Dawson City, Yukon Territory hasn't seen this much excitement since 1898. Well, except for the annual rush of mushers, dog handlers, race officials and race fans that are inundating the small city tonight. As I write (18:43 AST), 8 Yukon Quest competitors have driven their dogs to the checkpoint, and of course others are not far behind.
Brent Sass won today's Dash for Cash, arriving first into Dawson City at about 11:24 PST this morning, earning a poke with 2 ounces of placer gold assuming he finishes the race. Brent was followed into Dawson City in short order by Michelle Phillips, Hans Gatt and Allen Moore.
All of the Yukon Quest mushers are required to take a 36 hour mandatory layover in Dawson City. During the layover their handlers can assist in dog care, mushers can repair sleds, sleep in real beds, enjoy hot showers and all that other civilized sort of stuff. Writing as the Armchair Musher on the Yukon Quest website (under the News tab in the navigation menu), Jodi Bailey did a very nice job describing typical activities occuring during the long mandatory stop.
Typically any musher who arrives within 8 hours of the leader is considered to be in good position to ultimately win the race. Up until now the mushers have been clocking miles, getting themselves and their teams settled into the routine of the trail, their own run and rest schedules, and kind of casually setting themselves up in good position. The "real" race is said to start at Dawson City as mushers take a considerably more competitive approach to the race. When they leave Dawson City the next checkpoint will be Matt Hall's home town of Eagle, Alaska. The trail takes a bit of a roundabout way of getting there, forcing the mushers to traverse the historical gold mining region along the Fortymile River before turning north on Alaska's Taylor Highway, going over Eagle Summit (notoriously nasty during bad weather conditions) before reaching Eagle. In total it's about 150 miles of cold, dark and lonely country.
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