Good Morning Race Fans!
The news of the morning is Kotzebue Musher and Local Favorite John Baker who has broken from the pack and is leading the race to Kaltag with a nice 18 mile lead. He was into the Eagle Island checkpoint first as well with Hugh Neff hot on his heels. After a 4 hour break he took to the trail, but Neff stayed another 2 hours. Sebastian Schnuelle and Ramey Smith were into Eagle Island about 2 hours behind Baker and they also took 4 hours breaks and went back on trail, so I don’t think Baker was shorting rest for the team. There is a long way to go, but Bush Alaska is energized with one of the “Bush Crew” in the Lead.
Pete and the Team are doing nicely on their way to Eagle Island. He was into the Grayling Checkpoint last night at 22:43 and after a 4 hour break he was back on the trail after having dropped one of the team. He is now running with 12 dogs.
GPS Position has him about 16 miles downriver from Eagle Island. It had him moving and then stopped, but now hasn’t updated for quite awhile. I’ll keep you posted when I find out!
From Iditarod.com–
Mushers say that being on this section of trail is like falling off the edge of the earth. If you wanted total peace and quiet this would be the place to go provided you could hold up against the wind and severely cold temperatures. Don reports one musher saying, “It’s like you’ve gone to the edge of the planet, fallen off and discovered that the Place Down Below really has frozen over.” To add to the loneliness, the wolf packs howl all night to welcome and bid farewell to their domestic cousins.
Sebastian Schnuelle’s Description of this leg–
It is long and often boring. This stretch has absolutely no terrain – nothing but wide-open river and bend after bend, island after island, bluff after bluff. The west bank is always the high bank, with ridges sometimes rising more than 1,500 feet within a few miles of the river (which is less than a hundred feet above sea level). The east bank is low and wooded, punctuated by sloughs and creeks and islands. The trail stays mostly close to the west bank, but can run anywhere on the river depending on conditions.
