We woke up at 5am to feed and pet the dogs.Start at 8 am. Today there is a snow machine race between Nome and Golovin so they warmly invited us to stop on the trail from noon to 3 pm to avoid deadly crashes with the machines flying at more than 100 mph. Sunrise lights greeted us on the tundra just before climbing the Topkok Hills. My MEGH and CIORS do not wish to lead any more this wild bunch of " youngest lions "so my leaders today, as for the last days, are LIGHTNING and STORM. They don't pull much…but at least they make the team going and believe me this is very important when the general level of stress is getting big because of fatigue. I think I have been good at maintaining high their spirits with particular attentions at their respect.
After 3 hours of tundra and up and downs on hills we finally arrived on the coast of the Bering Sea to start the long last 50 miles which separates us from Nome. The north wind gusts started to blow on us as usual until the ghost town of Solomon where we stopped off the trail for 3 hours to let the snow machine racers blow by. We re started at 3 pm and reached SAFETY ROADHOUSE where in 1925 GUNNAR KAASEN ( a Norwegian by origin dog musher who received the Serum from Charlie Olson in Bluff ) should have passed the medicine's box to ED ROHN. It is told that Kaasen's team led by BALTO, after a severe storm right here in Solomon, reached Safety at 2 am. Ed Rohn was sleeping and so Kaasen decided to keep on going to Nome in order not to slow the delivery of the precious Serum. He arrived at Nome's Hospital at 5.30 am to deliver the medicine's package to Dr. Welch. This decision provoked a bitter and unfortunate tale of jealousy among all the 20 mushers involved in the Serum Run because only the last team and lead dog got all the credit and fame by the Media.
Between Safety and Nome Gianni's snowmachine quit !! We were super lucky to receive help from some young kids around us. One of them SCOTT - 14 years of age!!! - towed with his snowmachine Gianni's sled with all our gear and supplies enabling Gianni to finish his job of filming our team's arrival in Nome at sundown just before 7 pm. We went straight to the Hospital to deliver some gifts ( chocolate !! ) to the kids and one of my Commemorative post cards - which I transported all the way from Nenana in my sled - to a Representative.
Heading towards Chris's home where we are staying,
I could not resist from crying out strong while I was driving my sled,…for the wonderful dogs of my team who allowed me to reach Nome after 753 miles of trail…on Balto's Footprints
From the sports side, the 1925 record of 125 hours for 680 miles and 20 fresh dog teams - has been beated by far by our Team in 96 hours for 753 miles ( 73 more miles because of the open waters on the Bering ). I believe this is due to the different quality of training, preparation, nutrition, breed selection of the dogs and even trail and meteo conditions.
THIS WONDERFUL ADVENTURE IS HAPPILY FINISHED THANKS TO MY EXCEPTIONAL DOGS AND TO ALL THE PEOPLE WHO BELIEVED IN US AND HELPED US. GOODBYE FOR OUR NEXT ADVENTURE TO EVERYBODY WHO FOLLOWED US ….EVEN WITH THE IMAGES OF THE FILM THAT GIANNI AND ME HEROICALLY SHOOTED ON THE TRAIL !!!
DETAILED DIARY AND FILM WILL BE AVAILABLE SHORTLY.
A strong hug from your ARARAD K
Total Miles 753 - Media 7,8 Mp/h
Serum Run 1925
Total Miles 680 - Media 5,3 Mp/h
