Newsletter
I got a good night sleep and we moved on to Elim at 5:30 am. The run over was nice. After about three miles of sea ice we went over land to a different bay. Then we dropped back down onto the ice and crossed over to Elim. We stayed in Elim for six hours and moved on to White Mountain.
The run to White Mountain introduced the first real climbs since before the Yukon. We went up and over one mountain and then another and so on for several hours. I was pleased to see that my dogs had plenty of power and we were moving quite well. We then headed out of the mountains and back down to the sea ice. We reached the town of Golovin and then we needed to cross Golovin Bay. This was real similar to the run over to Koyuk. Wide open with land on the horizon. I looked across and thought wow this won’t be too bad. I now had experience crossing long stretches of ice and was mentally prepared. Apparently the dogs felt the same. Instead of struggling to calculate speed I just sat down and the dogs flew across. We were traveling somewhere around nine mph. I was excited. We pulled into White Mountain looking good.
White Mountain was the last major checkpoint. We were 77 miles from the finish line and we were taking our last eight hour mandatory rest. I was quite restless and did not sleep much. Our last great obstacle was ahead as well. The notorious Blow Hole. It is a geographical formation that causes a side wind to rage out of a canyon along the coast. It stretches three miles wide and a calm easy day means it is only blowing 40mph. The Blow Hole can change from 40 to 130 mph easily in just a short amount of time. It is unpredictable and can be quite dangerous. Before we get to the Blow Hole we must go up and over Little McKinley, a real mountain with several thousand feet of elevation gain. I lightened my sled by going down to the bare minimum. I was ready to run up the hills and make it to the finish line.
We left White Mountain and within ½ hour the climbs began. For the first time in the race it felt as though we were going faster than what we should be. I was confused. Based on my calculations we were traveling 8+ mph up these steep climbs. I was barely helping at all. When we started the long decent back down to the coast, I had both feet on the brake trying to control speed. We were traveling faster than we had the entire race and we were over 1,000 miles into it. We reached the coast and I could see the Blow Hole ahead. A horizontal cloud of blowing snow. It looked like a wall. It was very well defined and intimidating. When we reached the beach the dogs picked up speed. We were going 10 + mph now. The entire team was loping. Earlier in the race I would never let them run like this but at this point it did not matter. We were within 30 miles of the finish line. As soon as we entered the Blow Hole I crouched down behind the sled and turned my back to the wind. I watched the dogs in amazement. They virtually ignored it. They just loped right threw it as if it did not exist. We made it across in fine fashion and reached the road that brings us to Safety.
As we got closer to Safety it was as if the Blow Hole was following us. But actually it was a ground blizzard coming in off of the ocean and heading right towards us. It was intimidating watching this wall of blowing snow move towards us rapidly. By the time we reached Safety it was on top of us. The checkers said, ½ hour ago it was beautiful and sunny with no wind. Not now, I replied. We had to talk very loud to hear each other.