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The lack of snow in the Alaska Range has persuaded the Iditarod Trail Committee to move the race start to Fairbanks. After a flyover, mushers say the Dalzell Gorge is impassable and the Farewell Burn area is, again, completely bare.

The race started in Fairbanks in 2003, for weather reasons. For Interior musher Aliy Zirkle, the move is somewhat welcome news, from a competitive standpoint.

“It’s too bad, because the Iditarod is the Iditarod and I like the traditional route, just like I like the traditional Yukon Quest Route,” Zirkle said. “But, in the same sense, it’s actually ‘easier’ for us as a kennel because our dogs and I can sleep in our own beds the night before the race.”

The Iditarod’s ceremonial start will still take place in Anchorage. Mushers will then truck their dogs to Fairbanks for a restart on March 9.

The race route will travel west to Nenana, and then head north to Manley before they pick up the northern route near Galena – a trail the race usually follows in even numbered years. Dog teams will also make stops in Huslia and Koyukuk this year.

Brent Sass was the first Yukon Quest musher to arrive yesterday in Dawson City, the halfway point on the Yukon Quest trail.

The 200-mile stretch of trail to Dawson City is the longest between official race checkpoints. Sass’s team overtook Hugh Neff’s when he blew through Pelly Crossing early Monday morning. Sass says he has been looking over his shoulder ever since, especially when overflow slowed his team just outside of Dawson.

“When I got in that overflow I was like, ‘uh oh, they’re going to catch up to me right here,’ but it was like 15 minutes and I got through it,” Sass said.

The 200-mile stretch of trail to Dawson City is the longest between official race checkpoints.

If he crosses the finish line in Fairbanks, Sass will win the Dawson award: four ounces of gold, valued at roughly $6,000.

“Oh the gold, I’m not going to talk about it until the finish line, because I had a little incident last year, but it’s great to be here, but my goal was never been to be here first, my goal has been to be to the finish line first and that’s still to happen and there’s a lot of work to do before then,” Sass said.

The first Yukon Quest musher to arrive in Dawson City is awarded 4 ounces of gold.

But, in order to keep the money, the team also has to finish the race. But, gold or not, mushers have to find a ways to get to Dawson with teams that can still be able to race on the Alaska-side of the trail.

Allen Moore was explaining his race strategy when his alarm went off in the Pelly Crossing Checkpoint.

“Uh oh, it’s time to get up. Alright, I’m awake!” he said.

Moore says he’s only slept for two hours since the start, but because of the shorter mandatory layover in Dawson City, his team has had more rest than it did two years ago.

“We figured we probably need a little more rest going into 24 instead of 36,” he said.

Moore says he’s not so sure about is fellow competitors’ plans.

“It’s going to be something at the end of the race to see who has what left with three teams a couple of them especially running hundred plus mile legs at the race and we’ll see what they have at the end,” Moore said.

Early on, Jeff King ran his team for 100 miles straight to Braeburn.  Hugh Neff ran over a hundred miles straight between Carmacks and Pelly Crossing.  But Tagish musher Ed Hopkins says he is intentionally under-running his dogs.

“Whenever they feel like they want to really take off, I’ll just stop and I’ll just let them roll around until they ‘ll take off again slow and start climbing,” Hopkins said. “So when it’s time for me to let them go, I’m just going to let them go.”

Hopkins says that time won’t come until after he’s crossed the Alaska border.

It’s the kind of plan experienced Quest mushers execute well, which is frustrating for well-known Iditarod musher and Quest rookie Ray Redington Jr.

“In Iditarod, I kind of know where I’m at all the time, where here you’re just hoping you find the next spot,” he said.

More than half the race still lays ahead. The trail includes three major summits and it’s notorious for both jumble ice and overflow. Whether banked rest or early long runs will pay off remains unclear.

All those snow dances apparently paid off.

Juneau’s Eaglecrest Ski Area plans to re-open the Porcupine chairlift on Saturday.

The city-owned ski hill shut down lift operations last month due to this winter’s warmer and wetter than normal conditions.

Crews used last week’s cold snap to manufacture some snow on the lower mountain, and Mother Nature added a few inches this weekend.

“It’ll be good to actually get out and have people up on the mountain again skiing and snowboarding,” says Jeffra Clough, sales and marketing director at Eaglecrest.

In addition to opening Porcupine, Clough says the Wee Ski and Little Rippers programs for kids ages 3 to 6 will restart this weekend. Saturday is also the annual Winter Fireworks Spectacular at Eaglecrest.

Clough says the Hooter, Ptarmagin and Black Bear chairs remain closed. But she says people should keep doing those snow dances, so they can open soon.

On the Yukon Quest Trail, there are a few things mushers have to be especially picky about including a sturdy sled. Jumble ice near McCabe Creek, half way to Pelly Crossing is testing sled engineering this year.

When he’s not running dogs, musher Cody Strathe builds dog sleds for a living.

“I built the same sled I built for about 10 people this year, but it’s a nice sled and it was originally my design for myself,” Strathe said.

Strathe built a smaller version of the same sled for Brent Sass, who says he changed out the runners and made a few tweaks in time for the race.

“I put some new foot pads on that are a little softer and I did extend my brake pad a little bit so I have a little bit more stopping power,” Sass said.

The smallest sled on the trail may be Jeff King’s. That design has a slightly shorter bed and rides high. King also tows a trailer behind him. Some mushers think it’s too hard to manage two sleds instead of one, but King scoffs at their skepticism.

“I shouldn’t be any more worried if I have built it well as somebody with long runners who is trying to carry the same amount of weight as I am only I am spreading it out into two sleds,” King said.

King’s sled was among many tested in rough jumble ice on the Yukon River half way to Pelly Crossing. The ever-reserved Joar Ulsom said simply “it was bad.”

“Some of it was really taller than the sled and you would punch you feet off the runners and the dogs would fall down into cracks and some necklines broke because the dogs fell and got dragged and one dog crashed into a big sheet of ice and the sled is just all over the place,” Ulsom said.

Ulsom had his sled shipped from Norway, but it almost didn’t arrive on time. He had to send a handler to Tok to pick it up the night before the race. He says he was up late that night putting it together.

Juneau’s Parks and Recreation Department is “at risk of failure unless immediate changes are made.” That’s according to a 36-page report produced by a consultant and made public in late January.

Before the $35,000 report came out, city manager Kim Keifer was already considering implementing one of its recommendations — new leadership.

“It wasn’t a cause and effect. It definitely just confirmed what I was going to do,” Kiefer says.

Kiefer made the change as a cost saving measure, but the report says it was needed to inject new life into the department.

Former city Public Works Director Kirk Duncan took over Parks and Rec Jan. 5. Previous director Brent Fischer is now a buildings maintenance and parks and landscape superintendent.

Before leading Public Works, Duncan was the manager of Eaglecrest Ski Area for 7 years. He says he’ll bring new ideas. He agrees with the report when it says the department suffers from a culture of negativity.

“Parks and Recreation has taken a lot of cuts in the budget cycle and you can get into victim mode when that happens or you can take that as a challenge and opportunity to reinvent what we do and so that’s my role here,” Duncan says.

Parks and Rec employs more than 300 people. Most work a few hours here and there as game officials for recreation leagues. Duncan plans on conducting customer service training for the department’s 61 benefitted employees. Comment forms will also be placed at facilities and on the Parks and Rec website.

The report also recommends the department develop a fee policy. Duncan says he wants to establish a variable pricing model at the Treadwell Ice Arena and the city’s two swimming pools.

“If you’re in the pool at a very busy time, you’re going to pay a different rate than if you’re in the pool at a less busy time,” he explains. “So looking at doing some deep discounts in the off-peak times to get people into the facilities.”

Duncan says he’s injecting a business mindset into a government operation and will come up with a marketing plan. He wants to roll out a $99 pool pass during the winter. Other fee changes could be made in the coming months.

The report mentions deteriorated facilities and a lack of upkeep at parks. In addition to the swimming pools and ice arena, the department manages Centennial Hall, Jensen-Olson Arboretum, Zach Gordon Youth Center and parks throughout Juneau. Duncan says they’re maintained as well as resources allow.

He says a solution, also outlined in the report, is a private-public partnership in the form of a parks foundation, which has been discussed by the city’s Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee.

“There is money out there in the community — private people as well as other foundations — that want to give us money to improve our facilities. We’ve got to look at non-conventional ways to finance what we need to do,” Duncan says.

One recommendation Duncan is not sold on at the moment is putting all youth programs under Zach Gordon. He says the center does a great job and he doesn’t want to dilute its mission.

Duncan does agree that parking shouldn’t be under Parks and Rec, as recommended in the report. In December the city hired consultants to look at the parking issue. Their report is due mid-March.

While Duncan doesn’t plan on eliminating any jobs, he’s not going to fill the aquatics manager position. The current manager is leaving at the end of the month. But if the Assembly decides to form an empowered board for the swimming pools, those kind of staffing decisions will no longer be made at the Parks and Rec level.

The Assembly plans to discuss the empowered board option at its committee of the whole meeting Monday night.

Full disclosure: Kirk Duncan is on KTOO’s Board of Directors.

Of the 26 mushers signed up to race dog teams in this year’s Yukon Quest International Sled Dog race, 10 are rookies. They might be new to the race, but a few trained dog teams with a handful of well-known and champion long-distance mushers.

When Yukon Quest veterinarians gave Kristin Knight-Pace’s dog team the green light following their pre-race check-up, the rookie musher breathed a sigh of relief.

“I’m just ready to hit the trail, “ she said. “The preparation has been exhausting and comprehensive and taken over our whole life and it seems like all we’ve been doing is preparing and preparing and I just want to be on the runners.”

Knight-Pace, of Healy, both worked and trained with former Yukon Quest and Iditarod Champion Jeff King.  She said she sought plenty of advice from King over the last year.

“I’m pretty sure I was filling my quota of calls to Jeff,” laughed Knight-Pace.

She said the 1000 mile race will be the longest distance she’s ever travelled with a dog team in one shot, so even though she’d like to be competitive, it’s likely she’ll hold her team back.

“I’m mostly realistic,” she said. “I think part of being competitive is wanting to succeed and in order to succeed, you have to cross the finish line and in order to cross the finish line, especially for a rookie, you have to be pretty conservative.”

Knight-Pace’s plan is similar to the one Two-Rivers musher Ryne Olson is working on for her rookie Quest run.

“Yeah, there are a lot of unknowns there.  It’s kind of an exciting feeling,” said Olson. “I get to do something I’ve never done before.  I’ve never planned for a 1000 mile race before by myself, so yeah this will be fun.”

But Olson has helped plan other 1,000-mile sled dog races.  She used to work for defending champion Allen Moore and three-time second place Iditarod finisher Aliy Zirkle.  As part of that job, Olson drove a young team to Nome in 2012.  She’s also showed off a competitive edge in her mid-distance qualifying races, including last month’s Copper Basin 300 where she placed third.

“It’s going to be really hard for me to take it easy on the dogs, especially when I get in the race setting I want to see what they can do. I want to see what I can do,” said Olson.

Despite her resume, Olson said she’ll also try to race conservatively, in part because many of her dogs are only two years old.

“I’m hoping we’ll be square in the middle,” she said. “Definitely in the future I want to try and be up there with the front runners and just because they are so young, and while the Copper Basin was great and I am so proud of them, it’s just a totally different race and I want this to be a learning experience and a real positive experience.”

A learning experience is what Damon Tedford is looking to gain from his race.

“I’m like an official rookie,” Tedford laughed. “It’s funny you should ask because when I was filling out my form for the Quest it’s like ‘how long have you been mushing?’ And I just put less then a year and I had somebody on the Facebook actually say ‘less than a year? What are you doing attempting this?’”

Tedford is an emergency room doctor from Vancouver, British Columbia.  He’s running a team owned by Iditarod Champion Mitch Seavey.

“‘Just mush!’ is kind of Mitch’s line,” he said. “We kind of joke around the kennel about that, but trying not to sweat the small stuff,” he said. “If the dogs are running and eating and you’re focused on looking after your dogs and not making mountains out of molehills and focused on having a good time, that’s the best advice anybody can give you.”

Another rookie musher who’s received decades’ worth of mushing advice is Ray Redington Junior. He comes from mushing royalty. His grandfather is Iditarod founder, Joe Redington Senior. He’s confident his team can hold up against competitors he has faced in other races.

“I think I can probably do ok I guess,” he said.  “I look at the field. I race against them all the time. They ain’t any better. They just know where we’re going.”

26 dog teams will go west from Whitehorse. Over the next two weeks, they’ll travel 1000 miles along an old Gold-Rush Era trail to cross the finish line in Alaska’s Golden Heart City.