While most everyone has heard of the Iditarod, there is another sled dog race that is even tougher, the Yukon Quest! It is a 1000 mile race between Fairbanks and Whitehorse, Canada, and follows the historic Gold Rush and mail delivery routes. The race start changes each year, switching between Fairbanks and Whitehorse. This year the race started in Fairbanks and a friend had the idea to rent a cabin near the trail and then spend some time on the trail catching glimpses of the mushers as they went by.
This is the Chena River Cabin we stayed in. Obviously it's a summer picture. I took it off the State Parks website. It's 1 of 3 cabins that are road accessible in the Chena River Recreation Area.
This is us set up along the trail waiting for mushers to come by. It was an amazing evening. Earlier in the week we had had some cold weather, 28 below, but by the weekend it had warmed up to about zero. This picture was taken at about 4 p.m. The days are getting longer!
This was the first musher to come by while we were there. I think it is Hans Gatt, a musher from Whitehorse, Yukon. There are 24 mushers this year; 6 are women. Men and women compete together.
Here another musher passes by, though I'm not sure who. I was able to get his entire team in the picture, 14 dogs! There is also a Yukon Quest 300 race (300 miles). This race is a qualifier for the 1000 mile race and this year a friend of ours, Paige Drobny, is running it! We actually were on the trail when she went by, but I didn't have my camera at that point. So, I took the below picture off the musher profile page from the Yukon Quest site, www.yukonquest.com.
To follow Paige you can check out her blog, squidacres.blogspot.com. Her husband, Cody is updating it. He's her dog handler as well.Good Luck, Paige!
UPDATE: Paige came in 5th in the Yukon Quest 300!
