Reporter Eric Goold and photographer Eric Engman will provide daily coverage of the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race from start to finish. This is Goold's second trip down the trail after his rookie run in 2005. Engman made his first run in 1999 and this will be his third race. Send the News-Miner trail crew questions and comments.
DAWSON CITY, Yukon—Musher Hugh Neff said Saturday that race officials forced him out of the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race.
It’s the second time in Neff’s six-year Yukon Quest career that he’s been forced to scratch from the race. He was also ousted in 2001.
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.
DAWSON CITY, Yukon—The surprises keep coming on the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race trail.
Race Marshal Mike McCowan announced Friday that the Quest would finish in Dawson City this year rather than Whitehorse because of awful trail conditions due to low snow and warm temperatures. Racers will restart in Dawson after their 36-hour mandatory layovers, travel 200 miles to Pelly Crossing, then return to this historic gold rush town on the Yukon River.
This is the fourth time in the 23-year history of the Quest that officials have had to alter the trail because of low snow conditions. This year mushers will cover about 950 miles of trail.
Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race officials announced Friday the race will finish in Dawson City, Yukon, this year due to awful trail conditions in the final 250 miles from Pelly Crossing to Whitehorse.
DAWSON CITY, Yukon—Weather has been tearing up the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race trail this year.
Lance Mackey took his turn Thursday. The defending champion absolutely scorched the trail on the 150-mile run from Eagle, obliterating the previous record for the run by about five hours before bedding down in this historic gold rush town for his 36-hour mandatory layover.
Mackey, who won last year’s race as a rookie, used an unconventional—and possibly untried—strategy to overcome a two-hour deficit to Hans Gatt out of Eagle. He sizzled into Dawson at 1:47 p.m. AST, earning four ounces of gold and placing a 11⁄2-hour buffer between his team and his closest competitor, William Kleedehn.
“I made two long runs,” Mackey said as he heated his tent at the Yukon River campgrounds and hung his clothes on lines to dry out.
“That was my plan from the get-go. I did exactly what I set out to do. It didn’t matter to me too much what Hans was doing. I was wasting no time and there was no extra messing around. And we had a good run.”
DAWSON CITY, Yukon—The Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race’s rough trail conditions have followed mushers into Canada.
Race Marshal Mike McCowan said contingency plans have been drawn up if low snow conditions cause the trail to crumble. Mushers reached this Yukon River gold rush town Thursday and have 440 miles left to complete to Whitehorse, Yukon, after taking a 36-hour mandatory layover.
“We are concerned about the trail,” McCowan said during a news conference. “We’ve had contingency plans for 21⁄2 weeks now.”
Editor’s note: Yukon Quest officials released detailed information Thursday about their response during a winter storm that stranded nine mushers participating in both the 1,000-mile Quest and the Quest 300 qualifier on Eagle and Rosebud summits. The entire release follows.
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.”
EAGLE—Race Marshal Mike McCowan said Wednesday he will defer answering questions about the response to mushers in distress on the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race trail until he is able to meet with his full crew of judges.
McCowan said Wednesday that he intends to gather together the group when the race takes its traditional 36-hour break sometime this weekend in Dawson City, Yukon.
Some of the seven 1,000-mile Quest and Quest 300 racers rescued by helicopter from two White Mountains summits Monday and Tuesday have been critical of the response by race officials. And one participant who was not rescued claimed officials left three trailing teams that had not reached the 101 Mile Steese Highway dog drop by Monday to fend for themselves.
PTARMIGAN CREEK—Jennifer Cochran watched as her dogs strained in their harnesses and began to disappear over the rim of Eagle Summit.
The Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race’s most formidable obstacle was living up to its reputation around 8 p.m. Sunday, with 40 mph winds and blowing snow that pelted the back of her parka. Then her sled topped the rise near the peak of the 3,685-foot mountain and the world changed.
“As soon as I hit the summit, it was just like a wall,” Cochran said as she loaded gear into her truck Tuesday at the 101 Mile Steese Highway dog drop about 24 hours after she and five other mushers and their dogs were plucked off Eagle Summit by a rescue helicopter.