newsminer.com

Photo by Eric Engman

Photo by Eric Engman

MILE 101 DOG DROP — William Kleedehn’s dog Breeze went into heat at the worst time, and it cost him a chance to win the Yukon Quest Monday on notorious Eagle Summit.

“Yesterday basically she set my males insane,” Kleedehn said dejectedly from Mile 101 dog drop after a nightmarish 16-hour trip from Central. “Basically I couldn’t go backwards or forwards. It didn’t even have anything to do with the mountain.”

Kleedehn had seemed in control of the race in recent days and left Central at

8 p.m. Sunday. The only musher to precede him, by five minutes, was Hugh Neff, who had just been assessed a two-hour penalty to be served today at the Two Rivers Checkpoint.

It didn’t take long for disaster to set in for Kleedehn. With Breeze, a 4-year-old and his only leader that had previously been up Eagle Summit, in full-blown heat and a storm of wind and drifting snow brewing on the mountain, Kleedehn was forced to park at the base of the 3,685-foot mountain. “I couldn’t get up the hill because I had no leader to put up front,” Kleedehn said.

Then this morning he tried twice to begin ascending, but didn’t get far. He later attempted to follow Jon Little — the third musher to leave Central — but that didn’t work either. So he figured turning around was his best option.

“I actually was on the way back already to Central to drop the dog,” Kleedehn said.

But Sebastian Schnuelle came along and helped Kleedehn make it partway up the mountain, though Kleedehn stalled again near the top. Schnuelle, wary of Little and Neff visible ahead of him, helped Kleedehn for 30 minutes and then continued up alone.

Finally, Brent Sass saved Kleedehn.

“It was on the steepest of the steepest part where he was stuck,” Sass said as he stopped for a few minutes at Mile 101 shortly after noon. “Once I got on the front and pulled the leaders, and he was pushing his sled, we just hiked right up.”

Kleedehn has never won the Quest but has finished in the top 5 six times. He used the word “frustrated” to describe his emotions.

Kleedehn, who left Breeze at Mile 101, said he won’t do the Quest in the Whitehorse to Fairbanks direction again. He had never before stalled on Eagle Summit.

“If I run this race again, I run it the other way — simple as that,” Kleedehn said.

Kleedehn stayed at Mile 101 for slightly more than an hour, leaving at 1:20 p.m.

He slipped to fifth place but, with 127 miles remaining, wasn’t about to concede the race.

“I won’t give up, but those dogs, their minds have to sort themselves out,” Kleedehn said. “It takes a little time for the hormones to settle, I would think.”

Meanwhile, Neff and Little encountered their own problems on Eagle Summit. Neff, who got to the base first, said 40-50-mile per hour winds greeted him there.

He walked the dogs partway up the mountain, where the winds were calmer, and was making progress before “I got to the last reflective marker and all of a sudden that was it. There was no markers. There’s tripods there ... but the tripods have dinky reflectors on them that you can’t even really see in the dark,” Neff said.

Neff was joined by Little, and the pair parked their teams and searched for the trail for about 1 1/2 hours.

“It looks like a caribou herd went through there. My tracks are everywhere,” Neff said.

They never found the trail, so they dug out their sleeping bags and slept for 4-5 hours until there was enough light to find the trail, Neff said. Neff estimated the pair spent up to eight hours near the top of Eagle Summit, which explains the 13 hours the pair each took to travel from Central to Mile 101.

The drama on Eagle Summit shook up the standings, as Neff blew through Mile 101 at 9 a.m., stopping only long enough to grab a cup of coffee. Little arrived shortly thereafter and fed his dogs, departing at 9:35. Schnuelle stopped for six minutes, leaving at 10 a.m. Then came Sass, who left at 12:15 p.m. and Kleedehn at 1:20 p.m.

And the route did not get easier, as mushers had to travel 82 miles to the Two Rivers Checkpoint through midday temperatures of close to 30 degrees. The section also included a climb of Rosebud Summit, not as extreme as Eagle Summit but challenging nonetheless.