At midnight, Joe Weber was winning the Yukon Quest 200-mile division. He was on track to finish at about 3:00 this morning. He was being followed an hour and a half later by Jody Potts Joseph. She said she slowed down before the Mile 101 checkpoint to take care of an ailing dog.
“My youngest dog on the team, just sore shoulder. You know, there's a lot of kind of sudden drop offs on this trail. And I think it's just a common injury with, they kind of jam their shoulder.”
Potts-Joseph dropped that dog at 101 and then another in Central before doing the final 60 miles loop back to the finish line, also in Central.
Third is Emma Lewis, who also dropped a dog in Central before the final loop. Fourth and last in the 200-mile race is J Jay Levy, who is still on the course.
It wouldn’t be the Yukon Quest if someone didn’t have trouble on the summits. 200-miler Ashley Franklin had to scratch from the race when her sled broke down near the top of one. Her husband, Jay Allyn (AL-line) was waiting on the roadside to retrieve her and the dogs from the Quest snowmachine volunteers.
“She had some sort of issue with her sled and, uh, we heard something was broken and so you're stuck on the top of Rosebud Summit and ended up pushing her, uh, her SOS button to ask for assistance.”
Yukon Quest Communications Manager, Wendy McCartney received a text from the volunteers at the Milepost 101 checkpoint that the retrieval was proceeding well.
“Okay. Fixed break. Fed and watered Ashley and Dogs. Unloaded Sled bag. Hauling sled up steep pitch, then she will mush with one of us to 94 Mile. We'll update ETA when we get over Rosebud.”
550-miler Jeff Deeter says he’s using the Quest as a training run for the Iditarod later this spring, but Rosebud and Eagle summit have given him new respect for the Quest trail.
“And they're, no joke, they're pretty, um, pretty extreme climbs, pretty extreme descents. Eagle Summit was pretty wild; tipped over right at the top, drug down the whole thing, steepest part, on my face. But managed to keep the dogs under control and get rebounded at the bottom. Lost my axe, which I recovered, thankfully. It was an adventure for sure. I can't say that I'm excited to do Eagle Summit again anytime soon, but we're here and everybody's one piece.”
Deeter will be the first out on the Yukon River ice this morning. He already took his required four-hour layover in Central, while other 550-milers breezed through that checkpoint. After he left Central about 5:00 last night, he caught up to, and passed, three other 550-milers, including Keaton Loebrich, Jonah Bacon, and Lauro Eklund, who are forced to stop on the riverbank in Circle this morning for their four-hour rest.
There are still eight teams in the 550-mile division, that will start the long, 160-mile leg of the race to the Eagle checkpoint. Running fifth right now is Josi Shelley, then Joey Sabin, and running together are Jason and Patrick Mackey.
It may seem a bit unfair, unless you follow long-distance mushing regularly, or have one of these folks as your neighbor, to hear their names on the radio and try to tell them apart. I mean we have Jeff, Jonah, Josi, Joey, Jason, Jody, Joe, J Jay, (two Js!) and in the 80-mile fun run, a Jean and two Jennifers.
We would have had DJ, and Julia, but they withdrew.
In the Yukon Quest 80-mile fun run, 13 teams finished, and although Jean Williams scratched in Two Rivers, Nelson Wappet won in just under 18 hours. Madeline Knolmayer came in second in 18 and a half and Leif Anderson third in 18 hours and 51 minutes.
On the riverbank in Circle, Alaska.
