Mitch Seavey became the second musher to reach the checkpoint of Timber, at 16:22. Because Jeff King (who was there early this afternoon) hasn’t reached Topkok yet (its only 16 miles away) one could assume that while Mackey and Seavey spent their time resting in Council, King decided to head on and get his rest in Timber. He arrived there at 13:03, so has been there for quite some time now. Once these guys start, its pretty safe to assume that they will be headed straight into Nome. They are 85 miles from Nome (Council) or 67 miles from Nome (Timber). They are getting as much rest in this leg of the race as possible in order to sprint to the finish line as they would in Iditarod from White Mountain (which is 77 miles from Nome). I mentioned earlier that the trail from White Mountain intersects with the AAS trail after or around timber (before topkok). Once these teams hit that area of the trail, both the musher and the dogs will know exactly where they are, and where they are going. The trail from Council to Nome is going to be nice, hardpacked, and wide…. its a very common route for folks in this area.
Interesting strategy just coming in over the ham from the Boston checkpoint (at 17:10), Ramy Brooks got in a little while ago, but came in the back way and is setup up in the trees behind the checkpoint, but hasn’t signed in yet. Look for his incoming time to Boston to most likely be his outgoing time as he will probably checkin after he has finished resting.
This is all getting SO intense!!! Wish like everyone we had some visuals to go on…Thanks Josh, for being our ears and eyes!!! Is anyone else going CRAZY trying to figure out the mushers strategy…AAaaggg! It’s still ANYONES race at this point!!! Thanks for ALL the blogs and other info…sure adds to the excitement, arm-chair mushing here in Idaho!!
Left by JuliL on March 28th, 2008