Rohn and Martin made their last training run today in pouring down snow and warming temperatures. Both teams did well and appear to be in tune. Tomorrow they will head to Anchorage with 28 dogs. The K-300 has a 14 dog limit for racing. Prior to Monday, the Kuskokwim River, where the race starts was an ice rink. The race committee decided to reroute the trail off the river for a short distance. But we've gotten recent word that it snowed in Bethel on Monday and now it's 8 degrees. The K-300 is notorious for offering up some surprises in weather.
The teams will travel on NAC (Northern Air Cargo) and the guys go via Alaska Airlines.
Rohn started first and finished first without being passed by any of the 41 teams in the race. He and his twelve dogs came in 43 minutes in front of their closest competition. Rohn ran relaxed for the most part. Many of the dogs are three and a half and were in Martin's Iditarod Team last year. The team included: Baloo, Vonn, Roll, Rosie, Heath, Shawn, Rock, Suzette, Flash, Martian, Kikkan and Rigid. They were so excited at the finish line, Rohn was barely able to stop them and they were screaming to keep going!!!!
While Rohn was racing along, Alan and Elliot were camping out with mostly yearlings who will be traveling to Nome with Elliot in Iditarod 14. Elliot has worked with this group since last season and worked with them giving tours on a glacier outside Juneau last summer.
We are extremely excited about the dogs and the upcoming race season!
We think we might nickname this the winter of extremes. We seem to be bouncing between bitter cold and freezing rain. Our crew here, along with Perk Fairbanks and Kent Harrington have been working diligently to establish navigatible trails. This week the teams ventured up to the Willow trail system where DeeDee Jonrowe trains. With the news that the Big Susitna River in frozen the guys were excited about planning a camping trip for today. THEN, we woke up to freezing rain. The curse of the 2012 Iditarod Yukon River Rain continues to haunt us. The teams will look at trails and decide what to do next. We’ll keep you posted.
This is the short version of this blog post. The real racing got under way at 2PM AKST [5PM CST] at Willow with teams leaving on at 2 minute intervals. The teams have to take a 24-hour break on the trail, an 8-hour break on the Yukon, and a final 8-hour break at White Mountain. The start time differential is corrected as part of the 24-hour break.
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