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Yukon Quest: Mid-pack into dawson

February 14, 2007
Editor and/or Contributors

Richie Beattie (12 dogs), Mike Jayne (8 dogs) and Brent Sass (12 dogs) all arrived in Dawson City within 40 minutes of each other, just as night began to fall, as they completed their respective runs from Scroggie Creek to their mandatory layovers. This puts 13 teams into Dawson City, half of the 26 teams remaining in the race.John Schandelmeier and Dave Dalton arrived between 3 and 4 pm, with 12 and 11 dogs, respectively; giving a brief hour of excitement in the middle of the day for the crowd gathering in Dawson City to see the dog teams arrive. With a gap of about 5 hours between the recently arrived teams and the next group to leave Scroggie Creek, it is likely that this evening will be much like last night with most of the frenetic activity coming just after midnight.The Dawson City mid-race Mushers’ Meeting will be held at 19:00 tonight in the checkpoint building, with Race Marshal Mike McCowan briefing the mushers on the trail waiting for them as they run into Alaska beginning with Lance Mackey just after 12 noon on Thursday.Clear skies and moderate temperatures made for an excellent dog-sledding day today, and as the evening darkens and the thermometer begins to drop for the night, the teams still on the trail approaching Dawson City should enjoy the instinctive surge in canine energy that occurs in the twilight hours.Mushers have been reporting good trails coming into the mid-way point of the race, with some overflow in areas but overall well-packed and fairly quick with ‘good give’ for both the dogs and the mushers’ abilities to control their sleds.