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ALASKA HOOSIER

Iditarod 2017

By ALASKA HOOSIER, in Off Topic Forum

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ALASKA HOOSIER    11,276

ALASKA HOOSIER
Posted

It's 12.30pm Tuesday Alaska time.

RED TEAM UPDATE (Aliy Zirkle's team)

Since we last saw the Red Team pulling out of Nenana and mushing into the cold night they continued along the Tanana River for another five hours and stopped at what we presume was Tolovana Lodge for around four hours. Tolovana is not an official checkpoint but a cabin that has been opened up for mushers. I heard reports that mushers said it was down to -50F on the river overnight! While we were driving home last night we watched the temperature gauge rise in the hills and drop dramatically when we went back down to river level.

NenanaRedCollars.jpg
Red Team leaving Nenana

Aliy and Allen talked a lot about strategy for the early part of the race and, as for all races, they came up with several contingencies and plans b, c and d depending on trail conditions, dog speed and weather. Incidentally the strategies did not take into account what other teams are doing at this early point in the race.

There is a great Insider interview with Aliy at the Musher Banquet in Anchorage where she talks about how you have to be flexible with your strategy on this unfamiliar section of trail, depending on run times and trail conditions and how important it is to run your own team. When challenged about that, about saying only "run my own team" she retorts "Oh no, I want to beat Dallas, I want to beat everyone! I want to run my own team but I want to beat them. Without a doubt, I'll be honest, I want to win this race, and I'm going to try really hard to win it".

Stopping at Tolovana enabled them to "blow through" the Manley checkpoint, stopping only to restock and supply Aliy's sled with essentials to camp along the way to the next checkpoint. The vet team will also have gotten hands-on with the dogs and they ask mushers as soon as they arrive if there are any issues or if they need to drop any dogs.

As I write this the team is currently resting 15 miles outside of Manley and will be enjoying some warmth of the sunshine for the dogs to stretch the muscles out and get a good rest.

Aliy and Allen often choose to rest outside of checkpoints. They will make a schedule of run and rest to suit the dogs' rhythms and if the rest coincides with a checkpoint then they will stop there, if not they will go through and camp when they believe the dogs need to stop. They both enjoy camping out on the trail and say that often the dogs will get a better rest away from the hubbub of a checkpoint.

There are several mandatory checkpoints rests along the way: one 24 hour break at any checkpoint between Manley and Safety, an eight hour stop at any checkpoint between Tanana and Kaltag and one eight hour mandatory stop in White Mountain before the final run home to Nome. Other than those stops, mushers can choose to rest in or out of a checkpoint.

The next checkpoint for the Red Team is Tanana.

IUsafety, ccgeneral and hsrtxp reacted to this

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Yogi'sBicep    1,048

Yogi'sBicep
Posted
11 hours ago, ALASKA HOOSIER said:

Yogi, this summer is what i live for! Have you fished here yet? Make plans for the Klutina Red run and Valdez! well, since you are in Anchortrash, you can go to Seward and get the military charter and catch some Halibut. Carve out some time cuz it comes quickly... Are you doing any hunts? I'm a caribou, Moose hunt kinda guy. However, I want to do some Black bear near valdez.

I will answer each question in order.

 

1)No, I refuse to go Ice fishing! I go to the field for 2 weeks starting Monday, then go to JBLM for to get my EAB. The sun is up until 7pm now so I hope the dethaw will be closer to done and I'll go fishing a ton!

2) Hallibut is SOOO good. People had it froze from last summer when I got here. 

3) I haven't went hunting because I've been gone in training, home for break, and broke my ankle a few months ago. -- spend all my time in the gym. 

4) Bear hunting is a dangerous game. Lesser than moose I suppose. I would love to hunt caribou, my buds are going the wkend but I'm just gonna relax before the field. 

 

This is summer I plan to get most of my food by fishing. Gonna have to do it all May, July, and August tho. Heading down to Tigerland in June :(.  

 

 

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