Saturday, January 19, 2013

Night 1 on the Kuskokwim River














While Rohn was speeding down the trail, the Bethel Warriors were dismantling the Barrow Whalers in basketball ending the game with an 80 to 41 victory.  Bethel has beat Barrow only once in the last 18 years so it was fairly momentous.  Elliot played one of his best games ever and Taylor and Carly were right on the mark as well.  From the start line to the fireworks to the basketball court – busy night in Bethel.

So starting from Jeff’s house was a little confusing to the spectators but not so much to Rohn and Martin.  Nikolai rode down on the snowmachine with Rohn and the team. They did have to negotiate the parking lot of cars on the river but made it into the starting chute on time.  The tense moment was the transition of the entire gangline from snogo to sled. 

Rohn got off right on time, shooting up a rooster tail of snow behind him.(from him on the drag holding the dog team from going too fast.)

Martin came to the starting line out of nowhere.  I’m still not sure how he got there.  Jeff and Nikolai were waiting for him at the far end of the parking lot to help direct him.  All of a sudden here comes Martin and Jeff on the snow machine with a quick change over to sled and off they went.  Nikolai came running up a minute or two later saying he hadn’t seen his Dad, where was he?  We pointed to the chute and the outgoing trail and Martin had since zoomed away.

The race is blazing along at fairly typical Kusko pace.  A head wind going up river, some blowing snow and below zero.  There should be a warming trend today, already 15 in Bethel and not much wind.  This race always throws down the unexpected so stay tuned.

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