Ross in good Spirits

Ross had a cold run through the night on his way into MG this morning.  The dogs flew in here this AM.  The dogs looked great and full of energy arriving here.  THe team is solid and eating well.  No serious issues with the dogs.  As I am writing here Ross is telling me his tales from the trail.  Rainy Pass was very challenging with low visibilty, high winds etc..  Ross made up for his extended stay in Rohn by runinng to Nik in one run.  I am releived to hear no talk of scratching and a good attitude about going forward.

Ross is off to bed now, it will be a great day here for the dogs to soak up the sun.  Here are some more pictures.

One more day and I will be headed back to Anchorage.  I am ready to go for sure.  It is great ot see Ross here and the team looks great.  I think we can all relax a little now and feel confident that Ross will be headed up the trail,  one day at a time.  As for the rest of the race, all the action is a long way from me now.  We can all watch on the tracker to see whats going on.  I have not heard any info about Baker and Cripple.  If Baker rested before Cripple, he wouldn’t be resting in Cripple still.  It could be that he overshot Cripple and then returned back into the checkpoint.  Seavey arrived to Cripple before him but we all know that Baker was well ahead of him earlier.  Once again, the strategy of staying in Tak proves to work the best, the risk of heading out ot the unknown can cause problems and cost time that cant be made up.  Its too bad that Baker was so close to King going into Tak, and now he will be very far behind, too far.  This was thought to be Baker’s year, not now.  I have noticed  that Mackey is moving along well, he really isnt that far behind King or the other top teams.  He can cut one or two rests a little and pull even at the front.  Although I still believe that King’s unit is too professional for the others to match.  I talked to Hugh Neff in Tak yesterday, he said the hardest part about his 24 hr layover was hiding his smile.  Hugh’s team is very strong and he said it has never been this good, so look for Hugh in the top five and hopefully even better than that.