Gatt, Mackey lead out of Eagle
EAGLE—Hans Gatt and Lance Mackey chased each other in and out of the dog yard at the old schoolhouse Wednesday.
With 600 miles of Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race trail left, it’s too early to call this a two-team race, but the combined winners of the last four 1,000-mile races between Fairbanks and Whitehorse, Yukon, seemed to be taking charge.
Gatt, a three-time Quest champion from Atlin, B.C., was the first musher into and out of Eagle. He left the Eagle checkpoint at 12:13 p.m. with 14 dogs. Mackey trailed him out at 2:35 with 12 dogs.
While it might seem like he is in familiar territory at the head of the pack after the grueling 159-mile run from Circle to Eagle along the Yukon River, Gatt said he isn’t thinking about picking up his fourth Quest championship quite yet.
“I don’t think about the finish line,” he said. “My dog team looks great right now, but you never know what will happen.”
Even though he said seven or eight of his dogs are from the 2004 championship team, Gatt was not confident about his team’s chances before the race started.
“This is a heck of a surprise,” Gatt said. “Then I didn’t know much about the team I put together this year. But they’re awesome. It seems to be working out now.”
After the lead pack completed a grueling climb over Eagle Summit, the mushers encountered difficult trail conditions from Central to Circle and then all the way to Eagle.
“Birch Creek was really a surprise,” he said of the 65 miles of river mushers travel from Central to Circle. “There was no trail there. It snowed 8 inches that night. Lance and Hugh (Neff) did most of the trailbreaking duties while I was camping.”
Then Gatt and the lead mushers ran into even more difficulty on the Yukon River when they departed Circle for Eagle.
“The run up the river here was really rough trail,” Gatt said. “There was lots of water. I’ve never seen so much overflow on the river.”
The bad trail conditions impacted everyone in the lead group of Gatt, Mackey, Neff, William Kleedehn and Sebastian Schnuelle.
“You just have to go a lot slower,” Gatt said. “That’s why all of us are so close together.”
About 5 1/2 hours separated Gatt and Gerry Willomitzer in sixth place. Thirteen mushers remain in the race. The leaders are expected into Dawson City for their mandatory 36-hour layovers tonight after the 150-mile run from Eagle.
Asked if he saw Mackey on the trail, Gatt said: “I don’t think he’ll even stop here. If he’s not here yet, that means he’ll be resting now and will push on through.”
Mackey did indeed stop at Eagle, but only long enough to see what Gatt was up to. Mackey checked into the dog yard at 9:32 a.m.
“It’s been a long, long night,” said Mackey, who beat Kleedehn by 8 minutes in the 2005 Quest. “That was only one night, huh? Wow.”
The Yukon River was raked by fierce winds all the way from Circle to Eagle.
“It was to the point where I had on everything I carried on the sled,” he said. “I stood there like a statue, but if even the tiniest crack (in his clothing) was exposed, the wind would find it and freeze you.”
The biggest competitor on the trail for Mackey was his own fatigue, not the other mushers.
“I was nodding off,” said Mackey, who looked extremely tired and dazed in the checkpoint while he ate everything that was put in front of him.
“My sled hit something, a stump or a rock, and I went flying,” he said. “It was the second time this race where I just totally flew off my sled. It crunched my sled a little bit.”
Mackey said he might have bent the handlebar during the wreck. But he also might have damaged it as he perched himself high above overflow that was deep enough to fill his boots.
But Mackey’s improvisation skills are mighty and he said he would find a way to deal with the mangled sled.
“All I need is duct tape,” he said. “But all my high-dollar equipment is starting to get irritating. Maybe I need to get something new.”
The differences between Gatt and Mackey are obvious. Gatt is coldly precise in his planning and execution, a mushing machine who always maintains an even keel.
Mackey’s emotions and mushing style are all over the place. He wears clothing patched with duct tape and has few of the high-tech bells and whistles employed by his competitors.
“I’ve never been in a race where someone like Hans is concerned about me,” Mackey said. “Hans is a world-class athlete. I’m just a poor-boy hippie trying to make ends meet.”
Mackey got exactly one hour of sleep and left Eagle two hours back. He remained confident he was in the chase.
“Last year when I came into Eagle, I was two hours behind,” Mackey said. “We all know how that ended.”
Kleedehn was third out of Eagle at 3:05 p.m., followed by Schnuelle (4:30), Dave Dalton (5:47 and Willomitzer (5:50).
Regina Wycoff of Healy remains in last place. She left Slaven’s Cabin, 100 miles from Eagle, at 12:51p.m. with 11 dogs.