Josi Shelley is leading the Yukon Quest 750 race, which has transitioned to the flat expanse of the Yukon River.
Shelley left Circle City a little after 2 p.m. Monday afternoon – and she had a message on her way out for a fellow musher, who was sleeping at the checkpoint.
Deeter, the defending Quest champion, started preparing to head out of Circle about an hour later. How was his nap?
“It was lovely. It was the first time I’ve slept on this race thus far.”
And his response to hearing Shelley’s parting message…
“(Laughing) Yeah, I’m letting her lead this race. Last year, I basically led the whole 550, and I said, ‘Yeah, we’re doing a little different distance, maybe I’ll let someone else lead.’”
He says he’s running dogs in this race who are a little less headstrong than last year’s and some younger dogs, so he’s taking more rest.
“I’m hoping to, like, cut some rest later on in the race. But who knows. Right now, we’re just trying to survive, so. It’s the Yukon Quest motto, I think: survive until the finish.”
Shelley says her team is doing well, and that taking and keeping the lead hasn’t been what she’s thinking about the most.
“We’ve just been running the dogs – running my team how they need to be run, so, not really worried – just trying to keep them happy and healthy and going.”
The mushers have tackled two notorious summits: Rosebud and Eagle outside Central, as well as deep cold along the winding Birch Creek on the run from Central to Circle. Both mushers say Rosebud was windblown and icy. Deeter says the top of Eagle summit was nice, but that getting there was a challenge.
“It was pretty windy, blizzard conditions. I had good visibility, but there was no discernible trail, really, to follow.”
He says his hat goes off to Keaton Loebrich, who led mushers through that stretch of the trail.
Loebrich scratched late Sunday night at Mile 101 “in the best interest of his team,” according to a Yukon Quest Alaska social media post.
Race Marshal John Schandelmeier says Loebrich had moved on from the checkpoint to Eagle summit. But Schandelmeier says Loebrich returned to Mile 101 with a dog that had a tooth injury after getting into a fight with another dog. Schandelmeier says Loebrich’s team rested, then tried to head to Central once more before scratching.
“They ran into the wind, turned around, ran back to the checkpoint, then turned out and ran back into the wind again, and it was just a bit much for them, you know.”
He says Loebrich returned to 101 again and decided not to continue in the race at that point.
Quest mushers Jason and Patrick Mackey pulled off of Birch Creek and into the Circle checkpoint before 9 last night.
The father and son duo who are running together, say the thermometer on Patrick’s sled showed 63 degrees below zero at one point on the creek. The younger Mackey, who’s been mushing most of his life, says he thinks it’s the lowest temperature he’s ever seen while running dogs.
“I don’t want a thermometer on my sled anymore. Because I look at it, and I’m like, ‘okay, it’s cold.’ And then I look at it, and I see 63-below, and I’m like, ‘Oh my God. [Laughs] Makes you colder. Psychologically, you get colder.”
Like other mushers so far, the Mackeys had a lot to say about Rosebud and Eagle Summits. Jason Mackey says the steep descent of Eagle summit was no problem this year and that he put his sled on its side and rode it down, like a plow.
But at Rosebud, he says coming down brought on the fear factor. With areas of minimal snow cover Mackey says his team started to veer in a direction that could’ve been quote: “super bad.” The elder Mackey says it was the worst he’s experienced along that part of the trail.
“It was wild, and I’m like I don’t… if I knew that was going to be like that every time, I wouldn’t do it. That’s how scary it was.”
Despite the challenges, Jason’s son Patrick described the trail so far as “the fun stuff,” and saying now their race really begins.
Its about a 70-mile run from Circle, down the Yukon to the next checkpoint at Fort Yukon, where there’s a mandatory eight-hour rest. Race Marshall John Schandelmeier says lows are forecast to be around minus 50-below with calm winds and little to no jumble ice along the trail.
(Patrick Gilchrist)
(videographer Dylan Lowery contributed audio recording to this report)
