Iditarod

“FYI...
Next tuesday,8pm (est) USA network. Iditarod coverage.”

“What's that?”

“Dog sleddin? just a guess?”

“yep, the iditarod is a big mushing race (dog sledding).”

“Here's some events I saw listed in Outside Magazine. Has anybody heard of these, or better yet watched them?

IDITASPORT PLUS:
130-mile foot, ski, bike, and snowshoe race through the Alaskan bush.
PLACE: Big Lake, Alaska
DATE: February

BADWATER ULTRAMARATHON:
135-mile footrace from the bottom of Death Valley to 8,360 feet on Mount Whitney.
PLACE: Death Valley, California
DATE: July

MONTEZUMA'S REVENGE:
24-hour mountain-bike race that crosses four 10,000-foot passes.
PLACE: Montezuma, Colorado
DATE: July

PIKES PEAK ASCENT:
A 13.32-mile run to the summit of Pikes Peak at 14,110 feet.
PLACE: Manitou Springs, Colorado
DATE: August”

“They run something similar to the iditarod on snowshoes, I don't know the length. Sounds brutal.

My favorite little cousin now lives in Alaska and she feeds/houses/trains thr dogs for a British Iditarod team. How'd ya like to clean up after 55 dogs?”

“Kleetn, they use to run the Badwater to the summit of Mt Whitney which is the lowest to the highest of the lower 48, Badwater is lowest in the western hemisphere actually, I was there a week and a half ago.

There's also an auto race on Pikes Peak, can you imagine goin' over the side?”

“The Iditisport is, I believe, an individual event across the Alaskan bush where the participants can choose their own route and the mentioned methods to get from the start to the finish. Of course the start and finish are separated by mountains, glaciers, fast and icy rivers, grizzlies, moose, horrible weather, etc. Grueling race for adventure junkies with well-honed backcountry skills and strong wills.”

“They're ready for the finish in Nome:

”

“Dang! This page loads updates faster than the actual website!”

“Oh well, strike that last statement!”

“The leader is on the next to last leg of the race and will probably cross the line either tomorrow or Thursday.

”

“Wow! The first two teams have already finished! Jeff King wins!”

“What happened to the Norwegan guy who won last year?”

“Not sure who you're talking about, but the answer might be found here: http://www.iditarod.com/”

“Geo - Robert Sorlie - doesn't look like he's racing this year.
last edited: 3/15/06 10:07:16 AM”

“Maybe the dogs ate him, Geo.”

“A few years ago...there was also a Iditarod bike race. One of my friends wanted to join...but he didn't get the funds to jet him up there.”

“This race might make a good theme for a Bill Murray movie.”

“This year's race is underway. News can be found here: www.iditarod.com

The leaders are now climbing the range up to Rainy Pass, the steepest and highest part of the race.”

“Thanks Geo!”

“When they get closer to Nome, they move their webcam around to focus on the finish line. Last year I saw a team as it finished in their webcam.

Right now it's focused on their usual viewpoint, the visitor center with Norton Sound in the background. But it will be turned as the teams get closer.

http://www.nomealaska.org/vc/cam-page.htm”

“And here's the schedule for TV broadcasts on Versus (formerly OLN):

March 18: 7-8 p.m. (Times are EDT)
March 18: 10-11 p.m.
March 22: 6-7 p.m.
March 25: 7-8 p.m.
March 25: 10-11 p.m.
March 29: 6-7 p.m.

These shows are delayed a day or two. If you sign up at the Iditarod website you may get more current video ($20 or so).”

“I watched that broadcast last year and loved it. I've been hooked on the Iditarod for a couple years now and recently had an opportunity to watch and learn a bunch about sled dog racing here in the UP.”

“Go Jeff King Go! Up from 15th to 11th. Biding his time.”

“Jeff King now up to seventh.”

“King is in the number two slot this morning.”

“Interesting. King and another musher apparently took their mandatory 24-hour rest at Ophir before setting of to Iditarod - a 90-mile run, and Lance Mackey breezed right on through Ophir without a break.

King said he's running a pace that his dogs can sustain, so I expect he'll do well over the long run. There's no place to take a rest between Ophir and Iditarod, and Iditarod itself has no buildings. What's Mackey's strategy, I wonder.”

“NIKOLAI, Alaska, Mar. 7, 2007
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(AP)



(AP) Lance Mackey snatched back the lead in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, speeding through Ophir on Wednesday as other teams rested.

Four-time champions Martin Buser and Jeff King had breezed through the Nikolai checkpoint and cruised to the front while Mackey slept. The two were resting their teams early Wednesday in Ophir, near the halfway point of the 1,100-mile race, along with Zack Steer, 33, of Sheep Mountain. Steer has run the race twice with a high finish of 14th place.

King, the reigning champion, took a 4 1/2-hour rest in Nikolai before making a nearly 100-mile push to Ophir through the checkpoints of McGrath and Takotna.

Buser, 48, running in his 24th Iditarod, spent just three minutes in Nikolai on the Kuskokwim River, about 770 miles from the finish line at Nome. He took a 5 1/2-hour rest in McGrath.

Mackey, 36, chased the three other leaders out of Takotna on Wednesday, setting out before dawn for the cabin at Ophir.

Mackey is trying to win the 1,100-mile race and follow in the footsteps of his father, Dick, and brother, Rick, who won the race in 1978 and 1983 respectively.

"Things are looking good," Mackey said when he arrived at Nikolai.

Mackey, who had not slept since the start of the race in Willow on Sunday, took about seven hours in Nikolai to rest himself and his team.

Mackey said his chances of winning had just improved with two top mushers out of the race after getting injured in what is proving to be one of the roughest Iditarods in years. Eleven mushers had dropped out of the race by Wednesday morning, including two top veterans.

Four-time champion Doug Swingley, 53, of Lincoln, Mont., scratched on Monday after taking a spill and getting injured in a stretch of icy trail a few miles before Rainy Pass in the Alaska Range. Swingley was second last year.

DeeDee Jonrowe, 53, who finished fourth last year, also bowed out of her 25th Iditarod on Monday after taking several nasty falls on the same section of trail between Finger Lake and Rainy Pass.

Aliy Zirkle, 37, of Two Rivers, who pulled into Nikolai at about the same time as Zack Steer, 33, of Sheep Mountain, said the trail is treacherous this year.

"I was lucky. That is the only thing I can say," she said. "Somebody is going to get hurt."

Rookie Sigrid Ekran of Norway, who is a student at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, arrived in Nikolai with a broken nose. Her sled flipped on the trail going down to Rohn.

"I flipped over and I couldn't see anything and I saw a big star," she said.

After breaking her nose, her sled and the main line holding her dogs, Ekran was thinking positively. "Now, I'm thinking nothing will go wrong anymore," she said.

Paul Gebhardt, 50, of Kasilof, who finished third last year and was runner-up in 2000, was second into Nikolai. He said he took a bunch of spills on 25 miles of trail that was nothing but tussocks.

"It was really rough," he said. "You would slip and then slide into the trees and off the trail."

Gebhardt said the frigid winds this year, which were pushing nighttime temperatures to 40 degrees below zero, also are making for a miserable run.

"It seems like it has been in our face the whole time," he said.

Mackey also said the trail was extremely rough.

"Oh I haven't had a lot of fun," he said, as he put down straw beds for his dogs and fed them a gruel of lamb, beef, fish oil and kibble.

Mackey busted a sled runner when it tipped over going through moguls and around S-turns. He put together a temporary fix using a piece from a wooden cross-country ski. The fix held for about 2 1/2 hours.

"It worked perfect but just not long enough," he said.

For the rest of the ride into Nikolai, Mackey said he just tried to keep going and figure out how to ride a sled with one good runner.

Mackey, who just won the 1,000-mile Yukon Quest International Sled DoRace for the third time, said most of the 16 dogs in his team ran in the Quest.

"This is one of the things people say can't be done," Mackey said of his chances of winning both the Quest and the Iditarod in the same year. "I'm trying to prove it can."

Eighty-two teams started the race Sunday from Willow, about 80 miles northwest of Anchorage. As of Tuesday evening, 10 teams had scratched.

The first team is expected to cross the finish line in Nome, a historic gold mining town on the Bering Sea on Alaska's western coastline with a rough and tumble frontier spirit, in about nine days.”

“I think you're talking to yourself:)”

“Hey Nimble,

Geo is talking to me! My first visit to this site in months and that's the first thread I read!

Go King! He's dang near my neighbor!”

“

It is hard to do anything when it is as cold as it is for those poor mushers and thier dogs.”

“We've had it that cold up (down for you if you're in Alaska) here. Just like the old days. I'm back to using snow shoes again.”

“Nimble,

I'm a bigger fan of skis myself. Where I live, there are enough snowmachines and people running dog teams there are enough packed down trails that I can ski almost anywhere I want. have been known to bust out the 'shoes though. Kinda hard to ski up a mountain.

As far as cold goes, I talk to some people in Vermont a few times a week, and it is often colder there than here.
last edited: 3/07/07 9:08:06 PM”

“A lot of teams zipped right through Ophir, but King and about five others took their mandatory 24-hour rest there. King is resting his dogs and feeding them well. He still has his whole team going while some teams had to drop dogs that were spent.

Interestingly, King conditioned his dogs to high altitude this past year. Should get a little extra stamina there, one would think.

I wish Versus would do real time coverage instead of waiting till it's over.”

“They have to truck in snow to Nome to the finish line (This is a webcam, so the image may change).

”

“If you continue talking to yourself, you're going to end up like MarkO. Is that what you want?”

“How can I be talking to myself if you are talking to me????”

“STFU and you won't have to worry about that.”

“Bite me.”

“Looks like it's going to be Lance Mackey, barring a mishap. By the end of the day he could be in Nome.”

“1 ,Lance Mackey IN TO Nome
2 Paul Gebhardt IN TO Nome
3 Zack Steer IN TO Nome
4 Martin Buser IN TO Nome
5 Jeff King IN TO Nome
6 Ed Iten IN TO Nome

True Story.

When we lived in Fairbanks, my sons were interested in mushing. Passing through the Denali area one winter, we saw Martin Buser's truck in a cafe parking lot. My oldest was about 10 and wanted his autograph. He boldly went into the establishment and , asked a group of about 10 mushers if Buser was there, he wanted an autograph. The group burst into laughter and Jeff King asked if he wanted an autograph from the reigning champion instead of an also ran. It turns out he probably walked into a meeting of the Iditarod Trail Committee.

Susan Butcher
Dec 26, 1954 - Aug 5, 2006



www.susanbutcher.com

"Susan Butcher's ashes scattered on the Iditarod Trail"
last edited: 3/14/07 1:18:55 PM”

“That's a funny story Pathman. Hope you got the King's autograph.

Susan's is a sad story indeed.”

“Sunday night at 7 an again 10 (EDT) will be the airing of the beginning of this year's race on Versus (formerly OLN).”

“Thanks for the reminder Geo!”

“Yes, tonight's the night, 7 and 10 on Versus.”

“The Iditarod ended two weeks ago and it finally snowed in Nome!”

“Iditarod 2008 begins Saturday with ceremonial start in Anchorage. Restart in Willow is Sunday.”

“Cool.”