March 2 :: Day 6 // Nikolai

Place: 9 of 12 Foot Racers in the ITI 1,000 Remaining (men & women)

Herman Watson (Bozeman, Montana) - 259

Gavan Hennigan (Ireland) - 259? *** GPS stopped working on the top of the pass, however, it has been confirmed on social that he is doing well and has been moving with Herman

Brandon Lott (Burbank, Washington) - 236

Beat Jegerlehner (Switzerland) - 228

Jeff Leuwerke (Plymouth, Minnesota) - 228

Faye Norby (Plymouth, Minnesota) - 228

Christof Teuscher (Portland, Oregon) - 217

Mark Hines (U.K.) - 190

Sean Brown (Lyons, Colorado) - 187

Klaus Schweinberger (Austria) - *** Scratch ***

Donald Kane (Scottish and Australian) - *** Scratch ***

Daily Miles: 46

Average Daily Miles: 43

Current Weather:

Current Temperature: -13 F (Feels like -18 F)

Daily amount of snow :: <1 inch, snowing with little to no accumulation

Daily :: High 7 F / Low -18 F.

Humidity :: 85%

Cloud Cover :: 25%.

Wind :: 6 MPH NNW

Visibility :: 10 miles.

Hello! I didn’t post too much yesterday as there was a lot of confusion about what was happening on the course and I think with enough digging around (THANK YOU ALAN for being a Facebook detective and finding the secret ITI Racers page — they have the insider scoop of whats going on there!)

Big Dinner at Rainy pass from — You can spot Herman in the back of this photo near the window.

So — the short of the long is as follows:

It sounds like Wednesday night a BIG crew of people stayed over at Rainy Pass Lodge as the winds had been brutal and people were worn out. Herman did the same getting a solid 8 hours of sleep and left Rainy Pass Lodge/ Puntilla Aid Station around 6:30 a.m. on Thursday with the masses. Gavin did leave Rainy pass several hours before Herman and had a 4-5 mile head start. However, Herman was gaining on him heading up the pass and then Gavin’s tracker came to a stop around the peak of Rainy Pass.

Gavin’s Tracker still hasn’t picked up 2 days later, as it has either run out of bateries or is broken — However, it created some confusion about the situation as a number of people either attempted to summit the pass and turn around and were evaucated from the course, or there was a group of people that were recovered from the same area near the summit where Gavin’s tracker stopped working. It sounds like Gavin had been moving somewhere near Herman throughout and that the other participants who scratched have been safely retreived from the course and is alright. Three participants in the foot 1000 have scratched at this point.

As for Hermdawg, He left Rainy Pass and made a hard charge up the pass and summited around 4:00 p.m. on Thursday, so after about 9 hours of climbing. The walkers were moving faster than the bikers at this point as the wind and snow caused bikers to push their bikes, rather than ride there bikes. From the summit back down the hill to the next Aid Station, Rohn, which is a small village of about 125 people where a cabin big enough for six participants on a first-in, first-out basis — so that when a new person arrive to the cabin the person that has been there the longest must leave to make room for the next person — he arrived to Rohn at 8:30 p.m. and remained there until 4:00 a.m. on Friday, so about eight hours, probably collecting some sleep and enjoying some Brats and hot cocoa with fireball.

Herman continued from here with the option to stop at a safety cabin that is a short distance (~1 mile) off the course at Bear Creek Cabin. There is usually fire going to dry out your gear, and if there isn’t one already going, you have materials to build one. I had anticipated Herman stopping in at the cabin on his way to Nikolai, as it breaks the 71 mile stretch nicely in half. However he moved right on pass the turn off to Bear Creek Cabin around 8:00 p.m. on Friday. Deciding to continue on even though he had nearly been moving continuously for 16 hours.

He did take a two hour stop on the final stretch from Bear Creek Cabin to Nikolai likely to nap and eat. And ultimately arrived at Nikolai today at 10:30 a.m. I did receive a text from Herman confirming that he has arrived in Nikolai, I’m not sure how long he will remain there until starting the 45 mile stretch to McGrath which will have full facilities and hopefully a hot shower and comfortable bed.