© Paul Gebhardt - Morning View Kennel - IDITAROD 2008 UPDATE
Update as of 5:20 a.m. Monday, March 3, 2008
Wearing Bib # 69
Currently in 16th place
OUT of the SKWENTNA checkpoint
When the sun breaks over the horizon in just a couple of hours, Paul and his team of 16 dogs will enjoy a panoramic view of the Alaska Range as DAY 1 of racing in the 2008 Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race comes full circle. The race officially got underway at 2pm yesterday, on the frozen surface of Willow Lake. Much to the delight of the thousands of fans and media gathered for the event, the race start enjoyed temperatures that were downright balmy by Alaskan standards. Hovering just around the freezing mark, temperatures held steady for much of the afternoon due to a cloud cover as team after team made their way to the starting line. Just as Paul, wearing Bib #69, made his way to the chute, the clouds broke and the noticeable warmth of the afternoon sun bathed the trail in a bronze glow.
Both Paul and the team were ready to race, after putting the Ceremonial Start behind them the day before. I had the privilege to ride the runners of the sled with Paul behind the team for this 11-mile run through the downtown streets of Anchorage, which had been lined with truckloads of snow specifically for this event. We carried 9-year old Preston in our sled, who traveled all the way from South Carolina for his trip as one of the official Idita-Riders. Together, we enjoyed the beauty of the team in motion as we made our way onto the tree-lined ski trails of Anchorage, and crossed the open flowing waters of Campbell Creek on small wooden bridges. It was almost surreal at times, as snowflakes gently filtered through the trees with a back light of sunshine that gave them the appearance of floating diamonds. But despite this pixie dust on a trail that seemed benign, it was not a journey absent of hazards.
I really appreciated the necessity of each musher having an extra handler along on this run, as we rounded a corner to cross one of the wooden bridges. While our team responded to Paul and effortlessly followed the trail over the bridge, another team was wallowing through deep snow and brush down in the creek bed. They had missed the bridge, and as we sped on by, I saw their handler tangled in thick willows trudging through the deep snow to get the team back on the trail. As effortlessly, Paul handled the sled around some tight corners, with Preston in the sled bag and me on the runners next to him. We later learned there were a number of teams that wiped out on corners that we literally made in a sweeping arc balancing on one runner. What was indicative of what was to come, we passed a number of teams on this short run, easily catching the first of these before we were even off the main streets.
Since he left the chute yesterday at the Official Re-start, Paul has been passing more teams. His bib number dictated his departure at precisely 4:18 in the afternoon, behind 68 other teams in the record field of 96. Throughout the waning, and cooling, hours of the early evening hours and late into the night, Paul caught and passed over 50 other teams.
As planned, he has not stayed in the checkpoints to rest the team. He passed through both the YENTNA and SKWENTNA checkpoints just long enough to gather supplies and take care of required race paperwork. He rested the team along the trail, away from the hustle and crowds, electing to give them a better opportunity to rest. He is currently along the trail heading into the FINGER LAKE checkpoint, a 45-mile run.
From here, the team will make the ascent to RAINY PASS and go directly through the heart of the Alaska Range. Paul had wanted to be towards the front of the pack when he got to that point, especially when the trail hit the descent through the Dalzell Gorge. Reports of heavy snow in recent days would mean that with each team passing over the trail, conditions would deteriorate. While the front teams may enjoy a relatively hard packed trail, the nature of navigating a sled through this section of trail would have mushers using their metal brakes and heavy drag tracks to slow the team on the steep downhills. The consequence of this is the demise of any semblance of hard-pack trail, with each passing team churning the trail into a powder of bottomless sugar snow furrowed by a trough of deep snow on each side.
The 16 dogs that comprise his team this year include: HOUSTON, BEAR, THOR, SKUNK, DUKE, CRAZY, BLACK DOG, PHILSON, VARDON, TESSA, WEASEL, MARSHALL, MADLIN, LIEUTENANT, GOLDIE and HAG. While he will have to see how he handles this level of competition, Paul is especially excited about the youngest member of the team, Lieutenant. He is really coming into his own as an upstart leader, and at a year-old he is actually Governor's son. (consider: Lieutenant Governor… the one who steps in to fill the shoes)
While I do need to close this to get ready for work, I wanted to address the issue of Paul declining to carry one of the optional GPS tracking devises on this year's race. Some mushers were asked to do so, but based on the information he was provided on the data extrapolated from these tracking devises for the Iditarod, Paul elected not to carry one. His primary concern was that he felt the integrity of the information and the other musher's ability to access this during the race was not defined. For those of us on the sidelines, knowing when a team stops, and exactly how long it rests before it starts moving on the trail again is interesting at best. This same information, disseminated by some means to another musher is critical in revamping their strategy to react. In Paul's opinion, the tracking of that uncharted rest the teams take out in the isolation along the trail away from the checkpoint removes the element of the unknown.
You can log onto http://www.iditarod.com/ and view the most current race standings. I will continue to keep you informed here, so stay tuned!
Until later - Life is a journey, enjoy the ride! Evy
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