Cold Temps, Sleepy Musher, and Fast Trails!

Iditarod 40 is off to a fast start. Trail conditions thus far are perfect, but by mid morning the clouds came in and it began to snow. Reports say that on the west side of the Alaskan Range there is 4 to 6 inches of new snow. This could slow the Teams down a bit. With the sub zero (minus 25 - 15 degrees) temps, the trail has set up nice, but the new snow could put some drag onto the sleds. Veteran and 2nd place finisher in the 2011 Iditarod Ramey Smyth, pulled a Iditarod classic "oops" and fell asleep on the runner....falls off the sled, and has to chase his team down for 45 minutes. Lucky for Ramey, the dogs stayed on the trail and met up with Rohn Buser. Smyth caught a ride with another musher and within minutes of being picked up found his Team with Rohn. Lucky indeed! The standings on the Iditarod web site have been SLOW coming...but the GPS tracking is live...and right now we have Hugh Neff, bib number 23 out in front by less than a mile ahead of Redington, Bib #2, and Mackey, Bib #18. Zirkle, Bib 14, and Burmiester, Bib 44, are a few more miles back, with Baker, Bib #11 trailing them by 4 miles. Bib numbers are important at this point in the race for any kind of analysis...the higher the bib number the less time is tacked onto the mandatory 24 hour rest. Burmiester with Bib 44 is looking really good at this point...not physically in front, but by the numbers he is right up there. Burmiester is running with Schnuelle and Royer dogs...that Team is full of Veterans. The front runners will be heading down the Dalzell Gorge tonight and into Rohn. Trail conditions are good and hopefully it will be a smooth ride down this treacherous part of the trail!