Good bye Pies- See ya next year!!
Pete and the Team are back on the trail to Nome! After a 25 hour and 18 minute break, rested and ready, Team Kaiser left the Takotna checkpoint at 3:43am with 14 dogs. Pete was led out of the checkpoint 3 minutes earlier by Richie Diehl also leaving with 14 dogs.
The big news is how Joar Leifseth-Ulsom’s strategy of mushing all the way to Iditarod will work out for him. It’s a gamble to head all the way to Iditarod on an unbroken trail and everyone is talking about it. How will it work out for him?
One thing to consider is trail speed. When we are watching the tracker and looking at speeds we often are looking at how fast Teams are going. Now, I personally look at averages over a longer distance because the tracker has some amount of error. But as you look at analytics, you can scroll over a distance and see how fast a Team may be going.
Now here’s something to consider– When we are looking at the speeds, what is 1mph after all? Pretty small right? Well, not really. Multiply the speeds by 10 as an easy example. Say Joar ran the trail at 7mph between Ophir and Iditarod and then Pete comes over that same course at 8mph. It doesn’t seem like much, but it is almost 10% faster. Consider driving on a highway and you need to pass someone, so you give the vehicle the gas at 55mph and pass the person at 65mph. ZOOM! It’s way, way faster. Well that’s the difference 1mph makes to a sled dog Team. It’s quite a bit!
So the tale of the trail will be how rested Teams manage the same trail that Joar ran yesterday and how fast they go over it. A trail can deteriorate quickly as many Teams travel over it or it may cool down and get icy and actually get faster. Also a rested Team will have an easier time than one that has been on the trail for many hours. It will be interesting to see how Joar’s strategy pays out.
I am thinking that later Teams will have a bit easier trail, at least the first 10-15 Teams. Temperatures will cool as the day progresses today and as they get closer to the Yukon.
The real deal with this race is that from Ophir to Shageluk is not a trail that is used regularly and neither is the trail from Grayling to Kaltag. That means almost 300 miles of trail that could be very soft and what a musher would call “punchy” or soft and slow.
The last time this course was run, the trail up to Kaltag through Eagle Island was full of snow and sleds were just pushing snow for the whole way. It was a tough one. Apparently the coast is also full of snow and if the wind kicks up this is going to be quite a race. Great for fans, but tough, tougher, toughest for Teams.
Mushing weather for today isn’t as good as originally predicted and temperatures are staying a bit warm. It is cooler than yesterday, but not cooling off as fast as it is to the south. The long range forecast for the race shows a low that is deteriorating, but could bring wind to the coast later in the race. For today:
Here’s Pete’s Takotna insider interview:
