At the Yukon River Bridge, I’ve made the decision to pull out of the Quest. Many factors have led to this point, and I’ve taken lots of time to mull the decision over, both on the trail, and while serving my mandatory 24 hr rest here.
Team Health-
Prior to the start of this race, Katti and I ran two teams in the Kusko 300 (which wrapped up 12 days before the start of Quest). I knew this would be a tight turnaround for the dogs, but felt confident the Quest would be doable if I ran an “easy” schedule.
However, between the end of the Kusko and the start of the Quest, my team caught “the bug” that’s been going around the mushing community this winter, so diarrhea and dehydration ran through my team for the first 200 miles of the race – a particularly bad combination with -50F temps. Stomachs and appetites have rebounded at this point, but my team members are still pretty depleted after many days of illness.
The Trail –
The Yukon Quest is known for having a tough trail, and this year did not disappoint. The challenges have been noteworthy — wind and no snow on Rosebud Summit, -55F on Birch Creek, whiteouts on the Yukon, etc. I had expected and had been excited about most of these challenges. However, one major challenge that was not anticipated was the lack of trail markers. In our modern races, the expectation is that you may or may not have a visually-defined trail with clear edges and a base, but a snowmachine will have been out at some point to mark a safe route from point A to point B by putting painted and reflective stakes every 150 yds to 1/2 mile, depending on the section of trail and anticipated weather challenges (i.e. more stakes where it can get windy and less stakes in the trees). But from the bottom of Rosebud to the top of Eagle, then down Birch Creek and down the Yukon, we have been averaging only one trail marker per mile…
From Circle to The Bridge, the Yukon River braids out to two miles wide at times. In addition to being disorienting in general, wind in this area is a constant concern, as tracks become quickly erased. Markers are crucial here, since without them, we have no way of knowing what side of the river to run, what route is safest to take through the jumble ice, or where the open holes of flowing water are located, and how to avoid them. As a consequence of scant trail markers, I chose to cut rest on my trail camps to continue route-finding and piggy-backing off of Josi’s trail-breaking efforts in front of us, worried that a wind could pick up at any time and all tracks would all disappear.
This has been a stressful and unanticipated challenge in this race, and has led to some executive decisions on my part that took additional energy out of my team.
The Team –
Iditarod is my ultimate season goal, and as such, I left some of my most veteran, toughest, best dogs at home — stars like Kobuk, Chippewa, Marley, Johnny, Lynx, Arthur, and up-and-comer Shucks. My goal with this race was to toughen up some of my younger and less experienced dogs. And at this point, that goal has been achieved. Two-year-olds Risk and Darnit have been holding their own, and three-year-olds Louis and Gatsby have been stepping up into “real mushing.” At mile 450, I feel like my team has had a tough, but valuable training exercise. With a little time to recover, several of them will be even better for Iditarod next month, having done this race to this point. If I continue on though, and push into more challenging trail (still with scant markers and a big storm coming), I anticipate that the team could completely run out of gas and this would be it for their season.
Overall Thoughts –
The Yukon Quest has been a great experience, and honestly, a very-well put together event in many respects. The race crew is aware of the deficit in marking, and there are plans to address and resolve the issue for the next race.
Race manager, Izzy Nicolier, has been doing an incredible job, and has been up and down the trail assisting in so many ways- thank you!
I am going to continue to advocate for this race, and hope to be involved in future Quest races.
This year, I brought a B team to an A team race. I won’t make that mistake again.
I want to give a huge shout out to Josi Shelley. She was the first team across some pretty daunting country, and put in some incredible work to re-establish the route from Fort Yukon to Beaver, and Beaver to (almost) Stevens- that’s an impressive team and some tough leaders you have! In addition to being our designated trail breaker, Josi is also just an excellent person to share the trail with, and provided my team with blankets and encouragement when we really needed it most.
Thank you all for following. Time to re-group for Iditarod.
