Monday Feb. 11 2008

I am writing to you from the beautiful Elementray school of Circle, the first Indian village on the Yukon River ! Marco' s team arrival at the checkpoint has been spectacular ... I explained to him that in Circle there is a homemade arrival arch based on two poles with the name of the checkpoint written on a banner, and situated at 90 degrees from the arrival' s trail. In order to avoid a collision of the sled's front with the left pole ( as some of the racers do once arrived here ... ! ), I teached Marco the tacnique of avoiding obstacles wich consists in getting off the sled and running at the opposite side pulling the sled towards you from the handlebar. Marco did perfectly this very sharp turn stopping immediately after in order to allow the judges the check of his sled.

Yesterday we travelled by cars from Chena Hot Springs to Mile 101. It took us 4 and a half hours along the winding Steese Highway. At Mile 101 we found to wait for us an arctic cold ( - 45 C ) with a nasty east wind blowing at 40 miles per hour which contributed to lower down the already critical temperature and the visibilty. Having to face the infamous mountain of Eagle Summit at just 5 miles from the start, the teams lined out and ready to go, were very nervous. As agreed from the beginning and in order to avoid potential and useless risks .... Marco and Armen did not travel this section of the trail which instead I did in my 2000 Race with great difficulty due to a ruinous fall in the horrible descent of the northern side of this infamous Summit.

After passing the Eagle Summit with our vehicles before dark, in very poor visibilty due to the very strong wind gusts ( an adventurous travel this one too by itself ! ) ... we reached in the evening the very little village of CENTRAL, third checkpoint in the race ! It has been very interesting to listen from some of the racers how they did the Eagle Summit descent. Bill Cotter ( already winner in the eighties .. ) told me that as just passed the summit he fell and has been dragged for 1 km to the base of the steep hill, without any rilevant damages luckily and thanks to the good snow conditions of the trail in that section.

Tonight we will stay and sleep with our sleeping bags at the Circle School. Tomorrow morning we will travel with the two teams in some sections on the River Yukon and in the afternoon we will start our trip towards Whitehorse and Dawson City to meet the first teaams arriving in Canada.

A big hug from your
Ararad Khatchikian