First and foremost, it's Orb Ball face-off today for Theo's Challenge, probably the most anticipated match up for Ryan and me. If you haven't voted yet, leave it in the comments! Every night...EVERY NIGHT....the boy's nightly routine is to get an orb loaded up with snacks, roll it around the house to get said snacks out (too quickly), drop it at my feet in the kitchen, and repeat. For, like, an hour. He gets anything shoved in the orb, from fried eggs, venison, Sam's chicken (the chicken scraps I cut off chicken for me), cheese, cut up treats...currently it's leftover pork I found in the freezer that I'm sure Ryan would have thawed an eaten one day. The original orb is orange (seen here) and is just a hollow orb. The green orb was an addition given the hit of the orange orb and has a plastic puzzle inside. Highly recommend if you have a dog.
(Ryan's picture, swiped from 2023 race)
Speaking of dogs, no one is more excited to see them on the trail than Ryan. To say seeing the happy smiles of the dogs is a major highlight of the ITI 1000 would be an understatement. Unfortunately, he'll have to wait a bit longer than normal...as of this writing, only one team had left Ophir (346), the moose slayer Dallas Seavey (see a couple blogs ago when I posted a screenshot of the best account I've seen...in which a team ran over the moose!). While there are four other teams in Ophir, and eighteen in Takotna, none seem to be moving. I just heard from Ryan at 2:55 AKST and it sounds like the trail is a slog of a slow mess, so it's likely they're all taking one of the mandatory rests, waiting for the trail to firm up tonight. Fingers crossed for them and the ITI racers that this wish comes true!
(UPDATE: 3:15 and the message came in: DOGS!!! 💜)
Weather temps in the mid-twenties mean the trail has been, and continues to be soft. After a long, slow day yesterday he arrived at Carlson Safety Cabin at 11:15 pm. At the 16x16 spruce log cabin (dated source, but cool history) was Asbjorn (ski), Gavan (foot), Leah (bike), and Brandon (foot)...a lovely change of pace from the dozens packed into shelters earlier in the race. Asbjorn and Gavan got an early start, while Leah and Brandon got to witness an epically bad exchange via inReach. Imagine a "Who's On First?" reenactment, but where the two involved can't see each other, the lines are delivered out of order, and you're in the middle of explaining how redistricting leads to deterrence of quality candidates, which leads to the incumbency advantage in the House of Representatives. Not our finest moment, but I took good notes and have ways to improve delivery!
Plan is to get to Cripple (422) checkpoint tonight. There's another safety cabin (North Fork Innoko River Cabin), but it's only 6 miles before Cripple. I'd imagine if the melee of the dog race was further along, he'd think about staying at the shelter cabin. But that's a moot point, plus, I'm guessing he may be looking for some melee ;-)
I count 22, possibly 23 racers left in the 1000...which is fantastic! 10 bikers (2 chicks!), 5 skiers (1 chick), and 7, maybe 8, walkers (1 chick). I hope to count 23 for the next 20 days :-)
(another photo lifted from last year...we've reached that point in the race where no cell/wifi means no pictures, so I start getting desperate for content)
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