At this hour Jeff King approaches Bogus Creek and the camp area that the Bogus Creek 150 mushers used for their layover last night. Upriver from Jeff is the pack of four Gepbhardt, Buser, Browning, Ulsom, and our own Pete Kaiser. It is hard to take your eyes off the darn thing, but the GPS has the mushers swapping positions when I don’t think that is the case. I tend to think that the positions are pretty much like the mushers left Kalskag with the exception that I think Pete and the Team are in 4th place. I am thinking, after Will Peterson’s comments earlier this evening, that Rohn’s team may falter a bit and allow Pete to move up to third.
We really will know how it goes once the mushers arrive into Tuluksak. I just heard a report from Tuluksak, that getting water in Tuluksak is quite a challenge and requires 23 steps up the bank and then another 500 yards to the watering point. After little sleep and many hours on the back of a sled, I imagine that’s the last thing a musher wants to do in a race, but everyone has the same 23 steps I guess!
Weather this hour shows the bulk of the weather front has passed. Winds are from the Northeast at 22 with a Temperature of 22. So the wind is at their backs on the road back home.
I’d like to say that Pete and the Team have a home court advantage at this point, but Gepbhard, King, and Browning were mushing this course with Pete was still in gradeschool! Ulsom has maybe a disadvantage as he is the newcomer. Longtime mushing fans have seen King run down from Kalskag many times before and this proves to be no exception.
Pete and the Team have a battle ahead, if not with King, with those mushers around them, so the excitement isn’t over– Stay up with us as we watch him make his way to Tuluksak!
Go Team Kaiser!
