Sass the class of Quest 300
CIRCLE—The Yukon Quest 300 was won by a musher competing in his very first race.
The Goldstream Valley was done proud when Brent Sass, the first-time musher who was saved on Eagle Summit by a breathtaking dog named Silver, came off the Yukon River into Circle to win the 300 in convincing fashion at 2:01 p.m. Tuesday.
Silver and co-leader Madonna directed Sass and his team into the dog yard outside the Circle Firehouse, which once served as a one-room jailhouse in this original Yukon Gold Rush town.
“I’m pretty overwhelmed,” said Sass while he bedded down the team on piles of straw.
“I didn’t expect this at all. I knew that I had a decent dog team, and I was confident in myself as a musher. But I just wanted to finish.”
Sass was the first 300 musher to conquer Eagle Summit, the 3,650-foot behemoth block of ice and stone that was covered by meager snow, plenty of rain and blistering winds early Monday morning. “I think that run over Eagle Summit was the difference,” said Sass. “That, and I stuck to my original schedule. I had a schedule originally planned and I stuck to it to a T.”
Under the most harrowing of circumstances, Sass and his dogs survived zero visibility and no trail to follow and a harrowing descent down walls of ice.
Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race rookie Regina Wycoff and her team came upon Sass and fellow 300 musher Randy Chappel, who were considering a hunkering down of man and beast to wait out the storm.
“Here comes this crazy musher saying, ‘Let’s go! Let’s go!‚’” said Sass. “So we went. It was great.”
Chappel fell from his sled and lost his team going down a treacherous glacial wall, and Wycoff loaded him onto her sled. She stood on one runner while Chappel stood on the other.
Sass led the way, and they were all following Silver. The 3-year old Alaskan husky is a natural leader, a truly elegant black and brown animal with intelligent brown eyes and trailbraking instincts.
When Silver came into the dog yard at Circle on Tuesday, he started to run right toward Wycoff’s team, which was sleeping before their trek on toward Eagle.
“They’re buddies,” said Sass.
“They look like they’re ready to keep going,” said Wycoff, who was tending her team nearby.
Silver and Madonna led Sass’ team, followed by team dogs Pixie, York, Ross, Melville and Jean, and then anchored by wheel dogs Messiah and Taco.
Sass had to drop Buster, Jekyll and Ling Ling along the way.
“I was sad about that,” said Sass. “Ling Ling got me over Rosebud.”
Taking care of the team’s handling chores during the 300 was his father Mark Sass, in from Minnesota to witness the race every step of the way.
“It was just keeping up with him, seeing the process of how he’s been doing this,” he said. “I’m pretty proud. This is pretty neat.”
Sass said he intends to run the 1,000-mile Quest next year.
“I’m there,” said Sass.
300 Dog tales
Musher Martin Jahr’s journey over Eagle Summit had far less fanfare, but the same amount of agony as others in this year’s Quest.
The 9-year resident of Haines Junction got over the summit in a seven-hour assault. Paired with fellow 300 musher Didier Moggia, Jahr was able to get his team over by sheer force of will.
Jahr assessed the trip while thawing out his feet and gear at the Steese Roadhouse late Monday night.
“It was good after I made it here,” he said. “Once you get through it, it’s okay.”
Jahr said he and Didier traveled over Eagle Summit by coaxing their dog teams from stake to stake. One would advance to the next trail marker, drop the hook, and wait for the following musher to arrive. One at a time.
“You just couldn’t see,” said Jahr.
His dog team took it much better than he did.
“They are very, very well,” he said. “There were a couple of minor wrist injuries, but they all ate.”
Jahr said that the first part of the 300 was a cakewalk.
“From Fairbanks to Angel Creek, it was nothing,” he said. “But then in one day, the storm can come. That is why it’s racing.”
Jahr was one of the organizers of the Silver Sled 100 in Haines Junction long before he got into mushing.
After Jahr’s harrowing run over Eagle Summit, he was left questioning whether he would continue.
“When I came in (to Central), I was going to scratch,” Jahr said early Tuesday afternoon. “But it looks good now.”
He had an ominous message about Eagle Summit. Ironically, the one thing that saved him was the unseasonably warm weather that caused the storm in the first place.
“If it would have been cold, it would have been terrible,” he said.
Jahr left Central by 2 p.m., but he returned later to scratch according to the Quest 300 Web site.