Wednesday, March 9, 2022

Brent Sass on the trail to Cripple

As teams begin taking their 24 hour plus differential rests, the leader and the chase pack continued up the trail Tuesday night into Wednesday morning. Brent Sass is currently running to Cripple - the half way point of the Iditarod in the Northern Route years - where as Redington, Neff, and Seavey Squared are all camped out further back and just outside of Ophir. With snow hitting the trail and the storm on the way it could be teams are trying to get out ahead of it before breaking trail slows them down. It could also be their strategy set weeks ago.

It's a good bet that these teams will twenty four in Cripple before hitting the Yukon River where they will have to choose a checkpoint to take their first of two mandatory eight hours. For the next day and a half fans need to get in their own mandatory rest. As teams stop along the trail to take their 24s there won't be much to follow, and so catching up on sleep, work, chores, etc should be the priority for those sitting at home.

Sass reported to the Insider earlier that he was surprised and "a little scared" of how fast his team is going, but he says he is taking the same amount of rest at this point as he did in both 2020 and 2019 so he feels his team is just very strong and fast this year. 

As I get ready to post this very short update - it looks like Dallas Seavey has popped the snow hook and started his run to Cripple now. He was camped near his dad Mitch, and will pass by where Neff and Redington are camped shortly. The race to the 24s is on.

Tuesday, March 8, 2022

Mushing Radio - Iditarod 50: Into McGrath

Burmeister looks to be first to McGrath

With just twenty miles to go, it looks like Aaron Burmeister is set to be the first into McGrath. With that will come the "First to McGrath award", according to Iditarod this year's prize consists of "a pair of musher mittens made of beaver fur and moose hide handmade by Loretta Maillelle of McGrath as well as a musher hat made from beaver fur and beaded velvet made by Lucy Miller of McGrath.  Alaska Air Transit will also be providing hand-made awards in Nikolai." This is the first of the "special awards" given out on the trail. 

Aaron Burmeister has had a solid, strong race to this point having kept right with Seavey and Sass as well as Redington. He narrowly missed beating Dallas Seavey for the top prize in last year's Iditarod and he is hungry to bring home the championship to Nome, his hometown. If he can continue as he is, he'll be right in the mix for first to the finish line.

Behind Burmeister are Richie Diehl, Ryan Redington, and Dallas Seavey. Brent Sass is camped out on the trail. Mille Porsild looks to getting nearing to passing where he's stopped.

The Insider live feed went down I assume they are getting ready to move up the trail, and hopefully they'll have the McGrath feed up soon.

Nikolai is about to get busy

The front teams are making their way into Nikolai as the sun comes up (though it's overcast in much of the State today, including on the Iditarod trail). First three teams of Burmeister, Redington, and Diehl are already in and bedded down their dogs for a nice rest while at least three more teams should be coming in within the hour.

The biggest concern by race fans has been where is Brent Sass? Sass' tracker hasn't updated in almost twelve hours and shows him still near Rohn, however chatter overheard on the Iditarod Insider live view of the checkpoint of Nikolai has volunteers discussing the next order of teams coming in and Brent Sass is somewhere in the mix. They theorize it will be Dallas Seavey next in, followed by Brent Sass, and Michelle Phillips. Hopefully they will be able to reset the musher's tracker in Nikolai.

Trackers not working is pretty normal especially when they are running in areas where the signal is not good. If they can't get a connection for too long, they go into sleep mode. Then there's also factors like where it is positioned in/on the sled bag, if it was damaged coming down the trail, if it was lost, or if it's too cold.... or if someone forgot to change/charge the batteries before race day. A quick swap out or reset button push is typically all that is needed to get it going again, but that is not the musher's job - as they don't know if it's working or not.

Once that trio gets into the checkpoint there will be a short wait for Travis Beals to come in followed by Jessie Holmes and Mitch Seavey. Rounding out the top ten should be either Hugh Neff or Paige Drobny.

Nikolai is about to get very busy. If you are an Insider video subscriber get to the live feed!

Thursday, March 3, 2022

International Federation of Sleddog Sports bans Russia and Belarus

The International Federation of Sleddog Sports (IFSS) announced Tuesday that they are following the recomendations of the IOC to ban all athletes from the countries of Russia and Belarus over the invasion of Ukraine. As more sport federations continue to join in solidarity against the Russian's unprovoked attack on neighboring Ukraine, the IFSS's decision comes as no surprise and is a welcome announcement.

You can read the full statement here:



There are also reports coming out of Ukraine from the sled dog associations/clubs stating many teams have evacuated from the cities under the most severe attacks and for the most part are doing well (one musher reported some dogs have passed due to stress). We'll keep our eyes open and ears to the ground if there are ways to help the mushers and their dogs in the days and weeks to come. 

We stand with Ukraine.

Wednesday, March 2, 2022

The part of Nicolas Petit will be played by Jeff King

Late last night Nicolas Petit took to social media to announce he was out of Iditarod 50 due to a positive Covid test. While, the musher stated, he had been careful and was vaccinated Covid still managed to find Nic. After a mild panic Nic made a short list of mushers he'd trust running his dog team 900+ miles to Nome. Top of the list was four-time Iditarod Champion Jeff King.

King, of course, was not planning on running Iditarod this year - instead choosing to send his A-team with rookie Amanda Otto. Jeff revealed in an interview with Anchorage Daily News part of his reasoning for sitting this race out was due to having surgery in October - his third, after his emergency surgery in 2020 days before the start of that Iditarod. 

Now, Jeff King is headed to Nome in the historic 50th Iditarod pretty much unprepared. Food drops for dogs and musher were sent out over a week ago - that means Jeff is at the mercy of what Nic packed. Any extra clothes or equipment Jeff would normally send out on the trail won't be there (and he and Nic aren't the same size.) King noted he plans to run a slower race than what Nic would normally run, so the decisions for where he will take his mandatory breaks may be an issue as well (though most of the top teams send extras to several stops where they *might* take a mandatory).

This is not the first time a late swap has happened. In 2020 there were two memorable swaps that happened before the race began. Sean Underwood went from handler to Iditarod rookie in the blink of an eye when Jeff King fell ill after a special Q&A just a couple of days before the musher banquet. Underwood had qualified for the race that winter but was not scheduled to run the race until 2021, he was given permission by the race to take Jeff's team to Nome. Underwood wouldn't make it all the way - being one of three teams that got caught in the overflow near Elim - but was nearly there (he made it the following year). 

The most bizarre one happened at the ReStart in 2020 when Zoya Denure (oops, I used her name on my blog) took ill and so her husband, Yukon Quest champion turned outdoor editorialist John Schandelmeir was allowed to go in her place. The change didn't happen until the team was at the starting line. Talk about issues with drop bags, how John managed to find anything worth using is still a little bit of a chin scratcher.

In 2014, Danny Seavey was tagged to take the Seavey puppy team to Nome after handler Matt Giblin injured his foot in a late training run. Danny flew in from a Florida vacation to run dogs he hadn't worked with - after being basically retired as a handler for several years. Seavey would write in a race recap that the hardest part of dealing with drop bags that weren't really for him was he and Matt ate very differently (a lot of diet and powder foods). He also couldn't fit into the clothes sent in the drop bags.

Even with all of the challenges, don't expect Jeff King and the team to do anything less than finish if at all possible. Jeff is a hardened veteran of the race and trail, and even though he won't know the dogs well he will be able to coach them along in a finish. The pups deserve the chance after having trained for this adventure. Look for Jeff to have a solid run, but don't expect them to break any records. Still, if Jeff finds himself in good position he could very easily bring these dogs in for a win.