Mushers Coming into Rainy Pass
09. Mar, 2009 
4 Comments
Lance Mackey arrived first at Rainy Pass – 11:34am
Leaving Finger Lake and heading into Rainy Pass is the thing nightmares are made of – regardless of how much experience you have. Multiple drops along Happy River, combined with hairpin turns and tricky switchbacks put veterans and rookies on a level playing field. It was on this section that in 2007 some of the most tested mushers, DeeDee Jonrowe and Doug Swingley (4 time champion) were both forced to scratch, DeeDee broke her hand, and Swingley broke some ribs. Once checked in at Rainy Pass Lodge mushers can look forward to soon reaching the highest point of the Iditarod, they’re in the middle of the great Alaskan Range.
Going from Rainy Pass into Rohn isn’t a walk in the park either, the checkpoint is at 1,800ft elevation and before reaching Rohn (about 40 miles away) they will hit 3,160ft and they highest elevation of the race. After this point they are considered to be in Interior Alaska. After reaching the summit, the trail quickly goes downhill and the nightmare from the run before isn’t over if warmer weather is a factor. There is a steep 200-foot hill drop running into a Gorge and, running along “Dalzell Creek”. The trail jumps from side to side of Dalzell Creek (at a few point the Canyon is just barley wide enough for both the trail and the creek). There is always open water on the creek with snow and ice bridges for the mushers to cross. In colder weather the bridges hold better, but going faster is always better to avoid getting wet!
It’s tough right now to see who is holding the best lead, for a while it was Sebastian Schnuelle, who won the Yukon Quest a few weeks ago – Ed Iten and Paul Gebhardt were traveling at a similar schedule, and Lance Mackey has rocketed to the front of the pack for now. Lance will probably attempt to get through all of this tough trail today, and rest in Rohn.
More updates to come throughout the day, but make sure you are keeping an eye on twitter as well!
How is DeeDee doing?
I just twittered you, but I thought I’d follow up on the blog. The Current Standings board is very deceptive. Those 10 or so people that came to Rainy pass midday (starting with Mackey) DID NOT stay. It was only after they rested for several hours that Schnuelle, Gebhardt, and Swenson blew past. So I expect that group to leapfrog S, G, & S shortly. It seems crazy to me that somehow the time outs for S, G, & S are up but not the way earlier times out for the pack leaders!
I’m so glad I ponied up for the GPS again this year. Sheesh. If I had to rely on the leader board, I would NOT have an accurate picture of the race.
To clarify, Mackey through Palfrey blew through Rainy Pass and stopped to rest at Puntilla Lake. Sorry I forgot to include where it is they stopped on the trail.
OK, I’m redfaced now. I just read on the ITC forum that the Rainy Pass checkpoint is wrong on the GPS map. Puntilla Lake is indeed the Rainy Pass checkpoint. So the leaderboard is correct after all.
My bad. Sigh.