Rogues Gallery Kennel Blog

Cole has made it to Rainy Pass, which means she has already overcome one of the first major obstacles of the race: the Happy River Steps. She used one of her phone cards to make a brief (less than two minute) call. She said she and the dogs were starting to hit their first mental wall.
This is fairly common around 100-150 miles into a race. The fatigue of all the hard work and lack of sleep is starting to set in, and as Cole begins to feel blue, the dogs pick up on it. I was a little surprised though, beucase electronically COle is making great time, still has 16 dogs which a lot of people already do not, and she has made it through one of the first major technical obstacles of the course: the Happy River Steps (a series of steep switch backs that drops her down a valley to the Happy River).
However, Cole said — as is sadly all too often in races — she had a few dogs that could have been injured due to another musher making a bad decision. Cole said she came upon another musher snacking in the middle of the trail at the bottom of a steep spot (you’re supposed to pull off the trail or wait till a safe section). Not able to safely stop, she he had no choice but to try and pass, but the snow was very deep off the trail. As she attempted to get by, the other musher’s dogs began attacking her team (another sign that the musher hadn’t been properly training his dogs — dangerous dogs have no place in a race, let alone one this prestigious). Cole said Penny was one of the dogs bitten. She is very worried and monitoring her closely. She said she doesn’t look much worse for the wear, and she’ll be leaving Rainy Pass with all 16 dogs. But with so many hundreds of miles left, she is worried some slight injury could grow worse over the next few days. She said she would be staying a little longer at Rainy Pass than she first planned to give the dogs extra rest, and will likely leave early tomorrow morning. That’s all the news I got from her and I tried to tell her to keep her spirits up despite the situation. Hopefully, she can return to the smiling face she had in the photo above from the ceremonial start. She said she’d try to call again from another checkpoint tomorrow.

After more than a year of planning, saving, training and everything else, Cole officially started her first Iditarod yesterday and is now on her way to Nome. Penny and Oaky led her out of the chute and the start went great. There is also a FANTASTIC story about Penny on the front page of the Anchorage Daily News today. Here is the link hopefully: http://www.adn.com/2010/03/07/1172821/29-pound-lead-dog-has-right-stuff.html
If the link didn’t work just search the Anchorage Daily News site, the title is “29-pound lead dog has right stuff.” It’s a very well written story that mentions several of the people who helped get us to the starting line, including Kassik’s Kenai Brew Stop and the Nikiski Extened-Life Animal Sanctuary.
Also, for anyone following the race, the Iditarod’s “race updates” page appears to be very behind in actual updates. Cole is NOT in 70th place. IN a race this large with so much emphasis on keeping track of everyone, sometimes it take time for the checker with the clip board to go inside, tell the radio operaters the standings, then get the standing back to the computer people who then put it on the site. It is FAR BETTER to track Cole using the LIve GPS tracking under the Iditarod Insider tab of the website. It’s free and has been very accurate. Last time I check, Cole was in around 50th place and almost two checkpoints ahead of where she was listed on the “curent standings” site. So so far, she is perfectly executing her race plan and she’s exactely where she wanted to be at this time.
O.K. all for now, have to make the drive back to Kasilof to check on all the dogs that didn’t go who have been staying with our friend Laurie. Look for more infromation as soon as I know more, and enjoy these photos from the Restart.

Here is the GPS tracker getting attached to Cole’s sled. This thing was way larger and heavier than we hoped, but it is nice to know where she is at all times.

Cyder with his “pee bag” attached. All the dogs got their mandatory drug test before leaving the chute. Cyder hated it the most, as evident by his face.

The motley crew that helped us the last few days. From left to right: Uncle Jeff Morrow, Ross Morrow (Cole’s Bro), Joseph, Russet Morrow-Breslau (Cole’s sis kneeling), Cole, Kevin Hayes, Deb Hayes, Lynn Robertia, Joe Robertia Sr and Will Morrow( Cole’s bro kneeling).

Cole headed to NOme.