Feb 29 :: Day 4 // Rainy Pass

Place: 12 Foot Racers Total in the ITI 1,000 (men & women)

Gavan Hennigan (Ireland) - 174.5 miles

Herman Watson (Bozeman, Montana) - 172.7 miles

Brandon Lott (Burbank, Washington) - 169.7 miles 

Beat Jegerlehner (Switzerland) - 165.6 miles

Jeff Leuwerke (Plymouth, Minnesota) - 159.3 miles

Faye Norby (Plymouth, Minnesota) - 159.3 miles

Christof Teuscher (Portland, Oregon) - 153.1 miles

Mark Hines (U.K.) - 138.0 miles

Sean Brown (Lyons, Colorado) - 135.0 miles

Magdalena Paschke (Germany) - 126.2 miles

Klaus Schweinberger (Austria) - 123.9 miles

Donald Kane (Scottish and Australian) - 123.9 miles

Daily Miles: 29.7

Average Daily Miles: 35

Current Weather:

Current Temperature: 5 F (Feels like -6 F)

Daily amount of snow :: <1 in.

Daily :: High 9 F / Low -26 F.

Humidity :: 97%.

Cloud Cover :: 25%.

Wind :: 6 MPH WNW.

Visibility :: 5 miles.

After arriving at Rainy Pass Lodge at Puntilla Lake at 3:00 p.m. on the 28th, Herman had a big meal and hot shower, as well as a proper bed. He remained there overnight until 6:45 a.m. to make the stead climb up to the courses high point at Rainy Pass. Sunrise in Alaska isn’t until just after 8:00 a.m., so Herman will have covered the first hour in the dark, and it actually continues to get colder after sunrise for another hour or so. The real feel this morning was -40 F.

The climb from the Lodge to the pass is about 20 miles and about 1500 ft. He arrived at the pass around 4:00 p.m, meaning it took him about nine hours to cover the distance. Reports from bikers about the pass have been extreme wind causing the trail to be blown out and thigh deep at times. I have not heard reports from todays crossing, however, the walkers have been moving more quickly than the bikers, which leads me to believe that the conditions are forcing our cyclist to push their bikes.

At this time Herman is 13 miles to the Rohn Aid Station, but since this will downhill travel we will hopefully see him move quickly. He had been moving closer to 1.5-2.5 mph up the pass, and his pace has shown an increase to over 3 mph. If we keep seeing him moving, we would hope to see him arrive at Rohn around 9:00 to 10:00 pm.

Although, Gavin Hannigan did take the lead and left Puntilla Lake this morning several hours before and about 5 miles ahead of Herman, Herman has been steadily growing closer throughout the day and Gavin is now settled for the last hour or so for a rest on his way back down from the pass. Herman is about a half a mile behind him. I will be curious to see what there interaction may cause.

Rohn will offer Bratwaurst and Fireball, as well as Herman’s third drop bag.

I have found this FFA website with live camera’s from the airports along the route to be helpful in understanding the conditions along the route: https://weathercams.faa.gov/map/-160.5819,63.08176,-145.99206,66.29508/airport/GAL/details/camera