by elsietee » Sat Mar 11, 2023 10:03 pm
Bruce and Heister now in Unk.
(This was a really fun session - really, Insider has been a joy this year. They had some technical glitches in places, but the interviews have been fun and thoughtful - much less fluff. I think the smaller field really helped, because it meant that they could focus better.)
I typed this as they were talking, so it isn't verbatim:
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Bruce:
As you leave the Yukon River Valley, it's a long gradual climb, so can look slow. After Old Woman cabin, it's more downhill, so the speeds will pick up.
Options on the trail:
1. Go to Old woman - 36 miles - breaks the trail to Unk nearly into half - feed a meal - stop for 1-3 hours. But you better be sure of your speed if you do that.
If you're Ryan, give the dogs a good rest and meal, wait for Pete and Richie to arrive, and then leave when they arrive.
2. Go to Big Timber - last big stand of spruce trees, has shelter from the wind. Breaks the trail between Kal and Shak mid-way. Nice and quiet, no snowmachine/people. Rest for as long as you dare, and go straight to Shak - that's what Bruce would do.
Bruce thinks Ryan is going to Unk [and I think he has another sled there, so it seems like he was planning to stop there] . If P and R stop at Big Timber, then Ryan has to guess how long they rested out there.
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Other teams didn't go through Kaltag because they don't have the gas to do it. Bruce is starting to see the fractures in the teams from the previous 600 miles of trail.
He thought maybe Jessie might go through, but instead Jessie is doing dog maintenance and dealing with little issues - so being more conservative.
On Eddie and Hunter battling for rookie of the year: After Eddie lost his team last night and got a lift from Hunter, he was joking about "that team is really nice!". Apparently Eddie had a chance to have six of Hunter's dogs in his team, but turned them down - and now he's regretting it because they looked so nice. <they are laughing>
Hunter looks like he's in Disneyland, having fun and out for a trip.
Both rookies really enjoying the ride and make you laugh. They say they are the future. [I hope so! Both really fun competitors].
And the three rules of mushing when you first go to handle at a kennel are:
1. "Don't let go"
2. "Don't let go"
3. "Don't let go"
They then talk about the bond between musher and dogs.
Eddie said when the team got away, they weren't the same when he got back to them at EI... they seemed like they felt he'd let them down, perhaps. So today's run was a rebonding time - to rebuild trust and his relationship with them. The event sobered Eddie and changed him a little and he feels the need to make his dog feel like he's worthy of their trust again.
Dogs pick up on mushers' moods and because Eddie was critiquing himself, the dogs picked up on it. Heister cites Brent saying that his dogs reflected his mood from being sick.
The dogs arrived at the checkpoint, and although they were looked after, their person wasn't there - they feel like he left them.
[a note on this: other than a vet checking that the dogs were OK, I don't think they had anything done to them - they were sitting on snow when he arrived. Looking at the tracker - I don't think they were there for very long upon arrival. Guessing as soon as they showed up, they sent a snowmachine out to look for Eddie and picked him up and brought him back to the team.]
The bond between musher and dog is incredible - esp on a long-distance race like this one. Heister says he doesn't think they talk about it enough - and Brent and Eddie's experience really showcased that.
* * *
Ryan is speedy, but Pete hasn't showed his cards yet... and Richie has both. Right now, Bruce can't pick any one of the three as .
Bruce thinks the ideal race will be for all three to arrive at WM within 15 mins of each other.
Ryan is used to the pressure - when he won the Beargrease, 2nd place was only minutes behind him.
All three are too smart to do a hail mary move.
But Heister is thinking of how Lance won when Jeff had the better team - Lance faked it that his team was better, and therefore ended up winning.
But Bruce says you have to read between the lines of what Richie said "you have no idea how competitive he and Pete can be".
Good stories all:
They want Ryan to win - after 51 years, having a Redington win it
They want Pete to join the small group of mushers who have won multiple times
And they want Richie to win beating one of his best friends.
* * *
Wind isn't blowing in Unk - probably as nice as it has ever been on the Bering Coast.
* * *
Bruce is not ruling out the other mushers - but having looked into their eyes and seen their dog teams first hand (and says there's a few that have considered throwing in the towel at this point), he doesn't see that they have the teams to beat this front three (anything weird happening, notwithstanding). But Bruce also thinks that the guys in the next pack are going to have an even harder competition amongst themselves.
[Agreed! Right now, places 4th through 11th are only separated, in real time, by about 4 hours!]
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elsietee AT ponyhill DOT org
Repotted english person in the Sierra foothills, CA
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