Josi Shelley is leading the Yukon Quest 750 race as it moves onto the flat expanse of the Yukon River.
Shelley left Circle City a little after 2 p.m. Monday. She said her team is doing well, but taking and keeping the lead hasn’t been what she’s thinking about the most.
“We’ve just been running the dogs – running my team how they need to be run," she said. "Just trying to keep them happy and healthy and going.”
On her way out of Circle, Shelley had a message for fellow musher Jeff Deeter, who was sleeping at the checkpoint.
How was his nap?
Deeter, the defending Quest champion, started preparing to head out of Circle about an hour later.
“It was lovely," he said. "It was the first time I’ve slept on this race thus far.”
Deeter said he was taking a different approach this year.
"Last year, I basically led the whole 550, and I said, ‘Yeah, we’re doing a little different distance, maybe I’ll let someone else lead,’” he said.
Deeter said he’s running dogs in this race who are a little less headstrong than last year’s, along with some younger dogs, so he’s taking more rest.
“I’m hoping to cut some rest later on in the race," he said. "Right now, we’re just trying to survive, so. It’s the Yukon Quest motto, I think: survive until the finish.”
The mushers have tackled two notorious summits: Rosebud and Eagle outside Central. They also ran through deep cold along winding Birch Creek on the run from Central to Circle.
Both mushers said Rosebud was windblown and icy. Deeter said the top of Eagle Summit was nice, but getting there was a challenge.
“It was pretty windy, blizzard conditions," he said. "I had good visibility, but there was no discernible trail.”
Deeter said his hat goes off to Keaton Loebrich, who led mushers through that stretch of the trail. Loebrich scratched late Sunday night at Mile 101 “in the best interest of his team,” according to a Yukon Quest Alaska social media post.
Race Marshal John Schandelmeier said Loebrich had moved on from the checkpoint to Eagle Summit but returned to Mile 101 with a dog that had a tooth injury after getting into a fight with another dog.
Schandelmeier said Loebrich’s team rested, then tried to head to Central once more before scratching.
“They ran into the wind, turned around, ran back to the checkpoint, then turned out and ran back into the wind again, and it was just a bit much for them, you know,” he said.
Quest mushers Jason and Patrick Mackey pulled off of Birch Creek and into the Circle checkpoint before 9 p.m. Monday.
The father-and-son duo, who are running together, said the thermometer on Patrick’s sled showed 63 degrees below zero at one point on the creek.
The younger Mackey, who’s been mushing most of his life, said he thinks it’s the lowest temperature he’s ever seen while running dogs.
“I don’t want a thermometer on my sled anymore. Because I look at it, and I’m like, ‘OK, it’s cold.’ And then I look at it, and I see 63-below, and I’m like, ‘Oh my God,'" he said. "Psychologically, you get colder.”
Jason Mackey said the steep descent off Eagle Summit was no problem this year, and that he put his sled on its side and rode it down like a plow.
But at Rosebud, he said coming down brought on the fear factor. With areas of minimal snow cover, Mackey said his team started to veer in a direction that could’ve been “super bad.”
The elder Mackey said it was the worst he’s experienced along that part of the trail.
“If I knew that was going to be like that every time, I wouldn’t do it. That’s how scary it was,” he said.
Despite the challenges, Patrick Mackey described the trail so far as “the fun stuff” and said that now, their race really begins.
Its about a 70-mile run from Circle down the Yukon to the checkpoint at Fort Yukon, where there’s a mandatory eight-hour rest. Race Marshall John Schandelmeier said lows are forecast to be around minus 50-below, with calm winds and little-to-no jumble ice along the trail.