February 18, 2009

• Yukon Quest update, halfway to Fairbanks

  Eleven teams are now in Dawson City, the halfway point, where everyone is required to take a 36-hour rest before continuing.  William Kleedehn and Jon Little had been leapfrogging each other for days.  Approaching Dawson last night, Little was in the lead.  Then his dogs stopped briefly, just long enough for Kleedehn to pass and arrive in Dawson two minutes ahead of Little, winning the halfway gold.

  Following Kleedehn and Little into Dawson, in this order, were:  Hugh Neff, Hans Gatt, Sebastian Schnuelle, Brent Sass, Michelle Phillips, Warren Palfrey, Martin Buser, Mike Ellis, Dan Kaduce.  Each of them has dropped at least one dog.  Buser and Ellis are each down to ten dogs now. 

  Two mushers have scratched:  Jerry Joinson and Jean-Denis Britten, both at Pelly Crossing.  Joinson had left the checkpoint, then returned and scratched.  Only one team still in the race, William Pinkham’s, in 26th position out of Scroggie Creek, has dropped more that four dogs, down to nine now from the starting fourteen.

  Twelve or thirteen teams (depending on where Iris Wood Sutton really is) are on the trail between Scroggie Creek and Dawson City.  Two or three teams (Iris, again) are still in Scroggie Creek.  Becca Moore is still in last position, on the trail between Stepping Stone and Scroggie Creek. Jason Mackey has advanced a few positions since my last report, and Jamaican celebrity musher Newton Marshall has fallen back a few positions.

  Dan Bross of KUAC says Newton Marshall is “a very quiet guy, who smiles easily and is a little weary of all the media attention he’s getting. He is quite at home in the cold and snow and with his dogs. He says he’s following a schedule Hans Gatt lined out for him, and has to slow the dogs down to stay with it. He told me he wants to stay in the north and run dogs after the Quest, even though his job at dog cart tour operation in Jamaica is waiting for him. No Jimmy Buffet sightings so far ‘mon’.”  Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville restaurant chain is a major sponsor of the Jamaica Dog Sled Team.

  This year’s trail has been unexpectedly fast.  Into the Scroggie Creek Dog drop, mushers started arriving about five hours earlier than predicted.

  Some of the fun for me has been drained from passing along these reports, due to the uncertainty that the standings shown on the YQ website are accurate.  For example, the Scroggie Creek results show Iris Wood Sutton checking in twice (both times the same time) and out once.  Either she is still there, or she left there at 14:40 today.  Take your pick.

  Dan Bross was complaining yesterday about the race officials’ restrictions on media representatives, but now says the situation has improved.  Links to his pre-race, start, and Braeburn-Carmacks reports are in an earlier post of mine.  Click the images below for his two latest reports.

  

  

  

  • 11:30 pm
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