No one had left except Aaron and Brett by the time I went out to hook up. I settled on giving an extra 15 minutes but figured I should stick to plan - they trail had been tough, but we were going onto a nicely groomed trail and I wanted to make it through to my 6 hour rest in order to leave enough time to start the 3rd leg in the morning before the heat of the day.
I put another new leader up - Jingle - with Sweetwater for this night run. The dogs were pumped and left well. They seemed to move very well and, again, ate their snack. The cool part about this run is that the moon was so bright I had my headlamp on low most of the time and, of course, with such a bright moon the view was enchanting!
I wasn't really tired, but I came across an open space and could've sworn I saw a moose step out of the trees and into the trail...then off into the woods. I scanned for tracks when we came to the spot and saw nothing. I believe it was the shadows of the trees blowing in the wind and got a laugh out of that.
On the way down, after all the teams and multiple snowmobiles had gone through, I came to the same spot and saw something leap into the trail. Two eyes were looking at us...it was a cougar, crouched in the trail! I wondered what I should do - should I stop? After all, they hunt cougars with dogs so it should be scared of us, right? But it didn't move as we approached! So I started yelling at it like you'd yell at a stray dog. And it leapt off the trail and into the woods again. What an amazing experience!
Coming down into Ollokot I was thrilled with the team...all twelve looked solid and the cooler night temperatures were nice. We had trouble getting to our camping spot - the dogs were very interested in Mark's campsite and food. However, once in our spot the dogs ate well and I went to sleep...
The dogs had come in so well, with tight tugs and no signs of issues, that I did not expect to find anything when I took them for a stretch-out walk during the 6 hour rest. Unfortunately, even with wrist wraps, there was not enough time to fix Odysseus, Achilles and Bea's wrists. Dropping them was frustrating, not only because I really wanted them to finish but because I'd been puzzling all year over why some dogs never get injured and others keep getting small injuries - without any apparent relation to their gait or other characteristics I'd been analyzing. Perhaps it was just the tough conditions...but then, my thought is, aren't there worse conditions in the Iditarod when the team is under greater stress? Just some of my pondering as we started the 3rd leg...
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