Mushers view change as positive
DAWSON CITY, Yukon—The decision to reroute the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race was not without precedent.
Frank Turner would know. The 2006 Quest is the first race in its 23-year history that Turner has not started. Turner told media Friday after the announcement the race will finish in this historic gold rush town that the Quest has been rerouted before, most recently in 2003. And in the 1995 race officials required mushers to leave the Whitehorse, Yukon, start line with 10 of the 14 dogs allowed for each team.
“You have to adapt to the prevailing conditions,” Turner said.
After a difficult run from Angel Creek to the 101 Mile Steese Highway dog drop, the first half of the Quest featured the largest airlift operation in race history when five 1,000-mile mushers were airlifted off Eagle Summit following a storm. Turner’s son, Saul, a 25-year-old rookie, was among those flown from the summit by helicopter.
Conditions from Central along Birch Creek to Circle, where musher reported virtually no trail, were slow and tenuous, as was the Yukon River on the way to Eagle.
And now the 13 teams left in the field will run from Dawson to Pelly and back today to avoid low snow conditions from Carmacks south to Whitehorse. Anyway you look at it, mushing in the Quest has been extremely difficult this year.
“This is not something that will invite people to participate,” Turner said.
Last year’s finishing field of 12 mushers was the lowest in Quest history. This year 22 mushers started. Four have scratched since and the five racers taken off the summit were withdrawn, leaving 13.
The number of mushers entering and completing the Yukon Quest has been on a decline for years. The race’s waning popularity has been a subject of discussion for officials, mushers and volunteers for a few years.
Out at the Yukon River campground, were teams were bedded down and mushers have tents set up during the race’s 36-hour mandatory layover, there was talk about how difficult it is to run the Quest.
“The race must be friendlier to newer mushers,” said veteran musher Hugh Neff, competing in his sixth Quest.
“So much a part of what the Quest is all about is that sense of wonder, that excitement you feel with other mushers while you’re going through it and seeing all these places. None of these guys (rookie mushers) are getting to experience that. Before, it was not about doing it for money.”
Neff said that Quest 300 mushers who were unable to complete the qualifying race because of the dramatic weather in Alaska, as well as the 1,000-mile mushers who were withdrawn under race rules, are on the minds of the drivers.
“I can’t tell you how many times we’ve talked about how bad we feel for them,” Neff said.
Despite the drama that surrounded the announcement of a new route, mushers were still thinking about the race to come. Mushers will cover 400 miles, almost exclusively throughout the seemingly endless Black Hills.
“I think it keeps the race wide open,” three-time champion Hans Gatt said. “Obviously the trail to Pelly is in great shape.”
Gatt said the other option mushers faced, ending the race prematurely in Pelly Crossing rather than looping back around to finish in Dawson, would have killed his strategy.
“The other option was to finish in Pelly, and that is only 250 miles,” he said. “Then all of the strategy I used getting here would not have worked out for me at all.”
A lack of snow leading into Pelly might have advantages for some mushers.
“It’s not too hard on the dogs if you handle them correctly,” said Gerry Willomitzer, the Shallow Bay, Yukon, musher who will leave Dawson in fourth place. “My dogs all reacted good to the Alaska side except for the downhill on Eagle Summit.
“The trail to Pelly is supposed to be good. I personally like hard and fast trails. I have what I call a fairly small team with 10 dogs, and a small team can help you if you know what to do with it.”
Willomitzer offered a musher’s tip.
“It’s not about how good or bad the weather is,” he said. “It’s about how you handle it.”
For Michelle Phillips, the Tagish, Yukon, musher competing in her second Quest, the new route will make what has been a very tough race on her dogs that much harder.
“I would rather have stopped in Pelly,” said Phillips, who like Willomitzer has dropped four dogs from the team that started in Fairbanks a week ago. “It’s been a really hard trail on us, both physically and emotionally. I’m just tired.”
The Yukon River, which was alternately frozen, wet, covered with snow, bare ice and always windy, took a lot out of Phillips’ team.
“The river was really hard on their feet,” she said.
Phillips dropped two of her best leaders early in the race. But she has tried to keep her spirits up around her dog team. On the Quest, attitude is everything.
“I’m worried about my dogs’ attitude,” she said. “It’s real important keeping them happy. I’m just trying to stay positive.”
Neff said that the new route might be a blessing in disguise.
“It’s something different. Hopefully now it gives the race something to look forward to, rather than looking at all the stuff that’s happened behind us,” Neff said. “We’re all just living this life that we’re all lucky to be a part of.”