Iditarod Sled Dog Race Is Running

Thought I would remind everyone that the Iditarod race is running in a couple hours! Saturday Morning Alaskan Time the race will start. Better make the coffee or tea strong.

the race doesn't 'really' start til Sunday afternoon.. the saturday stuff is for show.. (my hubby and step son work the communications for the race....hehheehe)

'Davina Stuart' wrote

So...the ceremonial start was of absolutely no interest to anyone?

Not to me, actually. That's a circus, not a race.

But here's an excuse to plug what I think is one of the best uses of wireless technology ever: the Can-Am 250, which is probably the biggest distance race in the east, was run this past weekend (along with its smaller siblings, the 30 and the 60). This year they put GPS receivers on each of the sleds and used some sort of radio technology to send the locataion data back to a server where they were able to integrate it with a topo map in real time - that is to say, you could watch the races on the web, including teams passing, arriving and leaving checkpoints, and all sorts of stuff.

If you go to http://can-am.sjv.net/ and click on 'race info', it will take you to a race data page. Click on 'trace!' and it will pull up the map and replay the race.

I'm happy to say that the purebred teams did quite well.

'Davina Stuart' wrote

I'll agree with you there. I watched the ceremonial start online, but was very disgruntled not to be able to find similar coverage of the 'proper'

The Outdoor Channel isn't doing nightly coverage this year. The Outdoor Life Network will have coverage but not until April, when the race is already over.

There's someone running a team of Belgian Sheepdogs & Huskies (Alaskans, I believe, but am unsure). Last check they were something like 67th? But, this photo came up on another email list: http://www.adn.com/iditarod/news/photos/v-1/ (That is the Husky & Belgian team waiting to go)

I've never followed the race at all. But , I'm interested in how the girl, Rachael Scdoris, from Oregon does. I remember a 'K-9 to 5', or something like that, program that had her & her dogs on it a few years ago... Shelly & The Boys

She's hanging in there. She started last and has moved up a few notches, and while she's not tearing up the trail she's moving at solid speeds.

Here's my favorite bit of Iditarod coverae so far: The only climatic difference between the Iditarod and the peak of Mount Everest is that oxygen is more plentiful. Cabela's and DuPont work together to make it happen. http://www.cabelasiditarod.com/gear_articles.html

Who knew?

Wow...I don't do the cold weather all that well, but what a great site. I enjoyed reading the bio's on a few of the different mushers & their dogs. Shelly & The Boys

I like Ramy Brooks too. He is a good sport, and a smart musher. I am also routing for Sorlie because of the superb performance of those Norwegian dogs and Sorlie who understands them well. Also I am routing for Buser as usual, not because of his finger incident. He is a very good sport. I am really routing for Rachael Scdoris as well. I hope she makes it to the finish and of course her guide too. Apparently she has some radios that the Anchorage police dept. lent her for use to comm with her guide.

I didnt find the info your were talking about with the dupont, etc.link Melanie. They change their pages at Cabelas sometimes frequently. oh well.

About Everest, isnt is wierd? two things dictate climate, altitude, and latitude. As you move higher in elevation from sea level, or as you move farther from the equator in latitude, the climate shifts proportionately. So heading Up everest, is equivalent to heading north to the arctic, or Antarctic. Everest, when above the treeline, is classified as an Arctic climate zone. When in the upper treeline on Everest you are in a Canadian-Hudsonian climate zone.On the Iditarod trail, your not actually in the actric until you get to the tundra which is past the treeeline. So when they get to the last 1/3 of the trail, they will be in an arctic desert climate. the first 1/3 of the trail is a canadian-hudsonian zone climate. The middle of the trail is a transition zone which can be classified as both zones. Same as Mt Everest's Zones, same as Mt. Whitney and Mt. Mc Kinley as well. Basically the Canadian-Hudsonian zone is from 8000ft-11000ft. and above 11000-11500 you are above the treeline, which means the zone is an arctic zone. A fun subject for me that I learned in a fun field biology course.