It’s Monday Race Fans, and we’re somehow already on Race Day 9!
When we left you yesterday, Jeff was on his way to Kaltag. He arrived at 13:06, stayed for 5 hr 46 minutes and then hit the trail to Unalakleet – heading for the Bering Sea coast! We followed his progress overnight, checking in a couple of times, and were happy to see that he and the team were steadily ticking off the miles. They were cruising so well that Jeff posted the fastest run time from Kaltag to Unalakleet! Woot woot! Jeff arrived in Unalakleet at 05:42 with his team of 13 dogs. 🙂 Sebastian Schnuelle mentioned Jeff a couple of times in his “The Armchair Musher” updates over on ITC. Sebastian has great insight as a former musher himself, and his updates are always looked forward to. He was there to see Jeff arrive in Unalakleet, and said the team was “very animated” when arriving – that’s great! Read more from that update here: https://iditarod.com/musher/morning-update-from-unk-and-shakeup-in-lead/.
Jeff looking for his front hook in UNK (Photo credit: Sebastian Schnuelle)
Jeff hooking down his team in UNK. (Photo credit: Sebastian Schnuelle)
Over the weekend you may have also “sprung ahead”? Here in Alaska it makes the mornings dark again ( it’s so hard to get up in the am!), but it also makes the evenings so much longer! We learned from Sebastian that Jeff had an 8am wake-up call for this morning, but then it sunk in the that there was a time change. Oops. Some things take priority on a dog race and it appears updating watches doesn’t. He turned around and went back to sleep for another hour, and we’re sure he needed it – all the mushers do at this point! Read more on that in Sebastian’s other update: https://iditarod.com/musher/the-race-up-the-coast-sleep-deprivation/
We’ll be watching the GPS to see when the Boss pulls the hook and heads out to Shaktoolik. That’s a 40 mile run up the trail, where the weather can play a big part. Shaktoolik is notoriously windy, and today’s forecast calls for light snow, a high of 28°F, and you guessed it – wind. For the nine teams that have already arrived in Shaktoolik, the average run time has been 5 hour 36 minutes.
We’ll do our best to keep you updated! Happy Armchair Mushing!