Another Lapse

11 March 2012
9:15 AM

Date               |   Daylight Span         |   Daylight hours   |  Increase from 3/19    |    Solar Noon

Mar 10, 2012 |

7:25 AM

6:38 PM |

11h 12m 51s

|          + 6m 44s

|    1:01 PM

It's this dang race, with Aliy being in lead and all.  I was up until 3 AM watching her progress from Kaltag to Unalakleet.  I don't know WHY I do that.  Do I think by watching her every mile, somehow she will go faster or I can ward off the competition?  It was not a fast traverse of the pass, but she still came in 50 minutes before hot-rod Dallas Seavey (who is down to 11 dogs.  How does he do it?).  Aliy Zirkle is the first woman to claim that prize since 1989 and the woman's name that year was Susan Butcher.

Susan did not win the race for the 4th time in 1989, however.  Joe Runyan took that prize by coming in 64 minutes ahead of her ill team.  She won her 4th Iditarod in 1990, but failed to claim a 5th win.  Only Rick Swenson has made 5 wins of the Last Great Race.  Lance Mackey may still claim a 5th win, who knows, but his last two years have not posted good runs, so for the moment Rick's record of 5 Iditarod championships is safe.

I have photos of the effects of the last snow storm from campus and here at home which I will publish later today.  Those of you who live in Valdez, Seward, Minnesota or other regions of deeper snow will shrug the photos off as nor more than a blip on your snow horizon.  However, for the Interior, it is unusual and worthy of documentation.