So we have had a little drama this week, that I haven’t mentioned until we got it all cleared up.. Back in Whitehorse before the race we were late to the mushers meeting. Since we were late, Paige didn’t get certain paperwork collected from her. Immediately after Paige left the starting chute on race day, I was rastled up by a race official who was a little peeved that Paige had not turned in her hold harmless release form. I found it in the truck and gave to them, but it turned out that it had to be notarized by a notary official. Since Paige was already a couple miles down the Yukon River at this point, they decided that if she could get it notarized somewhere down the trail it would be fine. Well I don’t know if you have ever looked for a notary person at a dog race in northern Yukon Territory at odd hours of the night before, but it is about freaking impossible to find one. One of the officials thought that if we could get a mounty or RMCP officer to sign off that would be good enough.. Of course we didn’t have an officer around at any of the checkpoints in the middle of the night either so Paige kept on moving and I kept on sweating it out trying to find a mounty to sign her off.
The RCMP officer looks hard to see if the girl in the passport photo is really the same stinky musher in front of him.
Finally at Pelly Crossing we hit the mother load… Mounties were running the checkpoint. So I got them all lined up to give her a little scare and tell her that she was getting her dog team commandeered for breaking Canadian law of entering a dog race without proper release forms. Of course they wouldn’t do it… but the officer did offer to take a bribe of a hefty sum to sign her sheet. How come Canadian cops are so much cooler than us cops? By that grin in the picture I don’t think Paige learned a lesson at all. 🙂
So anyways.. Paige moved back a little in position today while giving the dogs ample rest. She left Pelly Crossing in 6th. which is not a big deal at all since all teams in front of her are either veteran iditarod mushers or running veteran iditarod mushers’ dogs..she pulled the hook at 10:46 pm. Actually the dogs pulled the hook on her and almost left without her at the start.. they were ready.
The trails are hard and fast and it is taking its toll on the dogs delicate shoulders and wrists. Bleeker has a pretty sore shoulder and she decided to spare him further damage and let him chill with me in the truck… he’s pretty ecstatic. That brings the dog number to 8 for the last run.. not a problem for a quick 60 mile run at night. Paige said there are lots of snowshoe hares on the trail and it keeps the dogs excited and moving right along. She should be able to maintain a decent speed and should be back to the finish in under 8 hours, putting her back in Pelly sometime around 7 am…. check back to see what happened..
