Pair of Schnuelle's sled dogs killed in vehicle collision near Chena

Two sled dogs are dead after a vehicle crashed into Iditarod musher Sebastian Schnuelle's team Tuesday night, as the line of dogs crossed over Chena Hot Springs Road, northeast of Fairbanks.

Schnuelle, who won the 1,000-mile Yukon Quest in 2009, said in a post on Facebook Thursday he and his team of sled dogs were crossing the roadway at one of their two "regular road crossings" Tuesday night, when a vehicle ran "right through the middle of the team, at full highway speed."

"The crossing is marked with signs (and) has good visibility for drivers and mushers," said Schnuelle, who is signed up to race the 2017 Iditarod. "The team had LED collars on the first 3 pairs of dogs. The driver was a local, who is aware of the crossing."

Alaska State Troopers said they had not received an official report of the crash by Friday, and were not investigating.

In a message to Alaska Dispatch News, Schnuelle said he was riding on an ATV Tuesday night. The leaders and first four pair of dogs were already over the highway on the other side,when the car and the team collided. The two dogs killed, Cash and Jag, were in the fifth row. Cash died shortly after the crash and the veterinarian could not save Jag, Schnuelle said.

Schnuelle said both Cash and Jag were 5-year-olds. Cash had mostly run mid-distance races, Schnuelle said, and Jag was one of his main leaders that had run to Nome in the 2016 Iditarod with Kaktovik musher Ketil Reitan, who finished 28th.

Jag "was shy around people, but all determination and heart when it came to work in harness," Schnuelle said.

The driver, who Schnuelle did not name, stayed at the crash site Tuesday night and paid the veterinarian bill, also offering to do more, Schnuelle said. Six of Schnuelle's dogs ran home that night, mostly uninjured, while others were taken back in a van that drove up after the crash, he said.

Schnuelle said he was not injured.

In his Facebook post, Schnuelle said, "the gang will never be the same," adding there was "no point to be nasty towards the driver," who felt bad about what happened.

"Two people who were at the wrong place at the wrong time and wished they could have met under much better circumstances," Schnuelle said in the message to Alaska Dispatch News. "Of course we both replayed the scenario many times in our heads."

Schnuelle, a longtime musher with wild, gray hair, is originally from Germany. He later moved to Canada and eventually Alaska.

Schnuelle placed in the Iditarod's Top 10 four years in a row, starting in 2008, including a 2009 runner-up finish. Schnuelle has not raced to Nome since 2011, but is signed up to return this spring. He has written about the race for the Iditarod Insider web report produced by the Iditarod Trail Committee.

Meadow Bailey, a spokesperson for the Alaska Department of Transportation, said Friday that Chena Hot Springs Road has three spots marked with official, yellow "dog team crossing" signs. She said pedestrians, or dog sled teams, traversing the road at such a crossway are expected to yield to vehicles before entering it.

But, "once they enter the road, the drivers have to yield to them," she said in an email.

Under state law, pedestrians crossing a roadway must yield to vehicles if they're not crossing within a marked crosswalk or within an unmarked crosswalk at an intersection.

In the past, mushers and their sled dog teams have faced injury — and for the dogs, sometimes death — on training runs in Alaska.

In 2014, Karin Hendrickson was hospitalized after a vehicle veered off the Parks Highway in the Willow area and hit her ATV. None of her dogs received serious injuries, but the wreck fractured three of Hendrickson's vertebrae, and she spent months in a brace.

Jon Little of Kasilof, lost four dogs during a training run on the Kenai Peninsula, according to an Anchorage Daily News article from 2008. A handler was driving his team in mid-September when the dogs were struck by a vehicle while crossing the busy Sterling Highway near its intersection with Kalifornsky Beach Road.

David Straub of Willow, had three dogs killed when they were hit by a truck during a training run before the 2000 race, said a Daily News article from 2002.