After their traditional pancake breakfast with the fans and supporters on Saturday morning, the mushers of the 2010 Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race filed out to their waiting teams in the dog yard, spent an hour or so posing with fans for photos and answering last-minute questions from the media, and then it was time to get down to serious business. Loads were checked and double-checked, wives and girlfriends and well-wishers were bid a final farewell, and then it was down onto the frozen Chena River in downtown Fairbanks. With a snowmachine hitched to the rear of each sled to help control the lunging huskies, and a line of handlers with strong leads attached at strategic points along the gangline out front, the mushers and their excited teams advanced slowly under the Cushman Street bridge toward the starting chute.
Promptly at 11 a.m. rookie Abbie West and her team started the race up the Chena River, hoping to survive the rigors of the trail and make it all the way to Whitehorse, 1,000 hard miles away.
Quest veteran Zack Steer was second, and then a slow but steady stream of teams left the chute at three minute intervals, every team accompanied by loud cheering from the crowd gathered on the bridges above them: David Dalton, Sam Deltour, Gerry Willomitzer, Katie Davis, Terry Williams, Jocelyne LeBlanc, Cindy Barrand, Normand Casavant, Lance Mackey -- the crowd roared its approval when the four-time champion appeared -- Brent Sass, Hans Gatt, Bart De Marie, Kelley Griffin, Jennifer Raffaeli, Ken Anderson, Mike Ellis, Pierre-Antoine Heritier, and the winner of the very first Yukon Quest in 1984, Sonny Lindner. The final few teams included Joshua Cadzow, Dries Jacobs, Hugh Neff and rookie Peter Fleck. The 27th Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race was underway!
The teams followed the winding Chena River through the birch and spruce forests east of Fairbanks, and at various places along the route groups of fans and media personnel gathered to watch and photograph the teams passing by. The first mushers reached the Pleasant Valley Store on Chena Hot Springs Road by early afternoon, where a large and appreciative crowd of fans and photographers met them. The trail paralleled the road for the next several miles, and cars pulling over to snap photos were a common sight. Near mile 26 two volunteers watched for teams and stopped traffic as they approached the first road crossing; soon afterward, the teams reached the first checkpoint at Two Rivers. Zack Steer, of Sheep Mountain, was the first musher to arrive at Two Rivers, and then just as they left the start, although in greatly shuffled order, the mushers filed into the checkpoint, some bedding down their teams for a rest, others dashing through to rest somewhere further down the trail. The night would be dark and the trail ahead was long...
Excellent race updates and trail reports are available at the Yukon Quest Web site, as well as the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, KUAC radio and Northern Light Media, and for great video footage of all the mushers leaving from the starting chute, check out Mushing TV. We'll be reporting on the race all the way to Whitehorse here at Alaska Dispatch's Team & Trail.
Helen Hegener is an author and a documentary filmmaker specializing in long distance sled dog races and the men, women and dogs who run them. Learn more at Northern Light Media.
