Brave Decisions at the DPSAY River Runner 100 startline

At 4.45pm this evening it was around -22'C at the DPSAY RR100 dog yard....with a 40-60km/h north wind picking up the snow and hurling it south with a windchill below -32. Set to become 60km/hr sustained from the north later in the day, the wind was blowing in the trail with that gritty, sandy snow. The first 10 miles of the race were up the Yukon, north into the teeth of the wind, then 17 miles of crosswinds on the Takhini River until the relative safety of the Dawson overland trail before climbing up some exposed hillside trails...all marked, but probably blown in.

I'd signed up for this because I wanted a fun race after the Q300. It didn't look like it was going to be a lot of fun.

A lot of entrants took the brave decision to carry on and race it, and kudos to them, they're going to have a real experience under their belt when they get to Mendenhall. But I also think those that decided to withdraw at the startline also made a brave decision, it certainly was hard for me.

3/4 Skijorers led out, 11/18 sleds followed. Please follow their progress on the DPSAY blogsite, good luck to them all!

Cheers

Jon

DPSAY River Runner 100 - Sign up by Saturday or pay a late fee!

With 11 Sleds and 4 skis already signed up, it looks like there's going to be a good race over Rendezvous Weekend. There's 15 places left and it'll cost an extra $50 to sign up after Saturday - if you want to be part of this historic event (c'mon, even if you're on a sled you can still say you were part of the longest skijor race in...North America? the World?) sign up this week!

Click on the DPSAY link just to the right for all the info and entry form.

Icy Waters Ltd Race Day, Icy breeze!

A cold morning got a little cooler with a chilly north breeze adding wind chill to a thermometer stuck around -23'C. The two dedicated sprint kennels put out 2 teams each, with Drag n Fly taking 1st + 3rd, and Dead Broke 2nd + 4th - full results should be up on the DPSAY site shortly.

Genna rode a superbly decorated sled with 3 dogs in the kids race, with a great time of about 12 minutes, and won for Persistance Kennel the 10 blocks of dog food prize from Icy Waters Ltd for best decorated sled/skijorer - well done!

3 Pet dog skijorers turned out to brave the chill and had a fun time also.

Thanks to Icy Waters Ltd for the cash; Yukon Brewing, Yukon Honda, Yukon Grain Farm, Aurora Booties, and Muktuk Adventures for the merchandise prizes.

The word on the QT is the next race may be at a different venue - which should spice the race up a bit, hopefully it won't be up and down a road like the Copper Haul - which is nice and pretty safe but lacks a certain soupcon of excitement. Thanks to Icy Waters Ltd for hosting!

Icy Waters Ltd Race Day - Trail "sticky"

Trail run today by Jon, apparently the new fresh snow + the cm or so that fell today makes the trail feel a little sticky, so perhaps not so slick as expected. -18'C at 6.25pm and overcast with the odd snowflake falling - and the question on everyone's lips is "are the organisers going to pack the trail?"

Icy Waters Ltd Race Day - Trail update

1" fresh snow fell last night, -16" and cloudy Saturday am

Icy Waters Ltd Race Day - Looking Good

With the trail settling and hardening with the mild weather, and then -12 predicted on Saturday we should have a hard and fast trail for Sunday's Valentine's Day Race - don't forget, best decorated sled/musher or skijorer wins 10 x Dog Food blocks from Icy Waters Ltd. And of course not forgetting the Twister winner gets presented with the carved antler trophy (from Earl, many thanks) and DPSAY pays to have your name emplaced on the back - and we should get Tony Radford's name on there from last year!

Will we see Tony "Bandit" Radford go up against Dave "Tagish Tornado" Johnson again, although rumour has it Dave may be bringing more than one team for a pirate jockey. The rather scarily fast (and even more scarily competive - Stephan "Ja! I MUST Win" Wackemalloutofsight) skijor contingent will also be speeding on the predicted glassy surface - Darryl Sheepwins: wax your skis for once goodness' sakes, it makes those few seconds difference.

The League is wide open, after 3 races the accumulated points are as follows - long distance trot-along with a sled (!?) Snowpigs have 6, Cynthia Wickert 12, Pierre Duc 8, Claudia Corriveau 4, Fabian (F*** this long distance s***) Schmitz 2, Crispin Studer 10, Alex Rocket 8, Stephan (to win is to succeed) Wackerhagen 12, Darryl Sheepnotquitewinningasmuchasinsummerway 8, Gaetan (out through the "in" trail Stepping Stone) Pierrard 2, Dave "Tagish Tornado" Johnson 10, Tony "Bandit" Radford 8, and as far as we can note, only Jon Lucas of not-exactly-skijoring Snowpigs and Fabian (FTLDS) Schmitz have fulfilled their League volunteer requirement (and I'm sure to be deluged with emails if that is not correct - and oh come on, those names are only jokes...unless....).

So, 10am, Sunday 13th - Valentine's Day special, Cash from Icy Waters Ltd, Dog Food from First Mate (which powered Fabian's, and Jon's, team through the YQ300 - Jon never realised there were so many voices in his head till he was camped out at -32, in the dark, alone on Coglan Lake....and he doesn't particularly want to hear from most of them again...ever); Delicious Arctic Charr for man, woman, and dog from Icy Waters Ltd. Most refreshing T shirts from Yukon Brewing, if you're lucky a delightful Yukon Ag Assoc T shirt (don't all rush now, we know how popular the last ones were), great wearing booties from Aurora Booties, Certificates from Yukon Honda, and Straw from Yukon Grain Farm.

See you all out there!