The Quest

Every race is known by abreviation in mushing circles. You've got the K-300 (Kuskokwim 300), the Tustemena (Tustemena 200), the Copper, Copper Basin or CB300 (Copper Basin 300), the Iditarod is sometimes called the I-rod. Then there is "The Quest". Sounds like it deserves it's own soundtrack doesn't it?

The Yukon Quest is the "other1000 mile sled dog race". Iditarod is a word synonymous with Alaska. The Iditarod is a well funded, and well marketed, race involving throngs of volunteers and almost 100 mushers each year. The Quest is much smaller. The purse is about 1/4 of the Iditarod with 24 mushers beginning this year's race. Iditarod runs from Anchorage to Nome while the Quest alternates between beginning in Fairbanks and ending in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory and beginning in Whitehorse and ending in Fairbanks. Iditarod has been dubbed the "Last Great Race on Earth" while the Quest is known as "The Toughest Race on Earth".

To this point, 9 mushers have completed the race with 6 more still on the trail. 8 mushers have scratched (dropped out of) and one was withdrawn. The Quest has a new website this year at www.yukonquest.com . It's worth checking out.

A section of the new website contains video clips. They've posted video clips for the first 4 mushers across the finish line in Whitehorse. Surely the others are in the works. All the clips so far share a feature in common, Lance Mackey. Mr. Mackey has turned the mushing world on its head. He won the Quest for the 4th time in a row this year and won both the Quest and the Iditarod last year, a feet some thought impossible. Of course Lance Mackey was featured in his video clip, but he was also there to congratulate the second place musher Ken Andersen. Lance handed Dave Dalton a beer as the third place musher and helped him bring his sled to the dog truck. Of course he also greeted and congratulated fourth place musher Michelle Phillips on a "great run". Can't wait to see the other finishing video clips. Did he greet and congratulate everyone? Maybe he's just bored hanging out in Whitehorse waiting for the awards banquet, but I don't think that's it.

Lance Mackey is a cancer survivor and has worked very hard to get where he's at. The greatest distance dog musher ever is simply a real person. The kind of guy who'd love to have a drink with you. I briefly shook Lance's hand at the Quest starting banquet this year. I introduce myself to every musher I can. I say, "Hi. I'm Kyle Belleque a dog musher in Dillingham." Some of them shrug me off as a groupy having no time for some wanna-be dog musher from Dillingham. A lot do talk with me for a while though. Lance didn't let me finish. He said, "Dillingham? What's the deal with that Nushagak race. I've never been out there. Give me a call if you get it going again." He was refering to the Nushagak Classic that hasn't run in a while. He wanted to come out just because he hadn't been here before.

Lance, and his dog team, epitomize the type of dogs and drivers that compete in the Quest. The dogs tend to be a bit more husky and less hound. 60 pound dogs are very common on the Quest trail with 70, and even larger, dogs competing each year. The trail is said to be more difficult and the temperatures can be brutal. Musher's enjoyed -60 F beginning this year's race. One musher who has run both races said, "The Iditarod is for egos and the Quest is for mushers".

I'd like to run the Quest some day. It's a race my dogs and I could potentially do well in. The race would be very complicated to orchestrate from Dillingham for a number of reasons. Mainly, a handler with a dog truck must follow the race cleaning up after the musher and picking up dropped dogs. Not sure how I'd get a dog truck to the road system (I don't even own a dog truck!) or who I'd talk into driving through Interior Alaska and the Yukon in February. It's a bit of a dream right now. But who knows, maybe some day.

Those of you familiar with the Quest already know what I'm talking about. Those learning about mushing through this blog should check out the Quest website. A couple books have been written about the race and a couple DVD's produced. It's worth looking into. The Quest is as close as one can come to traveling across our winter wilderness as it was done 100 years ago.

Congratulations to all who started this year's Yukon Quest, that is no small feet. Congratulations to all those who have finished this year's Yukon Quest, very few have. Good luck to those still on the trail. Keep looking for the lights of Whitehorse, maybe Lance Mackey will be there to hand you a beer.