Status Update (By Richard)

Hi Penny

Tried to upload to Blog from the plant pot, but due to extreme cold and snow falling on the keyboard I couldn't get it to work.

Attempted to enter The Cabin but Cricket was busy e-mailing all the Great Pyr's and Guardian dogs in the area and wouldn't let me in.

Apparently she is trying to form an action group, claiming how unfair it is that they have to spend all night and day out in all weathers fending off bears, coyotes and who knows what else, unarmed, unaided and uninsured and woefully under paid. While the curly tails are all comfy in their nice wooden boxes with nice warm straw beds and the humans are all tucked up under their blankets.

Hope you can pass this onto the outside world for me.

Thanks.

(Had to distract Kara from the inside PC so I could quickly get this message out. Told her the Border Collie had run off with the new pack of Dentastix)

Talk soon I hope.

Richard xx

Team North Wapiti Travels Home (The Cartoonist)

Karen reported that Team North Wapiti is about 90 miles from Canada. They stopped off at Fast Eddies in Tok for some food.

Since she may not have Internet access at the time, she wanted to congratulate Blake Freking:

"By the time I get online again I expect Blake will have crossed the finish line in Nome, again breaking the Siberian record!! Congratulations to Blake, Jenny and all at MCK!!! Way to go!!"

Since I have all of this fancy satellite tracking software, I figured I'd put it to good use and track Karen, Mark, and the Pretty Sled dogs while they travel back home to Canada.

The blue line shows you their route home, and the red line shows their actual path.

Karen's Rest in Rainy Pass (by Karen)

I had only intended on staying 6-8 hours in Rainy - mostly for me, as it is usually the first place on the trail I find I can get some sleep!!

Anyway, I did my chores and set up alarm for 2 1/2 hours sleep. When I woke up the room was spinning very drastically. I suspected it was a reaction to a new antibiotic I had started for my hand the day before the race. I called my PA and spoke to her about the side effects I was
experiencing, and she switched me to a backup antibiotic that she had also sent with me - but warned it would take a while for the first drug to clear my system.

It was storming hard now and my head was still spinning so I chose to lay down for a couple more hours.

Finally, Barq came to get me to tell me it was time to leave. Yes, I said Barq.

Tamara Rose opened the door to the mushers sleeping cabin and asked if 'this' belonged to me.

Barq wagged his tail and suggested that he didn't care about my health issues, it was time to get a move on. Apparently he had slipped out of his collar to come track me down.

So we headed out into the storm!

Now, a Word From Karen Herself

Hey all, I'm back in Willow. My hand is looking 200% better then it did 2 days ago when the PA in McGrath checked it out. Speculation was that it was going to have to be reopened, flushed, cleaned and restitched. I'm hoping that that isn't the case but we will see in a few days. As always thanks to everyone for their tremendous support and understanding!

Richard's Proof (The Cartoonist for Richard)

Since Richard is banished to the flower pot, he was unable to post this, but he did manage to sneak into the guest quarters and take a quick picture before he was escorted back to his proper sleeping place.

Here is his proof that Cricket has taken up residence in the guest quarters. Please note that her guard duties require her to keep the door open to keep an eye on the curly tails in her charge, so she has the heater on for her comfort.

Iditarod Status (The Cartoonist)

As you may have already heard, Karen scratched in McGrath citing personal reasons.

I will not speculate on the reason, except to say: I know that Karen was nursing a bad ankle and her badly injured hand during the race. I know that her main focus during the race is for the care, safety, and health of the dogs. If she was unable to ensure all of that, she would not continue.

Rest assured, all of the dogs are fine, and Karen will be fine too.

Karen will be back to tell the whole tale, and until then, unless I or other authors of the blog hear from Karen, we will just wait until she has the time to post.

Of course, I do have one theory that I felt I needed to share.

Richard has mentioned to me that the MOMENT Team North Wapiti left for Alaska, there was a major shift in living arrangements:

Kara took over the main bedroom

















X took over the cloud















Bet and Bait took over the couch


















And Cricket took over the guest house....

















which left Richard with the only place left to sleep





I think Karen felt sorry for him and wanted to get back home.

That's my story, and I'm sticking with it.

Dropped Dogs, What Does That Mean? (The Cartoonist)

As you may already know, Karen dropped two dogs before leaving Nikolai, and for those of you not familiar with the Iditarod and the term “Dropped Dog”, we wanted to provide you with some insight on why a musher might drop a dog and what that really means.

The actual procedure and care for dropping dogs is well documented on the Iditarod Web site, the work of the volunteers, vets, and Iditarod Air Force all combined provide 1st class care and transportation for any dog that can’t continue on the trail for whatever reason.

Depending on where the dogs are dropped determines where they go to wait and are cared for by volunteers and vets until they are reunited with their team and musher: Anchorage, or Nome. Some get to spend time at the Hiland Mountain Correctional Center, where since 1974, inmates care for the dogs under the supervision of Iditarod authorities and vets.

Ok, so we’ve covered the basic “how”, but now on to the “why” a dog may be dropped.

In the case of Karen’s selection to drop two dogs today, Wolvie, as a rookie, was just a bit freaked out still about the crowds at the start of the race and the whole experience. Billie, another rookie, wasn’t running as fast as her other team mates. They are both fine, they are going through the usual protocol at the Nikolai checkpoint and will soon be back getting all sorts of love and attention, and a well deserved rest back in Anchorage.

In past races, Karen has dropped dogs because they simply don’t seem to be enjoying themselves. If you own huskies, you know that you can’t make a husky do what they don’t want to do, and they will make it perfectly clear that they aren’t having fun.

Sled dogs are athletes, and like all athletes running long distances, sometimes a muscle will hurt, or they’ll step wrong in a rut and sprain a leg, or they could find a tasty carcass along the route and end up with an upset stomach.

So what happens if a dog gets hurt along the trail in the middle of two checkpoints? Well, they get a ride in the bag (we’ll cover what all is required to be in the bag in a later post). If you are wondering how well a sled dog rides in a bag, Karen says it best in her blog account of WiFi during the Don Bowers 200 this year.

And now to answer a question that was asked one time: yes, the dogs are flown back to the dropped dogs area by plane, but no, they don’t parachute down.