Following the Quest via snowmachine was a blast. A spontaneous trip which worked out well. It gave me a real good insight into the workings behind the scenes, from an angle hidden to my eyes before, while being solely focused on competing. You fans also seemed to enjoy the commentary, which was nice to see. For the stretch Dawson to Pelly my friend Gerd had shown up in Dawson, eager to join in on the journey. That is where the ground stone to follow Iditarod too was laid, without me knowing yet.

Once back home in Whitehorse, I was quite content to sleep in my own bed again, and go back to a bit more relaxed daily routine, preparing for the glacier business and running dogs here and there. The “mistake” I made, was just briefly mentioning, that it had crossed my mind to snowmachine to Nome too. That was the wrong thing to say, specially to Gerd. I thought he had his fill after riding his little Bravo for 200 miles of rugged terrain, although the trail was one of the smoothest I had seen on the Quest.

Next thing Gerd said he would find a different snowmachine and showed up with a bunch of metal boxes, action packers ready to spring into action for the next trip. Things had seemingly progressed into the point of no return. My next argument against going was finances but a friend mentioned that quite a few people had posted on facebook, that they would support the trip. Generally I have done very little Sponsorship drives in my mushing career and had a real reservation to ask for money, but in the end decided to go for it. The response has been fantastic, many many thanks to all of you supporters out there.

Well not having much for excuses no more, I quickened the pace to get glacier preparations kicked up a notch so I can take off for almost 3 weeks again. Gerd did a great job in “pimping” our rides so stuff is this time neatly stored in boxes and not just bungeed on in fooddrop bags.

Knowing that not all people do have facebook, I will also try to post on sebastianschnuelle.com if not during the race, for sure after the race as one long post again. A friend will also copy my facebook posts here (on iditatracker.com), so they can be read here, if you have no facebook! If I am silent along the trail for a day or two, that means no internet access, like during the stretch Finger Lake, Rohn, Rainy to Nikolai. We might have a satellite connection, but I have not been able to try that out yet.

Enjoy the virtual ride and pictures.

Happy trails!!!!

Sebastian