Wed March 8 1045A AKST
Trent and team pulled in to Tanana at 757A AKST. They covered the 66 miles from Manley Springs to Tanana in 14 hrs 23 minutes, resting and camping for about 6 hours 15 mlies past Manley.Weather.com showed -35F temperatures and crystal clear overnight, cold travel that the dogs love. The weather shows clear and -5F for this afternoon so I bet they are sleeping in the sun and will take off about 2 this afternoon. Trent was in 54th place heading in to Tanana.
I neglected to post a route map. Here we are below. You can see the progress from the Fairbanks start through Nenana, Manley, and on to Tanana. At the village of Tanana, where Trent just checked in the Tanana River joins the Yukon River and racers will be on the Yukon for 350 miles now until the portage at Kaltag. The next run to Ruby of 119 miles is the longest distance between checkpoints in the race. If Trent is able to break it into two 60 miles runs with one 6 hour camp/rest stop halfway, he will be right on race plan. That is a big challenge though.
We will want to talk some in next post about the Great Serum Race of 1925 to shuttle medicine for a diptheria outbreak in Nome that is the inspiration for today's Iditarod. That shuttle covered the same route from Fairbanks that the racers are on this year.
Tim