UPDATE: Lance Mackey left the North Pole dog drop at 9:49 a.m. today and is heading toward downtown Fairbanks for his third consecutive victory in the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race.
The North Pole drop is 33 trail miles from the finish line, located at the Cushman Street Bridge. Mackey’s run time for this leg of the race two years ago, when it last ran in this direction, was about four hours, meaning he could finish between 1:30 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. today.
CHENA HOT SPRINGS — Barring utter catastrophe, Lance Mackey won’t just break the Yukon Quest record today, he’s going to obliterate it.
Mackey continued his break-neck pace in the 24th Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race on Monday, mushing into the new checkpoint at Chena Hot Springs at 5 p.m. after negotiating almost 4,000 feet of elevation gain apiece on Eagle and Rosebud Summits earlier in the day.
After a mandatory eight-hour break there, Mackey has just 99 miles remaining to complete the 1,000-mile race that started on Feb. 10 in Whitehorse.
Mackey, who soaked in the springs at the resort, may leave here at 1 a.m. this morning and is expected to reach the finish line near the Cushman Street Bridge on the Chena River in downtown Fairbanks between noon and 4 p.m., depending on trail and weather conditions.
Mackey and a handful of mushers can be sighted today on their way to Fairbanks at the Pleasant Valley Store at 23 Mile Chena Hot Springs Road, the Nordale Road Bridge near North Pole, 20 trail miles from Fairbanks and the Chena River heading into town.
Frank Turner of Whitehorse has held the Quest record since 1995 with his run of 10 days, 16 hours and 20 minutes.
If Mackey arrives at noon, he would finish the Quest in 10 days and 27 minutes.
A Mackey win would be his third straight, tying him with the only other Quest musher to win three times, Hans Gatt of Atlin, British Columbia, the champion from 2002-04.
Mackey was sleeping late at Chena Hot Springs on Monday and couldn’t be reached for comment.
Gatt, meanwhile, continued securely in second place on Monday, after leaving the Mile 101 Checkpoint on the Steese Highway at 5:30 p.m., two hours before Gerry Willomitzer and William Kleedehn arrived there at the same recorded time.
Gatt reportedly had no major problems scaling and descending Eagle Summit — a treeless and exposed peak topping out at 3,650 feet — in sunny but cold and breezy conditions. He stopped at the summit to praise his dogs before descending to the Mile 101 checkpoint.
Eagle Summit was the site of a vicious storm a year ago that forced seven mushers and their dog teams to be airlifted to safety.
Gatt was expected late Monday night into Chena Hot Springs, which is replacing Angel Creek Lodge as the final Quest checkpoint.
Willomitzer and Kleedehn, meanwhile, continued to travel virtually together Monday, as they have since shortly after the race’s midway point.
After enduring a frigid trip along Birch Creek (where reports of 40 to 60 below were received), they rested at Central and geared down for the climb up Eagle Summit.
Willomitzer, the largest of 28 starting mushers at a stout 6-foot-5, detached his “taildragger” seat extension, plus other expendable gear, in order to lighten the load for his remaining 10 dogs. He also planned to push the sled and work hard up Eagle Summit.
“I dropped my seat, that’s 15 (pounds) right there,” said Willomitzer as he easily broke frozen chunks of horsemeat in half over a plastic bucket in the 20-below daytime temperatures.
The trail report posted in the Steese Roadhouse was hardly comforting, warning of terrain ahead featuring snowless areas, exposed rocks, glaciering conditions and frozen overflow.
Kleedehn, whose progress up hills is slowed because of a prosthetic leg, was more concerned about the overflow potential than intimidating mountains or possible handicaps.
Kleedehn debated whether to leave dog coats on his team because going through overflow could dangerously freeze them to their fur. Overflow also can be time-consuming to a musher, who must take up to 30 minutes to change his team’s booties after going through bad sections of it.
And overflow, whether flowing or frozen, is also perilous to the musher; Kleedehn was forced to scratch after breaking his leg after a crash near Mile 101 in 2004.
If Willomitzer can’t shake free of Kleedehn, or vice-versa, the two may duel to the finish for third place, which offers a prize of $22,000.
“From the last checkpoint there’s still a lot of miles where guys can do some duking out,” said Kleedehn, who got Willomitzer his start in mushing by hiring him as a handler.
Michelle Phillips of Tagish, Yukon, is comfortably in fifth place, and if she finishes there will be the first woman in the top five since Aliy Zirkle won the race in 2000.
Phillips arrived at Central at 4 p.m. Monday, followed by Sebastian Schnuelle (6:17 p.m.), Aaron Burmeister (8:26 p.m.) and Hugh Neff (9:33 p.m.).
Dawson musher Peter Ledwidge scratched Monday at Circle.
Contact staff writer Matias Saari at msaari@newsminer.com.
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