Dawson City, YK - Yukon Quest personnel are scrambling to get the chute and the dog yard together in Dawson City as teams make their way into the fourth race checkpoint. This year’s fast race pace has kept everyone on their toes.
It’s full speed ahead for dog teams and Race manager Alex Olesen. He says officials originally estimated the arrival times for the first couple teams at three o’clock this afternoon, but their fast pace could have them in much earlier. “So no we’re in Go Mode. That’s all," says Olesen. "Just more so than we would have been. Instead of eating breakfast today, we’re just running!”
Olesen’s crew spent the morning setting up the checkpoint chute and shoveling out a campground where mushers will park their teams for a 36 hour layover. “They’ve got a lot of snow here, so we just gotta do some shoveling over in the campground to get some of their parking spots cleared," he says. "There’s just a little more snow in Dawson than anywhere else on the trail so far.”
Race Marshall Doug Grilliot says they’ll be ready when the first team comes in. He says the race is also devising a plan if mushers continue their fast pace out of Dawson and across the Alaskan border. “We’re just kind waiting to see when the very first person comes in," Grilliot says, "and then we’ll do some math problems and some math solutions and figure out exactly what we’re looking at for the next three to four days.”
A reroute of the race course also has residents of eagle scrambling to get their checkpoint together. The change shaves 50 miles and the climb over American summit off the race, which means dog teams could arrive up to 12 hours earlier than expected.