NEWS ENGLISH

As of now the Montane Yukon Arctic Ultra 2018 is open for entries. If you want to participate, please email me at info@thegreatoutdoors.de.

The Montane Yukon Arctic Ultra 2017 is history. Our 14th edition of the world’s coldest and toughest ultra. It was a cold one indeed. Although the major challenge this time was the humidity. We have had more extreme temperatures in the past but lower levels of humidity. All that moisture in the air meant that everybody felt the – 35 degrees Celsius as if it were – 45. It became really tough to keep dry and warm hands and upper body. As a result more athletes than normal had problems with frostbite. It’s a mean one! Participants may otherwise feel still very good but even “a bit” of frostbite can quickly become very dangerous. So, those who were faced with it had to withdraw.

But I am getting ahead of myself. Day 1 saw a great and fast marathon, even though the first half of the trail was moved from the flat Yukon River to a hilly land trail. Nonetheless, almost all runners and bikers arrived at our Marathon finish, Rivendell Farm, in great spirits. Local Runner Brendan Morphet won in an excellent time of 3:43. He was followed by Kevin Embacher from Whitehorse and Corey Nislow who calls Vancouver his home. Overall rank #4 went to local runner Kristin Daniel who won the women’s category. A big thank you to the large contingent of Yukon marathoners but of course also those who came from further away. I hope you all enjoyed the experience! As promised, we donated 1 CAD per kilometer run in the marathon to Little Footprints. Big Steps. That was a total of CAD 1,100 which Morgan Wienberg and her team can now use for one of their many projects!

Some athletes were less lucky and reached Rivendell Farm already knowing they will not continue. For those still in the race, the next stage was a tough one. It always is but as described above, the humid air made it even worse. Consequently, a rather large number of participants had to call it a day. Not only frostbite but also sore knees, pulled muscles and stomach issues were amongst the reason for DNFs. In the meantime, German fatbiker Bernhard Hasenbalg took the lead and runner Jovica Spajic from Serbia was chasing after him. While race veteran Bernhard did say on one occasion that “he had never felt this cold before”, he just kept on riding his bike. Jovica who is an internationally very successful trail runner and even experienced with the cold, got himself into trouble. Upon his arrival in Ken Lake the checkpoint team diagnosed bad frostbite on his nose and some frostbite on fingers. Unfortunately, that was the end of his adventure. He will be fine because he did accept our ruling but it is a warning to all the competitive athletes. Even the strongest and most experienced can get into trouble!

England ruled our 100 mile race this year. All finishers are English and they may not have broken any records but they enjoyed the Yukon wilderness and arrived in Braeburn still in good shape. Peter Thornton and David Hartley who started as Team Fleet Footed arrived after 51:40 and won. 3 hours and 5 minutes later Tristan Brown and Alistair Cole took rank 3. The “last” to arrive were Robert Jeffery and Scott Carey with a time of 60:30.

Some athletes still had to scratch before reaching Carmacks but the rate at which this happened by then had slowed down. Steve Hayes from Wales won the 300 miles after 168:50, followed by German Stefan Zahlten (177:00) and Laura Trentani (180:45). Laura is the first Italian woman to reach the 300 mile finish. Borja Fernandez from Spain pushed hard for the last 60 plus miles and came to Pelly in 4th place. Half way, in Pelly Farm, he only stayed 50 minutes to make sure he makes the 8 day cut-off. And he did it easily. Must have been the magic lasagna.

Our 200 mile race premier started in Pelly Crossing on Feb. 9th. Mal Smith tried it on bike and Alfredo Dimeo on foot. Both are from England. Unfortunately, they did not get beyond Pelly Farm. So, we have no 200 mile finishers, yet. Thus, should we offer the distance again in two year’s time, there will still be the chance to be the first athlete to complete this MYAU distance.

From the remaining 430 milers only James Binks from England could not get past Pelly Farm. His achilles were becoming more and more painful and he made the right decision to not go further. On the previous day fresh snow had made the trails soft and slowed every one down quite a bit. They all made it to Dawson, though. Some very sunny days almost made the – 35 degree Celsius at the start seem like distant memory. Even though Bernhard really took his time and was also held for 4 hours at one point, he arrived in Dawson City way ahead of everybody else after 171:05. 2nd on bike came Pat Cooke-Rogers from England for whom this is the second successful Dawson City finish after 2015. 2nd overall and 1st in the foot category was Enrico – the machine – Ghidoni from Italy (226:10). 2nd on foot was Simon Reed from England (229:10) and 3rd Daniel Benhammou from the USA (249:12). The first and only woman on foot was Canadian Jessie Thomson-Gladish who took 278:34. Jon Gupta and Tom Sutherland from team Montane were the first team on foot to ever reach the 430 mile finish line. It took them, 276:05. Needless to say that all other 430 mile finisher did an amazing job, too!

I want to thank all athletes who came to Whitehorse to test their limits. Thank you also to our sponsors, crew members and other supporters of the Montane Yukon Arctic Ultra! It was a real pleasure and I am looking forward to our 15th edition in 2018 when the distances to choose from are marathon, 100 and 300 miles.

Here comes our MYAU 2017 Athlete Survey. If you participated in this year’s race please do take a couple of minutes to answer the questions. Your feedback is very important! And thank you Julie Pritchard for helping with putting the survey together.

The last 430 mile athlete, Uwe Paschke, finished his race and was super happy. Once again, congratulations to all finishers! And a big thank you to all athletes who came to the Yukon to try it. I will soon write a little summary report on how things went.

Since all 430 milers were in Dawson before Feb. 18th, parts of the crew and some athletes already left for Whitehorse on the 17th. Yesterday the last shuttle bus brought back everybody else. All transports made it south without any problems and we had a very nice get together at the Coast High Country Inn.

The results tabel is almost complete and hopefully I will soon be able to upload more photos. Antje from the volunteer team has set up a Dropbox account and I can upload any photos from anybody who is willing to share. As soon as it is all done, I will let everyone know how it works. If you want to contribute your photos, please send these to me via wetransfer.com (really easy tool). Re. Joe Bishop’s photos, I will talk to him and we will decide how these can be accessed and used.

I should soon be able to email out a survey and hope to get as much feedback as possible. The feedback I have already received was very positive. However, I am sure that there are things we can still try and improve. So, please do feel free to give me your input.

I want to thank our sponsors. As always, this race would be impossible without them. It was only due to Montane’s contribution that we were able to have Yann and Thilo with us to film and make the race even more interesting to follow. Montane also always supports the crew with clothing and I have seen many athletes out there using Montane product. It’s great quality and it simply works!

Thank you to Primus for supplying fuel and stoves and Carinthia for the great sleeping bags. Thank you to our local sponsors Driving Force, Total North, Yukon Yamaha, Coast Mountain Sports, Coast High Country Inn, Downtown Hotel and Yukon Quest. A BIG thank you also to the Canadian Rangers for putting in that trail.

Thank you Yann and Thilo for your videos. I will watch these many times and I am sure the same goes for all those involved in this year’s MYAU.

Thank you to our checkpoints: Rolland from Rivendell Farm, Steve, Lee & team at Braeburn Lodge, Bernard at Ken Lake, the Carmacks Rec Center, the Kruse Family at McCabe, Selkirk First Nations in Pelly Crossing, Sue, Dale and the tireless helpers at Pelly Farm, the KVA in Dawson City, Stewart Stirling who was in charge of Dog Grave Lake and Indian River.

Last but certainly not least THANK YOU to the crew! You have been amazing. Diane, Lucy, Sue, Adam, Stu, Sarah, Trish, Celia, Theresa, Mandy, Julie, Antje, Jo, Friedhelm, Marcel, Marta, Pam, Graham, Mal, Alfredo, Jessica, Mike and the guides Gary, Glenn, Spencer, Tony, Ross, Robert, Tom, Joe. Great job eveyone.

Jessie Thomson-Gladish crossed our Dawson City finish line at 01:04. It’s the second time she finishes the 430 mile race. Once again she has amazed the entire crew with her performance. She is always in a good mood and she still does not seem tired. Superhuman!

Now we are waiting for only one more athlete. Uwe Paschke from Germany is not far away.

All other athletes who still were in the race finished on Feb. 16th. For the times please check our results table.

It has been an extremely challenging race this year. Very cold, high humidity, fresh snow, “warm” with soft snow, wind blown trails, … you name it. So, congratulations to all athletes who were able to overcome all these challenges and arrive here in the city of the gold rush.

Today Daniel Benhammou (at 19:42), Jan Francke (at 20:19) and Julian Hall (at 21:34) reached our 430 mile finish line in Dawson City. Daniel (USA) who already is a 300 mile finisher took 3rd place. He said he kind of had forgotten just how long these days out there are. Jan Francke (Czech Republic) had already tried the 430 miles in 2015 and had to scratch at the time. Back then he started out too fast and got problems with his achilles. This year he took it a bit easier and it worked out great for him. He is still in really good shape. No major pains. Jan takes rank 4. Julian Hall (UK) has had problems with his achilles over the last couple of days but decided definitely not to stop this close to the finish line. So, he is suffering but with a period of rest he will recover and I am sure soon start planning his next adventure. Julian places 4th.

Now we are waiting for Boris Tramm from Germany who should be here in the early morning hours.

Enrico Ghidoni from Italy arrived at the Dawson City 430 mile finish line today at 08:40. Simon Reed from England arrived 11:40. Enrico had received a time penalty of 12 hours for forgetting his mandatory down jacket at Carmacks CP. As this would have meant a change in results, Simon Reed’s insulation jacket was checked upon his arrival in the city of the gold rush. Unfortunately, Simon could only show an insulation jacket that clearly does not comply with the race rules. Which resulted in a 12 hour time penalty for him. It seemed the fairest possible solution. Both made mistakes with mandatory kit and both received a penalty. So, in the end Enrico who did reach the finish line first also placed first in the foot category. Both showed an incredible performance and are winners. Congratulations!

We are now waiting for the next athletes to finish. All of them are making good progress and should finish before the cut-off time on Feb. 18th 10:30 AM.