March 10, 2009

• Iditarod Leaders Are Through Rohn Checkpoint

  

  Nine leading teams passed through the Rohn Roadhouse Checkpoint between ten last night and midnight:

  1. Paul Gebhardt and 16 dogs
  2. Sebastian Schnuelle (16)
  3. Lance Mackey (16)
  4. Cim Smyth came in with fifteen dogs, and dropped two more at Rohn
  5. Hans Gatt (16)
  6. Aliy Zirkle, leader among the women so far, dropped one dog at Rohn, now down to 15
  7. Aaron Peck dropped one dog at Rohn, now down to 15
  8. Ramey Smyth dropped one dog at Rohn, now down to 15
  9. Gerry Willomitzer dropped one dog at Rohn, now down to 15

  On their run to Rohn from Rainy Pass yesterday, the leaders went through Dalzell Gorge, one of the toughest parts of the race.  Coming up next between Rohn and Nikolai is the Farewell Burn, the other part of the hardest part of the trail.

  The first 20 miles out of Rohn has some of the consistently worst trail on the whole race. Allow yourself at least three hours of good daylight when you leave Rohn—you’ll definitely want to see what you’re getting into. Also, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to run this stretch of trail in convoy with one or more other teams. preferably someone who has done it before. You can get into situations on this leg that can require all the help you can get.

  From Rohn, the trail immediately breaks out onto the windblown gravel and sandbars of the South Fork of the Kuskokwim River have about a mile of really lousy going over bare spots, through driftwood tangles, across large stretches of slippery ice, and maybe even through some overflow and shallow open water.

  This area is a natural wind tunnel and is a perennial Excedrin headache for the Iditarod Air Force pilots. The wind is often blowing hard out on the open riverbed, 40 miles per hour or more; it always blows from the east, or down the river. You might have some trouble keeping the team going in the correct direction on the ice if the wind is strong enough. Be prepared to grab your leaders and help them if the wind is really strong.

  . . .

  [farther on]

  You’ll come to the crest of a hill and will see a hundred-yard expanse of ice in the canyon below, with a side ravine feeding in from the other side. The side ravine will look like a sloping cascade of ice perhaps 30 yards wide with rocky sides. The hill down to the ice is short but steep. At the bottom you will make a sharp right turn.

  Do NOT go straight across the ice and directly up the icy ravine on the far side. It is feasible, but strongly not recommended. The trail should be marked to bypass the ice to the right. You will then climb a nearly vertical fifty-foot hill, swing briefly left through the trees at the top, and then come down onto the upper part of the icy ravine you saw earlier.

  The trail turns uphill on the ice for about fifty yards, bending right around a sharp rock outcropping (keep your sled clear of this) and continues up to the end of the ravine through a field of rocks the size of softballs (usually with no snow cover) then come into a short open tundra area that is often bare of snow before regaining the trees and a semblance of normalcy.

  When you first come down into the upper ravine onto the ice, DO NOT let your dogs turn left, or downhill! If they do, you cannot stop them and must hang on for dear life (hopefully stomping on your brake for all you’re worth) as you scream down the icy chute and return to GO to start everything all over again, ideally without wrecking your sled in the process.

  Don Bowers’s trail notes go on in that vein, and on, and on — it’s a long stretch of trail.  You can read more of it, HERE.

  Six of this year’s rookies are running near or behind the middle of the pack:
  Karin Hendrickson in 35th position, out of Rohn with 15 dogs at 9:31.
  Chad Lindner in 44th, Wade Marrs 45th, and Michael Suprenant 48th, in Rohn now with 16, 14, and 15 dogs, respectively.
  Harry Alexie in 50th with sixteen, and Tom Thurston in 53rd with 15, out of Rainy Pass on the trail to Rohn.

  Iditarod “veteran” Rachael Scdoris and her seeing-eye musher Tim Osmar are cruising along behind them in 55th and 56th.  The little blind girl still has all her dogs; Tim dropped one of his at Rainy, down to 15.

  The other nine rookies have been bringing up the rear throughout the race so far.  For a while, a “veteran,” Bob Hickel, had been keeping them company back there, but he scratched at Finger Lake after an 8-hour run from Skwentna, 2009′s first scratch.

  

  • 3:09 pm
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