2015-16 have been hard years for Mushers

The two weekend races are over and done, prizes dispersed and mushers gone home. Ryan Redington won the Northern Lights 300 with Rick Castillo second and Jodi Bailey, the highest placed lady musher, coming in 4th. She completed both the Yukon Quest and the Iditarod as a rookie in 2011 and is definitely a lady to watch. I expect Aliy and Jessie Royer will have to be looking over their shoulders soon! I'll go back to my records and see where Jodi placed last year in the Iditarod.


Aliy made second place in the Two Rivers 200 and SPK handler Chris, getting

Five and Ginger ready to run the TR100.

his start in racing, was ninth place in that race. That's an excellent showing for a rookie. Meanwhile, another SPK handler, Wes, brought a team of old experienced dogs starting to near the end of their racing days and the five Surfiver pups in at fourth place in the Two Rivers 100.  He did a detailed report on the SPKennel Doglog blog http://spkenneldoglog.blogspot.com/)
which I complimented in a comment. "My" Ginger was described as steady and a good reliable hard worker for just a bit over 18 months of age! I was really proud of her. Her bothers did well too but Rodney was a little too excitable!

There is a bit more about Nikolai Buser's accident on Martin's Happy Trails Kennel Facebook page. The young man is hanging in there and slated for several surgeries but holding his own so far. There are a couple of crowd funding pages set up to help the family. Kathy Buser was the one who went with Deedee Jonrowe last June to rescue Deedee's dogs when the fire was sweeping down on the Jonrowe homestead and kennel. But that is the Alaska way, at least when you get out of the larger towns, to help neighbors and whole communities pitch in when emergencies and tragedies happen. I really admire that. There may be a rotten apple or two in the barrel but most mushers are just top notch folks. Besides the extreme nature of the sport and the fierce competitive and determined spirit shown by both the dogs and the sled drivers, that is a big factor drawing me to the sport.

Then, of course, on Sunday night there was a major earthquake in the ocean south of Anchorage. Not a lot of damage and no injuries or deaths that I have heard but it broke some ice for the late racers in the Northern Lights and may have shaken some who live down on the Kenai. Peninsula. It was said to be 7.1 on the Richter scale. The one I felt in June was 4.x so I am thinking, wow, that was a jolt!

Now we have a pause for two weeks until the Yukon Quest 1000 and 300 start on February 6 in Fairbanks. BTW, Aliy is the only woman to have won the YQ 1000 some years back. Allen has won it at least twice. There is a very elite group of mushers who have won both the YQ and the Iditarod and at least one did both in the same year, Lance Mackey. Now that is an amazing feat! I think he used most of the same dogs in both, too. Well, many dogs who run in Allen Moore's "Black Team" in the YQ 1000 will show up in Aliy's "Red Team" in the Iditarod. There is a month between the starts and both races last around eight days for the first finishers so they get about 20-24 days to rest and recover. Still that is a real challenge.