Eagle Summit turns mushers off Quest, racer says

Thetreacheroustrail overAlaska's steep Eagle Summit discourages dog mushers fromentering the 1,600-kilometre Yukon Quest race from Whitehorse to Fairbanks, a veteran competitor says.

"That spot prevents other mushers from joining the race, and that I know as a fact," William Kleedehn said while resting his team in Dawson Citybefore heading on toward the Alaskan half of the race, including the 1,112-metre Eagle Summit.

"There's several [Quest] 300 mushers who would love to run the big race but this Eagle Summit thing, even veteran mushers will not return to the race because of that area."

Although Eagle is not the highest summit of the four the teams have to cross during the race, it has the most extreme vertical rise.

"Going up is one thing but going down is another thing," Kleedehn said. "You have very limited control over your dog team. That means you can't stop. If something goes wrong, if a dog stumbles or so it's happened all in the past you can't stop."

After last year's emergency situation six mushers and their teams were stranded on the summit and had to be airlifted to safety race organizers erected sturdy, permanent trail markers to guide the way.

Alternate route possible

But Kleedehnwondered why they even bothered when they could have rerouted the trail to avoid the summit altogether.

"I'm just puzzled why all those issues exist and all the efforts [to] go in and it costs money to do all this. Why do we need to bother with all this when there's another trail around it."

An old mining road that avoids the mountain would be a suitable alternative, he said.

Race marshal Mike McCowan wouldn't talk about Kleedehn's proposal.

"I really can't comment on that because that comes down toa discussion with the boards, the rules committee and all of that" he said. "I really can't that's an opinion and they're welcome to it."

On the trail, Kleedehn and the other front-runnersin the 24th running of the race start leaving Dawson Thursday for Fairbanks.

All but five of the26 teams remaining in the race hadstopped in Dawson for a mandatory 36-hour break.

TwoYukon mushers, Catherine Pinard and Kiara Adams, withdrew from the race at the Pelly Crossing checkpoint earlier this week.