Pedigree Stage Stop Race

Hallo Pedigree Stage Stop Race Fans,

Today is game time, starting off with the daily Mushers Meeting at 8 a.m.. At 9 a.m. 15 Teams will be led down the trail by Bib no 1, Tim Thiessen from Leadville Colorado. Teams will start in 3 minute intervals. The last team out is JR Anderson from Buyck Minnesota at 9.42 a.m. The maximum number of dogs a team can run is 12 dogs, out of a pool of 16 dogs. For the last couple of years that was 10 and 14 dogs respectively. Talking to Cathy Rivest and Anny Malo yesterday, it is quite possible that they will only use 10 dogs. Anny even joked: ” If I were to use 8, that would give me a fresh team on every run. ”

Last year saw a lot of fresh snow here and it was blowing quite good too. This year deep snow will not be an issue. Matter of fact the trail should have set up nicely overnight. It is 8F above. The heat of the day might become more of a challenge for the teams returning a bit later. The forecast is predicted to warm up to near 32f by noon time. The trail is an 30 mile out and back trail, through some beautiful country and from the looks of it we should have some clear skies.

Parking Mushers is a tetris game in this tight parking lot. With the low snow, access for snowmachine tours is also fenced off. A few teams camped out here overnight like Bruce Magnusson, who’s team is run by Laura Bontager. Bruce joked: ” Last year we only had one off day, and that was the day we stayed at a hotel. ” Their trailer is set up quite nicely for camping, so are several others. The biggest rig on this years course by far belongs to French Swedish Mushers Remy Coste and Aurelie Delattre. Hopefully at some time I can get you a tour of their rig.

Looking forward to an exiting race day.

Here a few pictures from last night, with doing the facebook live, I did not get any shots from the teams at the starting line.