Rookie Dallas Seavey wins the Yukon Quest

Dallas Seavey, a 23-year-old with impeccable mushing blood lines, captured victory Tuesday night in the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race, becoming the youngest winner in race history.



Seavey, a third-generation musher from Willow whose grandfather Dan finished third in the inaugural Iditarod and whose father Mitch won the 2004 Iditarod, crossed the finish line in downtown Fairbanks at 11:05 p.m.

He earned a paycheck of $28,395 for a rookie effort that began 10 days and 1,000 miles earlier in Whitehorse, Yukon.

The drama that gripped the Quest since the weekend, turning it into a battle between man and the elements -- with the elements winning a fair share of the time -- gave way to a dramatic finish Tuesday.

Sebastian Schnuelle, the 2009 champion from Paxson, finished second in the 28th running of the international race, after passing Ken Anderson of Fox on the 75-mile run from Two Rivers to Fairbanks. He finished about 30 minutes behind Seavey.

Anderson, who was poised to finish third, led Seavey and Schnuelle into Two Rivers early Tuesday morning. He owned a 17-minute lead over Seavey and a 63-minute lead over Schnuelle.

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Mushers must take an eight-hour layover at Two Rivers, but Anderson spent 8 1/2 hours there because he had to serve a 30-minute penalty assessed when he left a previous checkpoint without officially checking out.

That gave Seavey a 13-minute gap leaving Two Rivers, and he extended it from there.

The victory is the biggest of Seavey's career, but not the first time he's made history in distance mushing. In 2004, at age 18, he became the youngest musher to enter -- and finish -- the Iditarod.

Though this was his first Quest, Seavey has experience that belies his age. Besides growing up around the Seavey family kennel in Seward, he is a four-time Iditarod finisher who placed sixth in the 2009 race and eighth last year after winning the prize for being the first musher to reach the halfway point.

In the summer, Seavey operates the WildRide Sled Dog Show for tourists in Anchorage. In recent days, he was part of the wild ride that has been the 28th annual Quest.

Deep overflow, bone-chilling temperatures and walloping winds have battered mushers and their teams, particularly once they reached Alaska.

A storm near the border on American Summit, deep overflow on Birch Creek east of Central and high winds on Eagle Summit on the other side of Central took a toll on both mushers and dogs.

Two dogs have died, and of the 25 mushers who started the race Feb. 5 in Whitehorse, only 14 remain. The rest have either scratched or were withdrawn, including Hugh Neff of Tok, the leader from the beginning until Monday when his team stalled on Eagle Summit, and defending champion Hans Gatt of Whitehorse, who scratched with severe frostbite after surviving an icy plunge into chest-deep water on Birch Creek.

"If I would have known that we'd get all of this, I probably would have withdrawn. I would not sign up," Schnuelle told KUAC radio. "I always hope for ugly weather, but not this much. Not days of it."

Conditions put a number of teams in jeopardy, while making heroes out of those who came to the rescue.

Seavey had a chilling experience while crossing Birch Creek on Sunday. He wound up in waist-deep overflow and arrived at Central wrapped in his sleeping bag, according to official race reports.

That same day, Schnuelle came to Gatt's rescue when he found the defending champ at Birch Creek with his dogs safely out of the overflow but his sled stuck tight.

Schnuelle helped secure the dogs, retrieved the sled, built a fire and fashioned a new pair of boots -- Gatt's were soaked -- out of dog blankets, burlap bags, neck lines and tug lines, according to the race website.

Anderson played hero on Monday when he tried to help Neff's team over 3,683-foot Eagle Summit, which rises sharply from 935 feet. He led both his team and Neff's team up the pass by hand, but Neff's dogs turned back.

Fairbanks musher Dan Kaduce tried to help Neff up the pass too, with the same result.

Kaduce stayed with Neff for hours as wind pelted them. He eventually mushed to the Steese Highway and hitchhiked back to Central to get help for Neff. Both mushers dropped out of the race.

During the long day when Neff's once-huge lead evaporated and his race came to an end, one of his dogs -- Geronimo -- died. Necropsy results are pending, officials said.

Earlier, Taco, a wheel dog on Brent Sass' team, died of unknown causes. Sass continued to race and was in fourth place late Tuesday.

Sass, too, is among this year's heroes -- he led Gatt's team safely up American Summit on Friday after a storm blew in the trail. Gatt tried to break trail himself but the effort and the wind were too great. Soaked with sweat, he retreated to his sleeping bag and waited for help.

It came in the form of Sass, who hitched Gatt's team to his sled and let his 70-pound lead dog, Silver, haul both teams over the pass.

Later, as Sass told the story to KUAC radio of Fairbanks, he stated what has become the unofficial theme of this year's Quest.

"We weren't thinking about competition at all up there," Sass said. "It was survival."