Travis left Galena at 4:30pm today after a 6 hour restand will be on his way to Nulato in 36th place. He still has 10 dogs and was the last second to last one to leave in the group of mushers he’s been sharing the trail with. They all left within about 40 minutes of each other so expect to see some leap frogging. So far, Travis’ runstimes have been pretty consistent — a great thing.
A lot of people have asked about whether or not this concerns me — it does not. The strongest dogs in Travis’ team remain in his team. I’m still waiting to learn who the 6th dog is… but I am thinking it may be Monroe. I’ll let you know as soon as I find out.
Honestly, I was more concerned at the start of Iditarod by the fact that Zema and Madori couldn’t go. They are huge team players. That’s like the Patriots going to the Super Bowl and learning that Tom Brady has to sit out and so does his replacement. Travis started with his 3rd stringers up front.
I imagine Travis is now using these runs to work on building up new leaders for future Iditarods. . I would say there are 3-4 dogs who are potentially nearing retirement and may not make the team next year: Copper (who was dropped), Boston, Kermit, & Ray are all getting older. It wouldn’t surprise me if these dogs ran Iditarod again next year with some of our puppies and with me or Travis, but it also wouldn’t surprise me if some of them continued on the A-team.
Many of our other main dogs will just be hitting their prime which is approximately 3-7 years old: Zema, Madori, Mary, Weiser, Wrangler, Fidget, Willie-Charlie, Goblin, Gremlin, Cuervo, Madison, and Star all fall perfectly in to that age range. Pinky, who did not make the team this year, will now be 2 years old. She’s got incredible talent but as a young, houndier (is that a word?) dog she has had trouble keeping weight and we made the decision to drop her out of serious contention for the team in mid December. Maturity will help her with that problem.
So who is Travis running up front?
My bet is Wrangler (who’s brother Levi is a wheel dog in Nic Petit’s team). Wrangler has been showing incredible drive up front in training. He’s without a doubt one of the friendliest dogs in our yard. Travis has been running him in single lead a lot since Zema & Madori got hurt but due to his young age, he can’t be up there too much. Being the lead dog is a lot of pressure…you have to find the trail, follow the trail, listen to directions, and not let the dogs behind you run you over… for a young guy that can be tough work so I imagine he’s doing stints on and off up front. Two other dogs who may be rising to the challenge are his mom, Fidget, and his uncle, Willie-Charlie. They’re both quirky little dogs who love to run. However, I also wouldn’t be surprised if Willie was the mysterious 6th dog who got dropped..
Madison, who broke his leg last year, is also, I’m sure, doing plenty of time up front, as is Boston. Boston ran the last 77 miles from White Mountain into Nome last year in single lead and helped give Travis a great deal of speed. Cuervo, who joined our kennel recently, is probably also seeing time up front….
The dogs I brought home yesterday are in top notch shape. Everybody is doing great… none of them look like they should be sitting in the dog yard I had a fun drive picking the dogs up with my friend Jamie. They were all happy to see me. Goblin started barking as soon as she saw me. They were even happier to get back to the yard and see their friends…
Anyways that’s where we’re at now. I’ll do my best to update again later tonight at some point about where he’s at, as well as the general state of Iditarod. Sonny Lindner just posted an incredibly fast run in to Unalakleet, averaging 8.84mph. This is pretty fast this late in the rest. Zirkel and Buser had longer times but may have rested on the trail…more to come later…
