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Published: April 21st 2018
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The Comms Room is starting to feel like home. The photo here is of the wall showing of the checkpoints and their status, open or closed, and how to communicate with them (sat phone, internet, etc.). We are notified as soon as a checkpoint is open and staffed, and waiting for competitors, and later when all personnel have left and the checkpoint is closed. As the back of the pack straggles out behind the leaders of the field, the entire race can be strung across several hundred miles. Occasionally teams very far back would be "encouraged" to move along or scratch, especially if they are the only team still there, and have been resting for quite some time. I guess that's the informal dog sled racing version of sailing's "time limit expired," which disqualifies racers who don't finish within a limit of the winner.
By the end of the Iditarod, all teams completing the race had finished within 3 1/2 days of the leader. (Obviously, I'm finishing this after I got home!) Fifteen of the original 67 teams had scratched, including the 77-year-old Jim Lanier. I was really hoping for him to finish! The race awards the final finisher the
Red Lantern Award to the last team to cross the finish line as acknowledgement of perseverance.
In the afternoon, I made my last effort to see the Bore Tide. After more careful reading of the online articles, I realized that today would be the best day I was likely to have for this. The maximum Bore Tide should occur about 1 PM, so I drove out the Arm as soon as I could after my shift. I thought I was probably there at about the right time, because there were many cars in the pull-offs, and I hoped I hadn't missed it. Oddly enough, NO ONE that I talked to knew ANYTHING about the Bore Tide, and looked at me like I was crazy. I don't know why there was so much traffic there and no one knew about it but me! Complicating the calculation was that this was right after the change to daylight saving time, so I could have been off by an hour. Either way! Never the less, it was cool to watch the water in the Arm. Due to the fast moving tide change pushing against the narrow angle of the arm, it looked like
the ice floes in the water were actually running both ways. I suspect that all the ice and debris in the Arm prevented any obvious surf, and you'd have to be at that location later in the year to actually see the phenomenon.
I did get to see some kids competing for the Darwin Award, playing on the railroad tracks just beyond the No Trespassing sign....
From there I drove to Alyeska to see the resort, and then to Portage Lake and the Whittier Tunnel. It was late in the day, so I decided against continuing to Whittier, since it seems many things are not open at this time of year, and I didn't want to drive 26 miles round trip for nothing! The view of Portage Lake was beautiful, surrounded by mountains. As I understand it, the only way to get the Portage Glacier is by water, either by tour boat or kayak in the summer. But I read online that 100 years ago, Portage lake didn't exist because the glacier went all the way to where the road currently is (where I took the photo).
I finished the day with Pizza at The Moose's Tooth.
While not haute cuisine, they have a nice variety of pizzas, including one I'd not tried before - Chicken Bacon Ranch, which was HUGE and quite tasty. I took the leftover pizza back to the Comms room for the workers on the night shift to share!
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