While
I was resting, Bill had talked to a number of other mushers and changed our
game plan for the next leg of the race. We had originally planned to take the
70 miles in two runs with about a 4 hour rest in the middle. However, the temperatures
had taken a dive and it was now looking like I would hit 30-40 below during
this run and stopping to rest the dogs for 4 hours in those temperatures without
straw would be quite hard on the dogs (and the musher, for that matter). 
We
were also encouraged by the way the dogs had handled the first 58 mile run and
felt they were up for the challenge. By the time we left they had gotten about
7 hours of rest which was more than I had planned, but probably good in the
long run, no pun intended.It was about 11:20pm when I finally left Chistochina. I was the second to last out of the checkpoint, partly due to it being my first race checkpoint ever and partly due to the amount of additional prep I needed to make for this long run. This upcoming leg from Chistochina to Paxson had the open water crossings and the highest climbs of the race. In order to prepare for the water crossings I duck-taped trash bags to the outside of my boots and pants to act as gaiters for the water crossings. This ended up working well and kept my boots from getting too iced up on the run.
The one musher who I beat out of the checkpoint caught and passed me rather quickly and I then had about 70 miles of trail in front of me and no reason to look over my shoulder and worry about anybody needing to pass. I had mixed feelings about being in this position. At first I was a bit anxious because I was very much on my own with no one coming up the trail behind me who could help out if I got into any trouble. This feeling fairly quickly left, however, as I settled into the run and the dogs hit their stride and the miles slowly slid under us. The moon was full; the landscape was covered with snow and the sky was crystal clear. What an incredible feeling alone out there with just the dogs!
I actually felt very at ease as we continued to gradually climb up towards the Alaska Range. Every once in a while as the trail would wind along the ridge I could see the Chistochina River down below on the right. About 3 hours into the run we gradually took a turn to the West and I figured we were approaching Excelsior Creek and the largest water crossing along the trail. I knew the water crossing was about 40 miles into the run so it was a good landmark for gauging the dog's speed and estimating our overall run time.
It was a cold night and I could guess the different temperatures along the trail by how severely my face mask was freezing to my beard. I also ended up doing a bit of a two-step on the sled runners from time to time to keep my toes warm. That was also a side benefit of stopping to snack the dogs - I got to walk around a bit and get the blood circulating again in my feet. The temperature predictions of 30-40 below seemed right in the ballpark with colder and warmer pockets along the trail depending on the terrain.
For this run, since I wasn't going to camp the dogs about halfway through, I brought along a cooler of hot water and about 3.5 hours into the run I added a fair amount of kibble to it to soak. This brand of kibble was the dogs' favorite and soaking it was a quick and easy way to get them both nutrients and water. I just needed to let it soak for an hour or so and then I'd just stop them right on the trail by giving them all a ladleful right on the ground for them to eat. I ended up using this technique a few times in the race and while it slowed me up a bit due to the few stops I needed to make in order to add the kibble and then feed them, not to mention the extra weight from carrying the hot water, it worked really well to keep the dog's energy up and also keep them hydrated.
On the run from Chistochina to Paxson I had set myself a goal of making it to the first water crossing before I fed the dogs. As we approached Excelsior Creek we dropped down and climbed up a series of very steep ravines. These were probably glacial outwash channels as the bottoms were totally flat, with little taper to the banks. As I was the 20+ musher through this trail, it was pretty chewed up and the drops down into these channels was really just a rutted chute with about 12-18 inches of powder which was churned up by all the previous musher's brakes as they tried to slow their teams going down the drop. While I was able to control the sled fine - the snow had enough mass for the brake to bite into - the dogs struggled a bit in the chewed up trail and I'm fairly certain this is where Jim may have initially stressed his wrist a bit. Jim is a fairly short-legged dog and I think he probably struggled to keep his footing in these chutes.
