Wacky weather
When the 23rd Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race got under way Saturday morning on the Chena River, one temperature sign in downtown Fairbanks read 38 degrees. Another just a couple hundred feet away reported 42 degrees.
The near-record temperatures were a balmy reminder that the weather decides the fate of Quest mushers.
“We’re slaves of nature,” Race Marshal Mike McCowan said after the last team panted out of the starting chute.
The Quest began under some of the warmest temperatures in recent race history. Sled dogs prefer the temperature to range from 10 above zero to 10 below.
Sebastian Schnuelle, who started last as temperatures reached their peak, didn’t take long to assess the weather conditions as he prepared his team for launch.
“It sucks,” the Whitehorse, Yukon, musher said. “But I don’t think it makes much of a difference since it’s early in the race.”
In addition to the energy-sapping effect it has on the dogs, warmer weather means softer snow and slower trail.
“You have to hold the dogs back some more,” Schnuelle said. “Look at this—I’m wearing no hat, no gloves and just a fleece.”
When Whitehorse rookie Saul Turner started, he wasn’t even wearing a hat. Eric Butcher and Hugh Neff wore baseball hats when they mushed out of the chute. About half the mushers weren’t even wearing snow suits.
Mushers have already dealt with a variety of weather concerns this winter as they prepared for the race. Lack of snow was a problem till January. Combined with unseasonably warm temperatures, mushers found the training season to be less than ideal pretty much throughout Alaska and the Yukon.
Then shortly after snow conditions improved, Alaska and the Yukon plunged into a prolonged cold spell. The normal temperatures for Saturday were supposed to be 7 above for the high and 17 below zero for the low. Instead, the high reached 43, one off the record, according to the National Weather Service. The low was a pleasant 20 above.
That’s nothing like the stereotypical frigid weather the Quest has built its reputation on as “the world’s toughest sled dog race.”
Veteran musher William Kleedehn offered a philosophical take on the conditions as he prepared his team.
“Right now, sometimes it’s better like this than the ‘real Alaska,’” Kleedehn said.
Kleedehn, the 2005 runner-up after a thrilling last-day chase that left him eight minutes behind champion Lance Mackey, said he wasn’t sure if the warm weather would affect the trail.
“It depends on the snow condition, how deep it is,” Kleedehn said. “If there’s not much base and no trail set up, that could make for some tough mushing. Let’s see what we get.”
McCowan said he has heard no reports of bad trail. There currently are no plans to deviate from the traditional 1,000-mile course.
“(The weather) might slow it down in some places,” McCowan said. “Some sections with a deeper base will hold up better.”
Of course, the warmer weather at the start did have its advantages.
“We got some very, very nice crowds,” McCowan said.