Day 6 - Iditarod 2012 - The Mighty Yukon

March 9, 2012 11 pm AST

Aliy and the Red Team arrived in Galena at 3:53 pm AST and declared her 8 hour Mandatory Yukon River Rest. She and the dogs looked great coming in. Head Checker and fellow musher Jon Korta greeted Aliy with a hug and an excellent parking place.

Aliy said the trail was a bit punchy and slower than she had hoped. It was a good time for the dogs to have a nice long rest. We hope to hear from her before she leaves this evening. She can pull the hook at 11:53 pm AST.

As we know, Aliy is running her own race and at the moment, it is unlike any of the other top mushers'. The Seaveys are running their own race as well. It appears that Aliy gained time on Mitch with her run into Galena, but lost some time to Dallas. What this will mean in the end is anyone's guess. Both Seaveys will need to stop again along the river before Kaltag. Aliy may or may not.

Temperatures will become a player tonight, possibly dropping off to 40 below on the river as the leaders head to Nulato. This should firm up the trail, but will be harder on the dogs and especially the mushers.

Ryne is continuing to cruise along. She arrived at Cripple at 8:05 am AST with 14 dogs and rested there for a little over 6 hours. She did drop a dog before heading back out on the trail. Ryne and 13 dogs headed out towards the Yukon River at 2:06 pm AST. I wish I had more information to share with you about them, but Iditarod media seems to be focusing entirely on the leaders of the race this year.

At this point, we know that the dog Aliy dropped in Ruby was Viper. The Anchorage Daily News reported that Aliy said he was getting too thin. We don't know who Ryne left in Cripple though. Meg should be back in Anchorage this evening. Doug is helping the Iditarod pick up a large number of dogs flying in tonight.

As a quick final note, I have been receiving a lot of comments and emails about the Iditarod's coverage of Aliy on the race. I felt like I needed to respond to this. First, I would like to point out that the video coverage by Bruce Lee have been excellent. He seems to be really trying to give an overall view of the race. There are several videos on the Iditarod Insider of Aliy and the dogs.

As Aliy's sister, I do get frustrated in the lack of coverage of her by Iditarod's print journalist, but Aliy is speaking for herself with her race and her dogs. Many other news outlets are hearing her. With the large number of comments we at SP are getting, I am sure the Iditarod is getting more. Perhaps they will ask why the musher who has been in the lead much of the race and who, even when resting, hasn't fallen out of the top 5 was the only top musher not discussed today.

Just remember, Aliy isn't doing this for headlines. She is just running her race to the best of her and her dogs abilities.

FUN LINKS:

A good article about Aliy in Galena:

http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/iditarod-musher-aliy-zirkle-i-cant-really-complain-about-no-1

Allen wore a camera for the Ceremonial Start in Anchorage for APR. Here is the link to it.

http://www.alaskapublic.org/?p=58662

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