Yukon Quest Arrives: Day 82

There we stood peering into the woods, at the terminus of a 1,000 mile long historic trail, waiting with anticipation. The first two dog sled teams of the annual Yukon Quest, the front-runner Brent Sass with Allen Moore in close pursuit, finally arrived in Fairbanks late last night after a grueling ten day competition. The Yukon Quest is an international dog sled race developed by local mushers who wanted to honor the Yukon River, a frozen"highway to the north" that allowed passage to the famed Klondike goldfields during the early 1900's. A total of 25 teams left Whitehorse Canada on February 7th, and have endured frigid sub-zero temperatures, piercing high winds, long nights, and even a charging bull moose. Yesterday, Casey and I drove up Chena Hotsprings Road to a trail crossing to catch a glimpse of the teams on their final 45 mile leg to Fairbanks. Sass held a commanding lead for most of the race, as much as ten hours ahead at one point, but overslept by nine hours on the trail and found himself two minutes behind Moore at the Two Rivers checkpoint. Moore and his 13 dogs  (pictured here) were a mere minute or so behind Sass when they passed us, but in the end Sass regained a comfortable lead and took first place; arriving in Fairbanks along the Chena River around 10:52 pm last night.

Check out live tracking of the race HERE as the final mushers make their way to the finish line.

Canon EOS 60D, Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L USM + 1.4x, ISO-6400 f/5.6 @ 1/320 sec.