Day 7 - Iditarod 2012 - Portage Trail

March 10, 2012 10:30 pm AST

Aliy and the Red Team left Kaltag after a 5 hour 41 minute rest at the checkpoint. She dropped two dogs before heading out on the trail. It is easy to start to try to put her run into a category, where she is in relation to the other top runners, but use caution. She has done nothing on the race that the "experts" have expected and will probably continue to do so! Reports from the trail say that Scooter was one of the dogs dropped, but there was no information about the other dog.

John Baker, Mitch Seavey, Aaron Burmeister, Dallas Seavey and Jeff King are all close on her tail. At present Aliy is 9 miles ahead of Baker, 10 miles ahead of Burmeister (with 15 dogs), 11 miles ahead of M. Seavey and 15 ahead of D. Seavey. King seems to be falling off a bit. She seems to be gaining and losing time at any musher at any given minute. It's enough to make a person crazy!

The Kaltag Portage trail is one of Aliy's favorite parts of the race. She feels awed by the people and animals that have uses this trail for a millennia. This trail has been used by the inland Athabaskan Indians and the coastal Inupiat for trade. It kind of puts the world into perspective.

Here is a link to the Aliy Cam video of the Portage Trail 2010 if you would like to see where Aliy and the Red Team are right now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAbGA3Zdp-0&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Ryne just keeps plugging away. She arrived at Galena at 3:29 pm AST with her 13 dogs. I expect she is booting the dogs now and will be heading out soon. If the weather holds, a friend will be flying out along the trail tomorrow. Maybe we will get some news.

All of Ryne's drop dogs are back in Anchorage and in excellent condition. Honda was picked up about a half hour ago. He was dropped for a sore shoulder in Cripple, but isn't even limping now. Meg and Viper from the Red Team also arrived in Anchorage this evening. They are all eating well and look good.

Doug, Allen, Bridgett, Scotty and Timber are all in Unalakleet awaiting Aliy's arrival. We should have some good information in the morning.

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