Notebook: Phillips, Griffin into Pelly
PELLY CROSSING, Yukon—Michelle Phillips found herself surrounded by the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race’s media group Monday afternoon.
“Must be a slow news day,” she said.
Phillips was a little bit tired after arriving in this Yukon River checkpoint on the race’s 10th day with 200 miles of trail through the Black Hills left.
Actually, more like exhausted.
“I’m not looking forward to going back to those hills, but you do what you gotta do,” the Tagish, Yukon, musher said.
Phillips just completed the southbound leg of the rerouted Quest trail from Dawson City to Pelly Crossing. She was seventh, arriving at 2:34 p.m. AST.
The trip to Pelly included 4,002-foot King Solomon’s Dome as well as the endless Black Hills. The leg is the longest, toughest stretch of hill mushing in all of the Quest, a race filled with hills.
“The dogs did awesome on the dome,” she said. “And then they kind of petered out on the hills after that. I don’t remember how many hills there were. A lot. I’m just going to carry on.”
Ask Wasilla’s Kelley Griffin how many Black Hills there are. She now knows after chasing Phillips into the checkpoint at 2:46 p.m.
“This is the first time I’ve gone over them in the daylight,” Griffin said. “Last time it was night and I didn’t remember how many there are. There’s nine of them. I counted. And the last one is 3,800 feet.”
Griffin is in her fifth consecutive Quest. She scratched last year after finishing three times. She’s still in a position to move up and improve upon her best finish, 11th in 2004.
“Purse money, beating the big boys,” Griffin said. “There’s lots of incentive. That’d be fun.”
Phillips was eighth in 2004, her only other Quest effort. She alternates years running the Quest with her husband, Ed Hopkins. Keegan Hopkins, the pair’s son who runs on an endless source of energy, also follows her to each stop in the race.
The 2006 Quest will end in Dawson City for the first time in race history because of low snow conditions south of Pelly. Reporters asked Phillips how she thought her dogs will feel about turning around at Pelly and going right back into the hills.
“I hope they won’t feel like I feel about it,” Phillips said. “I just hope they’re not depressed about it.”
Questaraunt
The Pelly Questaraunt is staffed with more than a few Quest fans.
“It’s very exciting when the Quest comes to town,” said Amanda Ellis, a second-year teacher at the school that hosts the Pelly Crossing checkpoint. “And with running the canteen this year, it makes the kids feel more of a part of it.”
Ellis said almost 70 students go to the school. Many of them were hard at work on Sunday and Monday, feeding the mushers and the many fans, officials and media that swarm their town every year in February.
Ellis worked in the kitchen with many of the students.
“You get to have a special relationship with the kids in small communities like this,” Ellis said. “I’m more than a teacher for them. We’re kind of more like a family. I’m kind of their aunt.”
Ellis, originally from Vancouver, British Columbia, moved to Pelly Crossing in search of a job opportunity.
“It is remote,” she said. “Before I came here I thought I’d miss the big cities, but now just going to Whitehorse is a chore. It’s nice being out of the rat race.”
Ellis said there wasn’t much dog mushing in her life until she moved to Pelly.
“Now I’m a Quest junky,” she said. “I’m just so impressed with how well the dogs are treated, it is so much better than I expected.
“It’s really amazing the way the dogs just love to do it.”
Ellis and her students put on quite the feed in the Questaraunt. Slices of pizza, chili, soups, various muffins and desserts and a wide variety of items were available.
It was all in support of a fundraising effort by children in grades 5 through 7 who want to travel to Vancouver, and they were raking it in when the Quest came to town.
But, as always, mushers ate for free.