
  want to travel the rest of the trail with no thoughts of competition at
  all.

  ---

  Lance Mackey dropped a dog in Elim in the wee small hours this morning, rested an hour and a half, and left the checkpoint with eleven dogs fifty minutes ahead of Jeff King, who still has his full starting team of sixteen.  Lance pulled into White Mountain at 8:53.  At 9:19, the GPS tracker was showing Jeff about five miles out of White Mountain.

  The Nomecam is showing dawn over a deserted Front Street, with flags of various nations competing in this year’s race windblown into horizontality.  Yesterday afternoon, I watched a few tourists smiling into the webcam with their cell phones held to their faces, presumably calling friends and family to log in and take a look at them.

  All teams have a mandatory 8 hour rest at White Mountain, so the race
  for first place resumes around 5 PM today.  White Mountain to Safety is
  55 miles that Don Bowers said, “can be one of the most dangerous
  stretches on the race when the wind blows.”   Although it is windy now in Nome, White Mountain is showing only a 5 MPH breeze currently.

  From Safety to Nome is another 22 miles.  Don Bowers estimated that the 77 miles from White Mountain to Nome generally take from seven to eleven hours.  Add it all up and it’s highly likely that we will probably know who the 2008 Iditarod champion is sometime between midnight tonight and dawn tomorrow.

  Martin Buser pulled into Elim just before 9 AM in third position with 13 dogs.  He was a bit over 8 hours behind Jeff King into Elim, and within half an hour of his closest three competitors out of Koyuk:  Hans Gatt in 4th with 12 dogs, Ken Anderson in 5th with 15 dogs, and Ramey Smyth in sixth, now down to 9 dogs after dropping one in Koyuk.

  Rookie Melissa Owens left Shaktoolik in 25th position near midnight this morning with nine dogs, about three and a half hours ahead of her closest competition for Rookie of the Year, William Kleedehn in 29th position with eleven dogs.  Rohn Buser in 34th position dropped another dog in Unalakleet, leaving there at 2:34 AM with seven dogs.  Melissa, in case you forgot, or missed it earlier, is eighteen years old, a former Junior Iditarod champion, youngest woman and one of the youngest mushers ever to run the Iditarod.

  Steven Madsen, the current Red Lantern, in Galena in 83rd position with eleven dogs, is the only musher not to have completed the mandatory 8 hour Yukon River layover.  He has been there seven and a half hours as of the latest update, and will probably be out of there with his 8 hours done by the time I post this.  Race leader Lance Mackey left Galena about 11 PM on Friday.  A three-and-a-half day distance between the front and back of the pack is not bad.

  Below, in a photo by AP photographer Al Grillo, one of Silvia Willis’s dogs snoozes in Unalakleet yesterday.
  

  Koyuk villagers Michelle Kavairlook and Katie Hannon view a photo they just shot of themselves in this photo by Bob Hallinen of the Anchorage Daily News
  

  Hallinen also caught Lance Mackey struggling out of his wind pants in Koyuk yesterday.
  

  …and helping his team out of deep snow beside the street in Koyuk.
  

  Hallinen also captured this shot of Jeff King retrieving his team after they had pulled up the snow-hook anchor and ran off with their sled.
  

  Last minute update: 
  Jeff King pulled into White Mountain 57 minutes behind Lance Mackey.  He will have seventy-seven miles in which to make up those 57 minutes this evening when he is eligible to leave White Mountain.  If Lance’s team can keep going at the pace they have been setting, Mackey will win.  If something happens to stop Lance, Jeff has a chance.

  • 2:38 pm
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