What a cold day waiting for the first musher to arrive in Dawson City. Roughly -30°C but with a bit of a breeze which we don’t have that often. Brrr!

Brent Sass and Hugh Neff were battling for the lead most of yesterday, but by this morning, Brent pulled ahead and built up a healthy lead.

Thanks to the Yukon Quest’s fantastic website that lets you see the location of the dogs via their SPOT trackers, we could follow Brent and his team all day, seeing their latest position and speed of travel.

Still, we really didn’t want to miss his arrival, so we hung out near the check point for a couple hours before he arrived, listening to the buzz, rumours, strategy, and updates.

Here he comes!!

Brent was first into Dawson last year too. I found the crowd this year much more subdued and quiet, probably due to the cold. Brent too was quiet, and likely looking forward to some hot food and a nap!A member of the race vet team above in the red coat is checking the team as Brent checks in with the volunteer check point staff (that’ll be us later today! We’re on the midnight to 8am shift!)

Brent’s dogs looked good. Tired and frosty, but good. Here’s Brent below giving them each a treat!

Being first to arrive in Dawson, Brent Sass will win some gold nuggets, provided he finishes the race.

Hee he, look at this beautiful dog with his eye on the snacks.

Some of the dogs had sleeves on their front legs!

Time for some face rubbin’!

The teams have a mandatory 36 hour break here in Dawson before continuing to Fairbanks. They’ve been racing almost none stop since Saturday in Whitehorse! I think we’ll be on duty when Brent is checked out of town in 36 hours! Until then his dog team will bed down in some warm straw in the campground across the river.

As you may have guessed, the cold really makes photography more difficult. I bought some gloves, so I could take pictures without my huge mittens on. But within a minute my fingers were painful rocks and I had to toss the camera to Jeff to take over for a bit, then we switched back. The back of the camera was totally covered in thick ice from our breath.  Many of the photos are really foggy just from our exhaling! The autofocus on my long lens is also not keen on -30, but we got a few decent shots!