EAGLE -- Ken Anderson of Fox said the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race's reputation as the toughest in the world is proving true.
"I think it lives up to that. At first it didn't," Anderson said after arriving in Eagle minutes behind leader Lance Mackey.
And the race for victory has become a two-musher, neighbor-vs.-neighbor affair for the two Fairbanks mushers.
Mackey pulled into Dawson City, where mushers take a mandatory 36-hour layover, just 33 minutes ahead of Anderson Thursday afternoon. Dawson City is 450 miles from the finish line in Whitehorse.
Behind them was a huge gap to third-place Michelle Phillips, who didn't begin the 48-mile run from the Forty Mile River checkpoint to Dawson until 4 p.m.
By then, Anderson and Mackey were well into their rest.
-- and recalling the first portion of the race.
Anderson said the 1,000-mile trail has offered up one challenge after another.
"Going through the 60 below (on Birch Creek), then that (Yukon) River ice, then just the fact that there aren't many trail markers," Anderson said while eating pancakes at the two-room Eagle Schoolhouse. "If you were in a storm out there (on the Yukon), you'd really be screwed."
Anderson, an Iditarod veteran but Quest rookie, so far has negotiated the obstacles well. He's been averaging relatively short runs of less than six hours, carefully planned in advance.
"I've done a lot of research on run times and asked a lot of questions. I was kind of a pain in the driver's meeting because I just wanted to know everything about distances and times," Anderson said.
Known for his competitive nature, Anderson has been blowing through many checkpoints and camping elsewhere with a different schedule than Mackey's. After trailing the champion by almost two hours leaving Slaven's Roadhouse on Tuesday morning, Anderson surprised many by arriving in Eagle, 101 miles away, just 20 minutes after Mackey on Wednesday.
Following a healthy break, the neighbors left a minute apart.
"I might be being presumptuous, but it kind of looks like it's gonna be a race between (Mackey) and I ... so I just have to decide how hard I want to race," said Anderson, who, like his neighbor, is also signed up for the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race next month.
Mackey won the race-within-the-race Thursday by beating Anderson to Dawson City to claim 4 ounces of gold.
Was the prize on Anderson's mind?
"Ummm, no," he said, pausing with a smile. "Well, OK maybe. But it's just like dreaming, you know. It's silly. It should have no bearing on what I do in the race."
Mackey, who used a drill, duct tape and baling wire to repair a damaged sled rail, has been mushing conservatively and still hasn't busted out a long run that might give him a more comfortable lead.
"These are just little bunny hops at the moment," he said. "I'm gonna kind of just keep an eye on what everyone's doin' and if I don't have to do anything crazy, I'm definitely not gonna."
Mackey, still with 13 dogs, has been changing leaders often and primarily ran Hansom up front through jumbles of river ice on the Yukon. Hansom, 4, was one of the dogs Mackey raced last year in both the Quest and the Iditarod.
"I'm certainly ready to (make a move) any time that I need to, and the dogs are strong," Mackey said. "They'll withstand just about anything I ask them to do."
That move isn't likely just yet, though.
"Honestly, I think everybody's just kind of trying to hold together what they got now," Mackey said.
Brent Sass of Fairbanks, the surprise musher in this year's field, was in fifth place out of Forty Mile River. He's down to nine dogs but not overly concerned. Six are required to finish.
"I wish I had more, but it's definitely enough," he said, adding that three of the dropped dogs were young ones who'd never experienced such nasty trail.
"Dawson will do us good," he said. "They'll get their perk back."
By MATIAS SAARI
Fairbanks Daily News-Miner