Race Manager Report | November 4, 2024

Cate Alexander

Yukon Quest Alaska 2025 Race Manager

This summer and fall have been jam-packed for everyone trying to get ready for winter, and my work as the race manager has been no exception!

First, the successes:

We have checkpoint managers for every checkpoint, and they are all experienced and looking forward to the race! Scarlett Hall has retired from her work as the Eagle checkpoint manager, but she’s recruited Kristy Robbins, the principal of the school, to take over in Eagle, and she’s getting going with her preparations.

After much back and forth trying to find anyone in Chicken who would be able to host a checkpoint for the 550 race, we managed to get a hold of Robin and Dick Hammond at the Chicken post office and with the 40-Mile Miners Association, who would let us park a conex at the post office over the winter, and the generous folks at Summit Logistics who provided that conex. Following a whirl-wind effort by my husband and myself to fill the conex with as much stuff as we could, Alaska West Express sponsored us by hauling it out there just in the nick of time before the road closed up! It’s such a relief to know that there will be a pretty nice little checkpoint in Chicken for the 550. There’s still some stuff to do to make it happen – we’ll need a generator, for one – but the primary structures are in place.

The Yukon River is starting to freeze! I’ve been following the website fresheyesonice.org, and while they don’t have the camera up and running outside of Eagle yet, the river near Galena has some nice pancake ice on it, and we’ve seen some pictures that it’s freezing near Eagle as well. This bodes very well for being able to travel to Eagle this year!

I’ve been in contact with a bunch of people interested in trail-breaking all along the race, including on the Taylor highway, so we’re feeling good that the trail will be able to get put in over the course of the winter, and not just right before the race.

We are working on the permits required for the race.We have several already, and are currently working on the permit for Yukon-Charley National Preserve, and Slaven’s cabin.

Now what still needs to happen:

We need a start manager! It’s a huge task, I understand, but without someone to undertake it, the race doesn’t happen. If you or someone you know might be interested, please get a hold of us at racemamager@yukonquestalaska.com.

Brushing didn’t get done at 101 or on Circle Hot Springs Road outside of Central. It would be really helpful to have a skid steer and a brush attachment to handle the long stretch of trail where the willows having grown up, but so far, short of paying upwards of $3000 to rent those, none have materialized. I’d really, really like to get that done before the race, not a deal-breaker if it doesn’t, but the mushers who ran the trail last year know how it was, and it’s unlikely to have gotten better.

Lastly, I hope everyone else was as successful as they could be with their winter prep. We didn’t get as much done as I would have liked, but that’s always the case, isn’t it? I’m really excited to get the Yukon Quest back to Eagle, and we’re in a great position to make that happen!

Thanks for listening to the Race Manager Report and if you have any questions at all please reach out to racemanager@yukonquestalaska.com or director@yukonquestalaska.com.