Braeburn and Carmacks!

So a spur of the moment decision on my part (and Laura's), had us heading to the next 2 checkpoints on the Quest trail. We didn't think the race could go on without us, really...

Sorry to the Ramstead fans - didn't get ANY shots of the teams or mushers! Unfortunately, they scratched, so we were off to Carmacks! I wanted to stay to watch our friend, Martin leave in the 300, but we were also torn, thinking the frontrunners of the Quest were getting into Carmacks soon. Well, we were about 1.5 hrs off on that one, and arrived in Carmacks to see, well, nothing. There was a HUGE gap between mushers. Little, Buser and Kleedehn arrived first, but the other sneaky buggers camped out on the trail and then blew through the checkpoint as it was getting dark. I mean, how dare they??! We are trying to get some sweet photos here y'know.

However, we DID see young superstar Josh Cadzow from Fort Yukon, Alaska come down the river though, that was pretty cool. And then saw Sebastian and Hugh come in and leave. It was dark and we were getting cold, and if I stayed any longer I was going to grab this adorable little stray fluffy husky and throw him in my truck! He was wandering around saying hi to everyone, man he was cute!

Here we go!

En route to Braeburn, driving by Fox Lake on a beautiful day!



Braeburn checkpoint, home of the gigantic sized... well, everything.


The YQ300 musher board at Braeburn.


Quest marker! We were getting excited, yep.

The trail to Carmacks



The media dudes on the bridge asked us as we start heading down the trail "where are you going?!?" Um, down the trail! Do we actually NEED a more defined destination?? We thought it was pretty obvious, however they were getting annoyed having been waiting on the bridge for over three hours and asked us when the next team was coming. They weren't happy to hear that we were as clueless as them. Welcome to a long distance dog race! The waits will only get longer as the race goes on, so good luck with that.

The media coverage is crazy this year with about three full-on film crews following the race. One German crew came in with Hugh (as they are following him and a couple other mushers) and had their HUGE lights and sound equipment all over the place. They are apparently following the race on snowmachines, in helicopters and planes - it's madness!


Ok, Laura is starting to get bored...

Or she is just REALLY easily entertained:

Ooh! Lookit! The shadow totally moves at the same time I DO!!!!


This is my favourite pose. Looks like she's doing some kind of interpretive dance - Jazz Hands on the Yukon River at twenty below.

Uh oh, mishap on the trail...


Yikes, that's gonna hurt in the morning.

Quest mushers are notorious for not looking where they're going.

Yep, we're definitely getting bored after a couple hours and no mushers to be seen! Arghhhh!



Pretty ice on the river, which Laura referred to as the "butt crack ice formation"... sometimes you just have to nod your head and move on when your friends come out with things like that.


A team! A team!! Yay, we were SO freakin' excited. It was Josh Cadzow! I have a video of this so stay tuned for that.

So we waited around for another hour and didn't see anyone. As the sun was going down, we were really starting to get cold, and decided to head back to the rec centre in Carmacks.

Sure enough, not 1o minutes after we got there, Sebastian shows up!



Sebastian's team waiting for him to get his crap together.



And my camera was rapidly dying. The batteries mysteriously died even though I was inside just before this and they were warm. I found out when I got home that I put my wee camera inside my vest pocket with the video ON and managed to tape 28 minutes of our conversation inside the rec centre - most of which cannot, and should not, be repeated here! It is hilarious though and I will blackmail my friends with it to use to my advantage in the future.


And that was about it for our Sunday adventure. Five hours of driving for a few teams, some sunshine, cold weather, icy roads, the smell of dog crap and a whole lot of fun!!! Yes, we entertain ourselves in weird ways up here...