That's Jeff King driving into Anvik, but Jeff is now at the Eagle Island checkpoint with a mob: Aaron Burmeister, Hugh Neff, Sebastian Schnuelle, Mitch Seavey and, until a short time ago, Lance Mackey. Mackey is now three miles out of Eagle Island headed for Kaltag (check the maps from previous posts), 57 miles north. Rounding out the Top 11 at the moment, right behind the above mentioned six are: Sonny Linder (finished 2nd in 1981) at mile #562, Paul Gebhardt (who stopped drinking 19 months ago) and Cim Smyth (finished 11th in 2007) at mile #561, and Aliy Zirkle (who is now 94 miles ahead of her husband, Allen Moore) and Hans Gatt at mile #553. Mackey is still the man to beat, and he's the only one out of Eagle Island at the moment.
Here's the information you've been waiting for on Eagle Island:
Eagle Island
Course Distance 567 Mi
Latitude N 63°40.083'
Longitude W 159°23.866'
At this checkpoint, the musher finds his constant battle with cold winds on the Yukon River about half over, but it's still a long 65 miles to the next checkpoint. Ralph Conatser's cabin , the only dwelling in Eagle Island, is the checkpoint.
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Lance Mackey was asked at an earlier checkpoint who would have the best chance of catching him, and he said: "Mitch Seavey and Jeff King in that order." We'll soon know just how prescient that quote was.
