I've had a pretty productive day thus far. I gave the dog yard are very thorough cleaning and refreshed the straw bedding in all the dog houses. Each dog got a very nice piece of salmon as a treat, and each got to spend some nice 1-on-1 time with me. I also took some paperwork over to Aliy Zirkle and Allen Moore's place to fax over to the bank, as I don't have the equipment to do so.
Back home, I checked the Quest tracker and leader-board. As I expected, Zack Steer was first into the Central checkpoint, but the leaderboard and tracker both show he is still there, giving his team a nice long rest. With evening coming on, I suspect he'll be hooking them up again. Dogs tend to run their very best in the few hours surrounding either the sunrise or the sunset, and many mushers work hard to schedule their run and rest times to coincide with those peak hours.
According to the leaderboard, Hans Gatt, Gerry Willowmitzer, Brent Sass and Dave Dalton all stopped only briefly at the Central checkpoint before heading on up the trail. The tracker has Brent Sass in lead, though it's possible he could be chasing Willowmitzer. Hans' GPS unit appears to be out of service at the moment, so it's unkown where he is at in the group. Brent Sass device shows him camped near a small lake only two or three miles from Birch Creek, which they will follow into the next checkpoint at Circle City. From Circle City, the teams will be running up the Yukon River toward Slavin's Cabin and Eagle.
The video embedded above is from the tracking website, and gives a representation of the earliest stage of the race. You can see a lot of the passing and resting thus far. Don't be fulled by this computerized representation. There is no evidence that mushers are cutting the course in these videos. Due to the frequency with which points are received it may appear that mushers are off course for brief periods of time, however, it is just the software computing their intermediate positions between known points.
I need to start preparing for my social engagement and feeding the team. More later.
Swanny
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