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Norwil

Pat Calls from Ruby
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Good morning from the Yukon, we finally made it! Athletes started trickling out of McGrath on Friday heading for Takotna and Opher and Cripple and then the big push to Ruby, and we're in Ruby.

It was quite a 200-and-some mile trip. Mike Curiak was the first guy out Friday morning at about 11:30, and John (Stamstad) and I went out at about 2:30pm and proceeded to head down the river towards Takotna, and John snapped a ski on his trailer. He abandoned his trailer, headed back to McGrath to have some repairs done on it, and I pushed on to Takotna.

"Feet are swollen, hands are swollen, eyes are swollen; we're just hammered right now but we are super happy to be on the Yukon..."

Greg Blackwell passed us up while we were trying to figure out what was going on and blew right on through Takotna and headed for Opher. John Kirschke was in 3rd place. He spent the night in Takotna with John and I at the Community Center and headed out in the morning. That put him in 3rd place heading to Opher, and Stamstad and I and Team Slacker are picking up the rear.

The big news is that we are on the Yukon and heading for Galena, and Mike Curiak is way out ahead of us. He's putting on an incredible pace. He pulled two all-nighters and is really just going super hard. We're all a bit concerned about him and wondering how long he's going to be able to keep up this marathon pace. We're pushing ourselves 16-18 hours a day and we just can't eat enough food. We're stuffing our face around the clock and are still hungry all the time.

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The weather has been a balmy five degrees. I don't think we've seen below zero for more than one night. Bivying out has been pretty awesome. A little windy but pretty manageable, and we are so happy to be on the Yukon, to be done with this 200-plus-mile section of just nowheresville. We got to our Cripple drops from McGrath, and we were completely out of food and proceeded to wonder how we were going to get from Cripple to Ruby with what we had left in our bags, and we did it though. Luckily though, John had packed a couple extra boxes of shortbreads and we were able to nurse our way in. Feet are swollen, hands are swollen, eyes are swollen; we're just hammered right now but we are super happy to be on the Yukon.

Stay tuned for more updates. Sorry I couldn't update you more but we had this satellite phone that just kept saying it wouldn't send the call so were back in action and rockin'-n-rollin'.

John Kirschke came in at 9:30pm followed 15 minutes later by Greg Blackwell at 9:45. Stamstad and Norwil, Team Slacker, came in at 12 midnight straight up. We spent the night in the Ruby High School gymnasium — all our gear strewn all over the gymnasium floor, and we're taking full advantage of their incredible hospitality.

The Bush is an awesome place; I mean everybody just opens their door to us. When we were in Takotna three days ago, Mary Ellen and David at the Community Center put us up for the night in a small little house and that was pretty awesome. From Takotna to Opher was just a fast-paced ride. Getting an eight-hour sleep instead of having to bivy out at night was a real bonus. It's incredible how your spirits feel when you actually are sleeping in a warm building rather than hunkered down in some little hole along the trail with a bunch of spruce bows for bedding.

And we're here in Ruby — it's a high school. We'll be transitioning through; we're going to ride down the hill to the post office and get our drop-boxes with more food and re-supply. Laundry is in the washing machine, boots are drying, we got in a good shower last night — it was pretty awesome. Stamstad is just walking across the gym floor with a hot cup of coffee in hand and he's a happy camper. That's life on the trail.

—Pat Norwil, MountainZone.com Correspondent

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