The crux of the Quest from Whitehorse to Fairbanks is the steep climb up Eagle Summit, and Sebastian Schnuelle selflessly scaled it four times on Wednesday.
“It wouldn’t have felt right to me after my team was up to just say ‘OK, see you guys, have fun getting your teams up,’” Schnuelle said while relating the story with a laugh at the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race finish line on Thursday. “So I went back down.”
And back up, to assist Aaron Burmeister’s team.
And back down, then up to help bring Hugh Neff’s dogs and sled to the 3,650-foot summit.
And back down, then up (with Neff and Burmeister) to get Michelle Phillips’ team safely atop.
“Sebastian was an animal. He helped with every single team,” said Burmeister, after finishing fifth. “He was running up and down that thing. He pushed up Hugh’s team almost by himself.”
Teams have stalled, struggled and scratched because of Eagle Summit every time the dome is approached from Central, and this year has been no different. Wednesday’s drama began when Phillips arrived there alone in the early morning, having left Central at midnight four hours before Burmeister, Neff and Schnuelle.
“My dogs just came up to the steep part and they just turned around,” said Phillips. “I have a young, inexperienced leader and he just balked and he turned the team right around, and then they lost their momentum for going back up.”
Burmeister, who had thought Phillips’ lead for fifth place was insurmountable at Central, was surprised when he arrived at the steep part of Eagle Summit.
“She was at the bottom camping because her dogs turned around and came down,” said Burmeister. “We kind of set up a train.”
Schnuelle said though his and Burmeister’s teams stalled partway up, getting them to the top was “fairly easy.”
Neff’s and Phillips’ teams, however, took quite an effort.
The wind-packed slope — more than 45 degrees at its steepest — offered limited traction for the mushers and minimal glide for the sled runners, but thankfully temperatures were warmer than in recent days and wind was lacking.
With Schnuelle and Burmeister’s teams safely anchored on the summit, everyone chipped in for Neff and Phillips’ ascents.
“One would go in the back and push the sled, one would pull from the front and one would help the dogs up,” said Phillips.
Not so easy given the precipitous pitch.
“You have to crawl on your hands and knees,” Phillips said.
Added Burmeister: “You have to put your anchor in to hold your sled from sliding backwards … Pushing the sled is the hard part because you’re walking up a vertical slope. You can’t even stand on it. It’s so steep your feet slip.”
Neff’s team presented a unique challenge: his seven remaining dogs needed to be detached from the sled, and both units hauled up individually, said Schnuelle.
“We had to take the dogs separate from the sled. There were four of us pulling his dogs so that was rather interesting,” said Schnuelle, who finished eighth.
Neff said he appreciated the assistance, but believes a solo ascent would have been possible.
“Yeah, I think I could have. It would have been hard,” he said shortly after arriving in Fairbanks in ninth place Wednesday night. “But I had June Marie in lead. She’s already been over it every time. It was sort of a traffic jam out there but things worked out.”
After finishing sixth on Thursday, Phillips, who napped for about four hours waiting for the trio behind her, said in retrospect she should have packed a lighter sled, approached the peak with more experienced leaders and possibly rested longer at Central.
A sweat-drenched Schnuelle rested and dried out at the Mile 101 checkpoint for more than three hours, while Neff stayed there two hours. Burmeister snacked his dogs and left after forty minutes in chase of Phillips, who blew through the stop in two minutes after requiring more than 10 hours for the 28-mile trip from Central to Mile 101.
“I couldn’t have kept on going (right away),” said Schnuelle. “I would have frozen to death on the way to Angel Creek.”
Ever the jokester, Schnuelle explained his abundance of sweat.
“That’s because I’m fat. All that McDonald’s food came right back out, ja,” said Schnuelle in his German accent. “I never thought I could actually make that (climb) three or four times.”
Burmeister said in a situation like Wednesday’s, the race is put on hold to aid mushers in need.
“Nobody wanted to see (Phillips) have to turn around (to Central), so we got her going,” said Burmeister. “That’s part of racing, there’s a little bit of camaraderie and teamwork involved.”
Contact staff writer Matias Saari at 459-7591 or msaari@newsminer.com.
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