Jon Little: “And they’re off…”

Jon Little is one of the best Iditarod commentators out there, as a active and competitive musher he can provide an unique insight into the race. For quite a while Jon has been providing mainstream first-hand coverage via posts on the former “Cabella’s Iditarod” webpage, and on the main Iditarod website.  He’s on his own this year and providing commentary from his home… Jon let us take the text from his first entry and put it up here, but check out his blog “http://jonlittle.wordpress.com” for more updates throughout the race.

OK, so I’m not going up the trail this year. That doesn’t mean I can’t speculate a little and toss out whatever observations I might have. I’ll aim to keep it relevant.

As I type, the first musher is due in any time to Skwentna, which is 67.5 miles from Willow. (Cool. Thanks to the tracker, we now know how far it is between checkpoints for real.)

First off, there’s not much you can tell based on run times through Yentna and into Skwentna. There’s always some hot dog who flies to the front with their foot off the drag. But most of the heavyweight contenders are taking their time. This is a 1,000-mile race (OK, 908 miles according to the tracker), and there’s no point in rushing to Skwentna. I did just that as a rookie in 1999 and promptly dropped four dogs with sore shoulders.

So when you see run times of roughly four hours to Yentna, that’s right in there and normal. Melissa Owens is listed as getting to Yentna in 3 hours and 35 minutes, which is the fastest speed I’ve seen.

Most teams will stop at Skwentna, which is a good 6 to 7 hours from the starting line. Most teams won’t go longer than that before feeding their dogs, putting down straw and letting them sleep for a few hours. It’s a hectic checkpoint, but very hospitable and perfectly placed for the first rest of this long race. Some teams will camp out just short of Skwentna, then blow through. Others will cruise a half hour to an hour past it before taking a break. Those two moves are done simply to stay away from the crowd. It’s easier for dogs and musher to relax outside the checkpoint, especially on a relatively balmy night like this, with temperatures right around 20 degrees Fahrenheit (-5 C).

Buser shaking it up

In a little bit of a surprise move, if the stats are correct, Martin Buser opted to take a two-hour break at Yentna. That is intriguing. Very intriguing. He’s got 11 of his Yukon Quest dogs in the team and certainly was in no need of a rest only 4 hours into the race. My guess is he made sure the dogs got good water and food, and a nap, and will launch into a series of runs that involve skipping Skwentna. If he does, it will be the first time in my memory that Buser has altered his own typically predictable (but aggressive) race schedule. No need to go into too much detail yet. The pit stop could just be a burp in his normal routine.

With a miled-up team that he has in front of him this year, though, look for Buser to jog along slower than you may be used to seeing him, but going longer. Keep an eye on him.

I’ve used the two-hour campout routine myself, as recently as this year’s Yukon Quest, where I ran five hours, rested two, then ran five more to the first checkpoint of Braeburn. A musher can get away with a quick little pit stop early in the race.

What’s up ahead

The trail to this point has been flat and easy, but potentially confusing. They’re on a wide frozen river, the Yentna, and there’s quite a few cabins and lodges, well lit with diesel-generated power. Sometimes a musher can accidentally take a wrong trail leading up to a lodge, which happened to Bjornar Andersen the last time he raced. (That trail had been ‘marked’ with Iditarod-style trail markers if I remember correctly.)

The teams aiming to win the race will rest 4 to 6 hours, then make another moderate (by today’s standards) run past Finger Lake to a little lake known by two names, as Helicopter Lake and Finbear Lake. It’s halfway to Rainy Pass on the increasingly steep and narrow trail leading through the Happy River Steps. From there, they’ll blow through the Rainy Pass checkpoint at Puntilla Lake and make the typically four-hour run over the pass and down the always treacherous Dalzell Gorge to Rohn. Or maybe a little beyond Rohn. Lance Mackey did just that last year.

There may be variations on that schedule, such as running all the way from Skwentna to Rainy Pass and taking a break. But the name of the game these days for the front-runners is go about 7 hours at a time.

The reportedly soft trail conditions will play a factor in all that. If it is painfully slow and soft, they’ll be taking breaks short of their goals and breaking the race into shorter chunks, mileage-wise. It makes the mushers antsy, but it’s not a big deal for the dogs. A slow grind is easier on them physically that a hard, fast trail.