Buser Breezes Into Kaltag In Lead
Two-time champion Martin Buser cruised into this Yukon River village, retaining about a two-hour lead Saturday night in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.
Buser and his team battled a 15-mph head wind during the 70-mile trek up the frozen Yukon. The Big Lake musher crouched low on the runners behind his sled bag to stay out of the wind and filled his head with warm thoughts.
Buser arrived at this last checkpoint on the frozen Yukon River at 5:16 p.m. Alaska time. Swingley, the 1995 Iditarod winner from Lincoln, Mont., arrived at 7 p.m.
Buser said the wind was a factor but nothing to hinder his run. Visualization is the key, he said.
“Wind? What wind? I’ve been in Hawaii for the past day,” he said as he bedded down his team for a rest and massaged their feet.
The race turns here toward the Bering Sea, and the top teams apply their strategies in earnest as the finish at Nome looms 360 miles up the trail.
Defending champion Jeff King of Denali Park, first to reach the halfway point at Iditarod, was in third place Saturday as he continued to battle a head cold.
King was out of Eagle Island at 2 p.m. and said he was glad to be back among the leaders after resting at Shageluk.
“I was so spaced out I couldn’t stay in my sled,” King told KTUU-TV on Saturday. “Now I don’t think my cold is keeping me from much.”
King said he thought Swingley’s team was the one to watch this year but he credited Buser’s 12-dog team with “looking great.”
“This thing ebbs and flows,” he said.
Running No. 4 Saturday was Dee Dee Jonrowe of Willow, who left Eagle Island within an hour of King. “If I don’t get anything more than to be in this (leaders’) pack, it’ll be good,” she said.
Buser traveled all night up the Yukon River, following some tri-pods and stakes to stay on the trail from Grayling to a cabin checkpoint on Eagle Island.
Behind Jonrowe out of Eagle Island were Ramy Brooks, Vern Halter, Tim Osmar, Peryll Kyzer, Charlie Boulding and John Baker.
Forty-nine of 53 teams remain in the race. The mushers are battling for the winner’s share of $50,000.