Official finish time: 11 days, 10 hours, 47 minutes. Congratulations: Lefty, Goblin, Jana, Drummer, Katy, Supai, Drake, Fenton, CJ, Coot, and Ryne!
To watch a video of the finish:
https://www.facebook.com/YukonQuest/?hc_ref=PAGES_TIMELINE
Photo by Amanda Gecas
Photo by Liz Millman
Ryne with her amazing leaders: Lefty and Goblin. (photo by Nicolle K. Hendrix)
What a run Ryno Kennel is having these last few days: from 30+mph winds on top of Eagle Summit to overflowed creeks & Rosebud Ridge to 20+ degree weather today heading into Fairbanks. Run Ryno Kennel Run!
Parking for the mandatory 8 hour rest in Two Rivers.
All check points have charging stations for what ever electronic devices a musher carries. Ryne likes to listen to music on her iPod shuffle and recharge her head lamp.
Checkpoints also provide a separate location for mushers to sleep and hang clothes to dry. And, heated water to prepare the dogs food!
Feeding and stretching their legs before the last run!
SURPRISE visitor - Kristin Knight Pace - to see Ryne off on this last leg. Ryne and Kristin traveled together two years ago on the Yukon Quest.
Ryno Kennel headed to the finish line!
Last column on the board -- love!
Getting water to feed and settle the dogs in for a nap.
Firehouse in Circle opens their doors for the mushers, handlers, and media.
Ryno Kennel #1 fan, Jezzy, even took advantage of the rest time.
Time to go came quickly!
Ryne plans to break the run into Central into two runs with a short camp out. We don't expect to see the team into Central until the middle of the night.
Happy Trails team!
Ryno Kennel pulled into Eagle at 9:17 AM this morning. The "Yukon Quest - Official Site" posted a video to their Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/YukonQuest/videos/10155050007174490/
After a nice rest, looks as though the team is back on the trail making good time toward the Trout Creek Hospitality cabin, an unofficial cabin. This is a fairly flat run following the river, so we anticipate this being a fun birthday run for the dogs and Ryne alike!
After Ryne and team hit the trail from Dawson Friday morning at 1:09 AM, the handler crew broke camp and slept a few hours before starting the long trek around to Two Rivers. Handler extraordinaire, Derek, dealt with a broken belt tension system on the dog truck 30 miles outside Whitehorse -- shout out to NAPA in Whitehorse and fellow musher, Magnus Feren Kaltenborn, for their assistance -- and with just a 3 hour delay, the handlers were able to arrive back in Two Rivers in the early morning hours today.
Plan for the handlers is to regroup the next few days, enjoy some runs with the puppies back home, give some extra love to Niagra, Kindi, and Belle for their work on the trail, and sleep little while following Ryne and the team on the tracker on the Yukon Quest's website:
http://yukonquest.com/race-central/current-standings/live-tracking
Until we meet up with Ryne in Circle, we will be relying on the tracker and the Yukon Quest updates on Facebook to keep informed.
Today, please raise your glass of hot chocolate to Ryne celebrating her birthday on a beautiful trail with some of her favorite companions!! Happy Ryne's Birthday
The Ryno Kennel Team started back on the Yukon Quest trail this morning at 1:09 AM. Arriving at the restart a little early, the team was filmed preparing by the PR folks of the Yukon Quest. Please copy & paste the following URL to enjoy their video of the restart:
https://www.facebook.com/YukonQuest/videos/10155046059579490/
The team left with 11 strong pups, and Goblin and Lefty in lead. Not quite over lingering soreness, Niagra was left behind with the doting handlers, who will now travel home to Ryno Kennel to rest a day before rejoining the race at Circle.
Go Ryno Kennel Go!
12 amazing Ryno Kennel athletes arriving in Dawson City. Kindi and Belle were left in Scroggie Creek due to shoulder soreness. Neither were happy being left behind and were very vocal as the team pulled out. Ryne will miss her two biggest cheerleaders. (Kindi and Belle caught a ride into Dawson and now travel back to Fairbanks in the handler's truck.)
After arriving at the check-in in downtown Dawson City, the team still had a few mile run to the campground. In the past, the Yukon River was frozen all the way across at the check-in, but with an open river, teams were having to travel upstream to find an ice bridge that spanned all the way across, and finally the dogs are across and almost to their resting spot.
First each pup needs a vet check
Katy first
Jana & Lefty patiently wait their turn
Supai doesn't think he needs a vet check.
Niagra's turn while Rucu and Finton wait for their turns.
"My turn! My turn, please!"
Drummer says "Oh Shaynee, that feels so good!"
CJ is so patient!
Veterinarians and Vet techs travel from near and far volunteering their time -- Thank you ALL!
Massage time!
After vet checks, feeding, massaging, and bedding down the pups, Gunhild and Shaynee will settle into the handler's tent close by.
And Ryne will now get fed, showered, and settle in for her nap!!
Way to go Ryno Kennel -- we are so proud of these amazing young athletes.
Ryno Kennel's soon to be neighbor back home in Fairbanks, Smokin' Ace Sled Dog Kennel, has just posted a wonderful write up explaining how the handler's prepare for their musher's and team in Dawson City and what goes on during the 36 hour layover. Ryne's handler extraordinaires are currently preparing her team's camping spot, so pictures will follow later. But in the meantime, please enjoy Smokin' Ace Sled Dog Kennels write-up from their Facebook page:
From Matt Hall's Smokin' Ace Sled Dog Kennel -- Handler’s Role in Dawson:
Handler’s Role in Dawson:
So we know what the handler’s role is while following the musher down the trail from checkpoint to checkpoint, but what do we do during the 36-hr layover here in Dawson? Well, there is plenty of nightlife here to entertain us if we were on vacation (anyone hear of the Soured Toe Cocktail? http://dawsoncity.ca/attraction/sourtoe-cocktail-club/)
But that’s not on our priority list for this trip up North, we are d-o-g oriented!
Handler’s usually arrive 12 plus hours ahead of their musher to Dawson City, as it’s only 155 miles by truck and 210 by dog team. First we check in with Quest HQ and pick up our Musher’s packet full of vouchers and rules, then load up the truck with straw bails and Matt’s drop bags. We head across the river via the Ice Road, traversing the river over the Ice Bridge and pull down into the campground to find our assigned campsite. The site provides nothing but trees to string up a tarp.
After we determine which location in the site would be best suited for the tent, based on trees, we get to shoveling out the deep snow, packing a base, hammering together our framed in dog picket and string the tarp over 3 lines creating a peak and two lower sides. We pack the trap ends with snow and stack a short wall of straw bails on the end. The rules state the tent has to be open ended enough for ventilation and not fully enclosed. A heat source is also not permitted. We layer the floor of the tent with straw (we brought 2 bails and the Quest provides 4), with ample to spare to cover the dogs when bedding down (frosting on the cake!).
From there we set up our totes of treats, snacks, kibble, cooker, dog jackets, shoulder warmers, wrist wraps, massage oil and liniments in an orderly fashion—We’ll be needing these shortly!
Now onto our camping arrangements. This year we brought a wall tent provided by @Bush Alaska Expeditions—Thank you for providing us with our shelter! We hook up the barrel stove, stove pipe and the Quest provides us with firewood for our wood heat. There’s no floor to the wall tent so we shoveled it out to the ground and use bags of emptied drop bags as padding. The wood stove keeps the place nice and toasty even though it’s a frigid 30 below!
All said and done, it takes close to 4 hours to construct.
Next, we WAIT…. religiously watching the trackers and hitting refresh.
Once our team finally arrives, the real job starts. We essentially become full time doggy masseuses and glorified dog walkers. From Time 0 when Matt checks in, our clock start counting down from 36 hrs. First things’ first, FOOD! The dogs get a nice big meal, with lots of water and hearty chunks of meat & kibble. We toss out homemade treats filled with all the essential vitamins and supplements. We get them undressed from their racing gear (harness, jackets, booties etc) and check in with Matt to see if any dog has special areas of concern. By this time the Race Veterinarians are usually here to go through their mandatory half-way mark vet check. We need to stress how wonderful it is to have this crew on board to look over each dog with a professional eye and assess each dog’s individual health. Next we give them each a full body massage (They LOVE this part) and inspect their muscles and joints looking for knots and sore paws, wrists and shoulders. If we find any of the above we address it with our sports medicine experience acquired from years of running dogs and handling. On hour 6, we wake the dogs and bring them each for a nice walk to stretch out their muscles & let them use the bathroom. We’re heavily scrutinizing their gaits, pee color and stool consistency for any abnormalities. Are they dehydrated? Are they showing signs of hyponutremia (Being over hydrated is no better than being dehydrated and occurs when your sodium levels are too low, opposed to being too high.) Does their skin tent when pulled or is it elastic and quickly return to its previous state when pulled? What color are their stools—Brown: Good; Black: Bad. Consistency: Solid, runny, in between? Do they have a stomach bug? Do they need more fiber? Probiotics? Less water? What color are their gums: healthy pink or pale? Are they limping? Or are they just a little a stiff from waking up (if you were to watch Matt wake up from a nap, you’d think he was 90 years old by the way he hobbles around). All these things we log in our notes and address the issues.
And…Repeat. Every 6 or so hours until hr 32-ish when we wake up our musher from his cozy hotel room (previously stocked with juices, sports drinks, pizza and snacks) and return him to his team with a thawed out sled, dry parka, bibs and gear and a rejuvenated dog team rearing to go.
By the time he says “Let’s Go!”, us handlers are dog tired (pun intended)! We get a couple hours to nap, then it’s a 1,000- mile drive to get back over to the American side of the international race and to the next checkpoint.
And that folks, is why we're here! And we love it.
Dawson City -- taken by Smoken' Ace Sled Dog Kennel
What a run Ryno Kennel is having! After a 5 hour rest in Braeburn, Ryne and the pups left Braeburn at 7:08 AM Sunday morning with a plan to camp on the trail before Carmacks. With all going as scheduled, Ryne ran through Carmacks with a short 15 minute stop to resupply from her drop bags. All the dogs were straining at their harnesses during that stop, wanting to get back on the trail, and that was a wonderful sight. With the weather dropping into the -30s on the trail at night, the pups were having fun -- remember 2 years ago on this trail it was in the -40s and -50s, so this feels warmer! Pulling into Pelly Crossing at 10:59 this morning, all pups looked great. After a thorough Vet check, lunch, and massages, all bedded down for a long nap. That is all the dogs got a long nap! From the time they pulled in, after feeding each dog, giving each a massage, eating herself, Ryne caught a two hour nap. Ryne was then back up, working on her sled, waking pups to feed and stretch legs, bootying all 14!, and getting ready for the trail. And boy did they look good leaving the yard, Kindi, Drake, and Coot barking the loudest.
Please enjoy pictures from the checkpoints.
Thanks again to all the wonderful Volunteers. Here are the "check in" volunteers at Braeburn (the line of people in the distance are anxiously awaiting the teams at the Carmacks recreation center)
Arriving at 9:15 PM into Carmacks, Kindi wanted to know why they were stopping.
But by 9:30 PM, Ryne had the team headed down the trail.
Next stop, Pelly Crossing where the local kids had decorated for the coming mushers!
The chefs at Pelly Crossing were busy preparing warm meals for mushers, and also selling them to the rest for a small donation to the local community childrens' programs.
A quiet, dark space is saved in the back of this room for handlers and volunteers to catch a nap while waiting for mushers (thanks Pelly Crossing!)
Here comes our favorite team into Pelly Crossing on Monday at 10:59 AM!
Lunch time!
Vet checks
Massages for all the incredible athletes!
Another great meal from the volunteers before a short nap for our favorite musher.
While the dogs rest:
Under the watchful eye of onlookers who are not allowed to step into the dog yard:
The mushers resupply their bags and fix their sleds.
6 1/2 hours later, at 5:30 PM our favorite team is out of Pelly Crossing and back on the trail.
Go Ryno Kennel Go!!
Ryno Kennel left the start of the 2017 Yukon Quest at 11:42 AM yesterday. With internet spotty on the trail, this is our first chance to post some pictures of the first amazing day on the trail. Please enjoy!
First off, a picture of some amazing Yukon Quest volunteers at the start of the race: hundreds of volunteers are needed: from Veterinarians, Vet techs, race officials, logistic staff, timing staff and handlers. Thank you, thank you for making this amazing race possible.
Picture by Julien Schroder.
Ryne with Cheryl, her "Quest Guest" -- thanks for the photo Chance McLaren
Following are more wonderful pictures below by Julien Schroder
Following is a picture shared by Murray Lundberg; taken 4 hours down the trail on the Takhini River.
Gunhild, Ryno Kennel Handler, enjoying a delicacy at the Braeburn checkpoint!
Ryne enjoying a breakfast for champions, 3:45 AM this morning. Soon after Ryne left with 14 excited pups ready to get back on the trail.
Ryno Kennel is home to Iditarod and Yukon Quest veteran, Ryne Olson and her growing sled dog racing kennel in Two Rivers, Alaska.
All Photos Taken by: Scott Chesney, Julien Schroder, Kalyn Holl, or other Ryno Crew. All rights reserved. Please contact prior to using any photos.
BIG THANKS TO THE RYNO TEAM
Big Dan’s Trucking
Rick and Sue Patton
All Dog Sponsors
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