No, we didn't see any, but Team Mitsubishi did. Check out Jeff Zurschmeide's blog here:
Moose!
We're not looking forward to seeing moose.. at least not with the "Ram Mounting Systems" decals all over the truck. But what am I thinking? Moose can't read... they're dumb! If we run into a Grizzly, however, we should be worried.
Doug
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Today's Top Three
Top Three Reasons that Doug Showered Today:
1. Yesterday, Bill said "My new name for you shall be Stinky".
2. I woke up with enough time to do it.
3. We had hot water.
On a related note... Yesterday morning Bill was commenting about how good his shower in New Hazelton was: "That was an awesome shower! It was one of those shower heads that doesn't limit the flow at all".
Simultaneously, screams were heard throughout the hotel as other Alcaners tried to shower but got no hot water. We asked at least 5 others but none had any hot water. Bill used it all. He didn't brag to them about it, which I thought was smart.
We estimated that the hotel had one 40 gallon (er 160 liter) hot water heater tank for the 30 rooms.
Doug
1. Yesterday, Bill said "My new name for you shall be Stinky".
2. I woke up with enough time to do it.
3. We had hot water.
On a related note... Yesterday morning Bill was commenting about how good his shower in New Hazelton was: "That was an awesome shower! It was one of those shower heads that doesn't limit the flow at all".
Simultaneously, screams were heard throughout the hotel as other Alcaners tried to shower but got no hot water. We asked at least 5 others but none had any hot water. Bill used it all. He didn't brag to them about it, which I thought was smart.
We estimated that the hotel had one 40 gallon (er 160 liter) hot water heater tank for the 30 rooms.
Doug
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Long day, fun day!
Today started early from New Hazelton. We were on the road from 6:40am- for me, that was without a shower and without breakfast. I had one of Bill's yummy oranges and some of Bill's jerky in the car. I'm lucky that Bill's family set him up with some good food!
We drove around 2 hours, where we hooked up with the Team Sirius cars near Medzian junction. We then took the optional 16 mile sidetrip to see the Bear Glacier. There was a beautiful view of the glacier over a snow covered lake. Although we started out the morning ahead of most of the competitors, this sidetrip put us near the back of the pack. We still had plenty of time, and the organizers allowed us (by plan) to start the TSD section either on time, or 30 minutes late.
Photo: Following Team Sirius WRX to Bear Glacier
Photo: Doug and Bill at Bear Glacier
We stopped at Mama Z's restaurant in Dease Lake before starting the 10 mile TSD section. While at Mama Z's, we met a typically friendly black labrador. Being in Dease Lake started to bring back good memories for Bill of his year 2000 trip up this way on his motorcycle, with his Dad.
Photo: Friendly Doggy.
We scored 15 points on the TSD over three controls. I think we should have done better, but I'll blame Bill. Ok, not really. I'll blame my spreadsheet, or my driving too. Heck... 15 points is pretty good, so I guess I'll shut up now.
Right after the TSD, we came upon the Team Sirius cars at the side of the road. They were waiting for us and the Arychuk's behind us so that we could transit together. After a short snowball fight, where I successfully avoided a well thrown snowball by jumping waist deep into a snow bank (like a complete idiot), we came up with a fun plan: Wait for the scoring officials to come along and ambush them with snowballs. I'd like it to be clear (to the officials who regularly read our blog), that this plan came from Car 17's Jennifer. In fact, Bill and I only eventually succombed to peer pressure and threw a few snowballs so that it looked good on video. Oh yeah- There's video of the fun ambush. Maybe that will get posted tomorrow because it's not on my camera. Hey, maybe THAT's why we "scored" 15 points on the TSD. :)
A little later on the transit, Bill and I both noticed movement on the road about .5 miles ahead. We initially thought it was people, then dogs, then maybe... Caribou!!! Bill snapped a picture just as they scrambled into the snow on the side of the road. Very cool siting. Bill wanted me to write "Doug whacked the little one with the truck and now we're eating Caribou. No damage to the truck." Ok, but that didn't happen, so I'm not going to write that.
Photo: Caribou! (We think)
Bill and I lead the parade for a while. If you're not the lead dog, the view never changes!
A bit later on the transit (hey, this was a LONG transit!), we reached a place called "Bell 2". This very cool place is a base for Helicopter skiiers. There are some beautiful mountains and if I was a skiier, this would be the place that I'd want to be dropped from a helicopter. Of course, with my current skill level, you might as well drop me from the helicopter on one of those round plastic sledding discs buttered up with Pam cooking spray. Either way, I'm tumbling down the hill in an ugly way. But, I digress. Fun thing about Bell 2 was this: They were supposed to have gas. Most of the cars on the Alcan carry around 16 gallon gas tanks. With all the gear folks are carrying and roof racks, gas mileage suffers. But, the gas pumps at Bell 2 were frozen. So, there was a LOT of trepidation amongst our competitors about running out of gas. Most emptied their spare gas into the tank and continued from there.
Overall, the roads today were in good shape. A good snow pack covering was there for most of the day. Toward the evening it warmed up a bit and the roads were nearly clear. We kept the truck in 2WD all day and only had a small amount of minor sliding in the snowpack.
Photo: Typical transit road today.
This seems like a good place to note that we filled our truck just once in 760 miles. This meant that we had more time to use the toilet and giggle at everyone else filling up in the cold. For those interested, we averaged 16.4 MPG today, which is great- We budgeted for an average of 12 MPG overall.
We averaged 52.2 MPH total and 60 MPH moving average. Bill said that I'm not allowed to publish our maximum speed.
Tomorrow looks to be really fun. We start with a 8 mile TSD, and then go to our first ice slalom. We're both really looking forward to the ice slalom. This should be a great photo/video opportunity. It will be tough to be competitive in the truck, but we hope to surprise a few people!
We drove around 2 hours, where we hooked up with the Team Sirius cars near Medzian junction. We then took the optional 16 mile sidetrip to see the Bear Glacier. There was a beautiful view of the glacier over a snow covered lake. Although we started out the morning ahead of most of the competitors, this sidetrip put us near the back of the pack. We still had plenty of time, and the organizers allowed us (by plan) to start the TSD section either on time, or 30 minutes late.
Photo: Following Team Sirius WRX to Bear Glacier
Photo: Doug and Bill at Bear GlacierWe stopped at Mama Z's restaurant in Dease Lake before starting the 10 mile TSD section. While at Mama Z's, we met a typically friendly black labrador. Being in Dease Lake started to bring back good memories for Bill of his year 2000 trip up this way on his motorcycle, with his Dad.
Photo: Friendly Doggy.We scored 15 points on the TSD over three controls. I think we should have done better, but I'll blame Bill. Ok, not really. I'll blame my spreadsheet, or my driving too. Heck... 15 points is pretty good, so I guess I'll shut up now.
Right after the TSD, we came upon the Team Sirius cars at the side of the road. They were waiting for us and the Arychuk's behind us so that we could transit together. After a short snowball fight, where I successfully avoided a well thrown snowball by jumping waist deep into a snow bank (like a complete idiot), we came up with a fun plan: Wait for the scoring officials to come along and ambush them with snowballs. I'd like it to be clear (to the officials who regularly read our blog), that this plan came from Car 17's Jennifer. In fact, Bill and I only eventually succombed to peer pressure and threw a few snowballs so that it looked good on video. Oh yeah- There's video of the fun ambush. Maybe that will get posted tomorrow because it's not on my camera. Hey, maybe THAT's why we "scored" 15 points on the TSD. :)
A little later on the transit, Bill and I both noticed movement on the road about .5 miles ahead. We initially thought it was people, then dogs, then maybe... Caribou!!! Bill snapped a picture just as they scrambled into the snow on the side of the road. Very cool siting. Bill wanted me to write "Doug whacked the little one with the truck and now we're eating Caribou. No damage to the truck." Ok, but that didn't happen, so I'm not going to write that.
Photo: Caribou! (We think)Bill and I lead the parade for a while. If you're not the lead dog, the view never changes!
A bit later on the transit (hey, this was a LONG transit!), we reached a place called "Bell 2". This very cool place is a base for Helicopter skiiers. There are some beautiful mountains and if I was a skiier, this would be the place that I'd want to be dropped from a helicopter. Of course, with my current skill level, you might as well drop me from the helicopter on one of those round plastic sledding discs buttered up with Pam cooking spray. Either way, I'm tumbling down the hill in an ugly way. But, I digress. Fun thing about Bell 2 was this: They were supposed to have gas. Most of the cars on the Alcan carry around 16 gallon gas tanks. With all the gear folks are carrying and roof racks, gas mileage suffers. But, the gas pumps at Bell 2 were frozen. So, there was a LOT of trepidation amongst our competitors about running out of gas. Most emptied their spare gas into the tank and continued from there.
Overall, the roads today were in good shape. A good snow pack covering was there for most of the day. Toward the evening it warmed up a bit and the roads were nearly clear. We kept the truck in 2WD all day and only had a small amount of minor sliding in the snowpack.
Photo: Typical transit road today.This seems like a good place to note that we filled our truck just once in 760 miles. This meant that we had more time to use the toilet and giggle at everyone else filling up in the cold. For those interested, we averaged 16.4 MPG today, which is great- We budgeted for an average of 12 MPG overall.
We averaged 52.2 MPH total and 60 MPH moving average. Bill said that I'm not allowed to publish our maximum speed.
Tomorrow looks to be really fun. We start with a 8 mile TSD, and then go to our first ice slalom. We're both really looking forward to the ice slalom. This should be a great photo/video opportunity. It will be tough to be competitive in the truck, but we hope to surprise a few people!
Day 3, Early - What's a TSD
So, I wrote a long blog entry last night only to run into internet problems that prevented me from publishing it. I fell asleep and have just read Bill's entry and I can safely say that he totally plagiarized my work. Which is cool. We're a team after all.
I woke up 10 minutes ago and have 30 minutes to eat breakfast, pack, and be sitting in the truck ready to go. But, I wanted to answer this most commonly asked question: "What the heck is a TSD?"
TSD stands for "Time-Speed-Distance" and its basically a moving math problem. The simplest one is this: Start from a dead stop and drive for 120 miles at 60 miles per hour. So, you're supposed to average 60 miles per hour for 120 miles. Imagine that someone is standing at the 120 mile mark (at the "control") with a stopwatch. You're "perfect" time is 120 minutes (simple math- 60 miles per hour, 120 miles - perfect time is just 2 hours or 120 minutes). If you arrive early or late, you take "points". Points are measured in seconds.
So that sounds easy, right? Imagine this simple modification: It's that same 120 mile stretch, same 60 MPH average, but now there's a stop sign at the 60 mile mark. No problem, right- You just stop at the stop sign and continue... but you still need to be averaging 60 MPH over the distance, so you have to adjust your speed by going faster than 60 MPH at some point to hit that overall average. Making it more interesting, the controls could be anywhere- not just at the 120 mile mark. And you don't know where they are. Oh, and the surface could be covered with snow and filled with switchbacks. Good luck maintaining 60 MPH! :)
To keep on "perfect" time, I have pre-calculated what our "perfect" time should be every .5 miles of the TSD sections. So, we have had 5 TSD's so far. When we aren't doing TSD's, we are just "transiting"... There are no controls at all and we're free to do what we want, but we do need to get to the next hotel in time for a driver's meeting each night.
OK, so that's TSD 101 from a guy who has a cold and is in a hurry. Let me know what questions you may have.
:)
Doug
I woke up 10 minutes ago and have 30 minutes to eat breakfast, pack, and be sitting in the truck ready to go. But, I wanted to answer this most commonly asked question: "What the heck is a TSD?"
TSD stands for "Time-Speed-Distance" and its basically a moving math problem. The simplest one is this: Start from a dead stop and drive for 120 miles at 60 miles per hour. So, you're supposed to average 60 miles per hour for 120 miles. Imagine that someone is standing at the 120 mile mark (at the "control") with a stopwatch. You're "perfect" time is 120 minutes (simple math- 60 miles per hour, 120 miles - perfect time is just 2 hours or 120 minutes). If you arrive early or late, you take "points". Points are measured in seconds.
So that sounds easy, right? Imagine this simple modification: It's that same 120 mile stretch, same 60 MPH average, but now there's a stop sign at the 60 mile mark. No problem, right- You just stop at the stop sign and continue... but you still need to be averaging 60 MPH over the distance, so you have to adjust your speed by going faster than 60 MPH at some point to hit that overall average. Making it more interesting, the controls could be anywhere- not just at the 120 mile mark. And you don't know where they are. Oh, and the surface could be covered with snow and filled with switchbacks. Good luck maintaining 60 MPH! :)
To keep on "perfect" time, I have pre-calculated what our "perfect" time should be every .5 miles of the TSD sections. So, we have had 5 TSD's so far. When we aren't doing TSD's, we are just "transiting"... There are no controls at all and we're free to do what we want, but we do need to get to the next hotel in time for a driver's meeting each night.
OK, so that's TSD 101 from a guy who has a cold and is in a hurry. Let me know what questions you may have.
:)
Doug
Monday, February 18, 2008
Day 2!
I had the Grand Slam at Denny's this morning: pretty good, but their pancakes need work. I did like the two sausage links I had, they were like mini-kielbasas. Doug had the Grand Slam as well, and was quite pleased that grape jelly was available.
Team Mitsubishi says: "We love Denny's so much, we park there at night!"
Since the ice-slalom was cancelled, Jerry added another TSD to the days events. This one was entitled, "11% Grade" and was pretty hairy at times, lots of switch backs and required average speeds that were virtually unachievable. The TSD started in the parking lot of a local elementary school. The kids all came out to look at the rally cars.
We picked up 47 points over 7 controls. Car #10 (McMillen/Crippen) were the best on this one with 10 points. At least 4 cars took the 200 point max for the leg.
We headed back to Quesnel, stopped by the Tim Horton's for some Timbits, and, with just a little looking, found the start of the Black water TSD. Again, this route had lots of snow, hell, it was completely covered with snow! As it turns out, there were only two controls on the TSD, who awarded us a total of 11 points. At least 7 teams earned 0 or 1, while we were one of 6 teams to score double digits.
The end of this TSD left us on Blackwater road, and was the high point of the adventure so far! The road was close to 100 miles long, covered with snow and traversing some of the prettiest country I've ever seen. I mean covered: we didn't see gravel, (except crossroads,) or pavement for almost 100 miles. The truck worked like a dream, and had no problem keeping up with the BMWs and Subarus.
Here we are as part of a train of sportscars. We have both the TomTom and the Garmin GPSs going, and Doug's laptop with the TSD data on our RAM Mount.
We were even able to help a fellow in a Subaru un-stuff himself after he cooked it into a 90 degree left a little fast.
We followed the number 20 car of Marinus and Renee Damm for quite a while. The Damms have some friends with a restaurant in Burns Lake, and provided a late lunch for the entire rally! That's a class act that will be tough to follow.
We were almost late to the final TSD of the day, Fraser Lake, arriving at the start just two minutes before our scheduled out time. Doug did a great job keeping on pace, and we only really flubbed on of the 5 controls, picking up 31 more points for the TSD.
Our Day Two total was 89 points. The most recent scores, (which are not yet on the official Alcan site as of 2310 on 2/18,) have us in 9th overall with a score of 115, two points back from Car #14, Hansen/Perret. From there though, it is almost a 50 point jump to the next competitor.
Doug is asleep, and I will be soon. We're out of here, (The Robber's Roost in New Hazelton,) at 0630 tomorrow. The plan is to make the Dease Lake TSD by 1330. It is 330 mile from here, north up the Cassiar Highway, which is only paved for the first 100 miles or so. We'll need to average 47 mph to make it on time. Stevan and Kristin would like to visit Bear Glacier, which will tack on another 32 miles, plus whatever time spent there. We'll have to see how thing are going before we know if that is viable or not.
The Dease Lake TSD is short, only 10 miles. That's good, because then we go to Whitehorse, which is 400 miles from Dease Lake.
I think Doug has a bit he'll post up tomorrow morning early. Be sure to check out the other teams sites in our links, there is some good stuff out there!
-Bill
Team Mitsubishi says: "We love Denny's so much, we park there at night!"
Since the ice-slalom was cancelled, Jerry added another TSD to the days events. This one was entitled, "11% Grade" and was pretty hairy at times, lots of switch backs and required average speeds that were virtually unachievable. The TSD started in the parking lot of a local elementary school. The kids all came out to look at the rally cars.
We picked up 47 points over 7 controls. Car #10 (McMillen/Crippen) were the best on this one with 10 points. At least 4 cars took the 200 point max for the leg.
We headed back to Quesnel, stopped by the Tim Horton's for some Timbits, and, with just a little looking, found the start of the Black water TSD. Again, this route had lots of snow, hell, it was completely covered with snow! As it turns out, there were only two controls on the TSD, who awarded us a total of 11 points. At least 7 teams earned 0 or 1, while we were one of 6 teams to score double digits.
The end of this TSD left us on Blackwater road, and was the high point of the adventure so far! The road was close to 100 miles long, covered with snow and traversing some of the prettiest country I've ever seen. I mean covered: we didn't see gravel, (except crossroads,) or pavement for almost 100 miles. The truck worked like a dream, and had no problem keeping up with the BMWs and Subarus.
Here we are as part of a train of sportscars. We have both the TomTom and the Garmin GPSs going, and Doug's laptop with the TSD data on our RAM Mount.
We were even able to help a fellow in a Subaru un-stuff himself after he cooked it into a 90 degree left a little fast.
We followed the number 20 car of Marinus and Renee Damm for quite a while. The Damms have some friends with a restaurant in Burns Lake, and provided a late lunch for the entire rally! That's a class act that will be tough to follow.
We were almost late to the final TSD of the day, Fraser Lake, arriving at the start just two minutes before our scheduled out time. Doug did a great job keeping on pace, and we only really flubbed on of the 5 controls, picking up 31 more points for the TSD.
Our Day Two total was 89 points. The most recent scores, (which are not yet on the official Alcan site as of 2310 on 2/18,) have us in 9th overall with a score of 115, two points back from Car #14, Hansen/Perret. From there though, it is almost a 50 point jump to the next competitor.
Doug is asleep, and I will be soon. We're out of here, (The Robber's Roost in New Hazelton,) at 0630 tomorrow. The plan is to make the Dease Lake TSD by 1330. It is 330 mile from here, north up the Cassiar Highway, which is only paved for the first 100 miles or so. We'll need to average 47 mph to make it on time. Stevan and Kristin would like to visit Bear Glacier, which will tack on another 32 miles, plus whatever time spent there. We'll have to see how thing are going before we know if that is viable or not.
The Dease Lake TSD is short, only 10 miles. That's good, because then we go to Whitehorse, which is 400 miles from Dease Lake.
I think Doug has a bit he'll post up tomorrow morning early. Be sure to check out the other teams sites in our links, there is some good stuff out there!
-Bill
finished fifth TSD. next stop,
finished fifth TSD. next stop, burns lake for food, then on to new Hazelton. -bill
4th TSD done
We have finished the 4th TSD. We think we did well. The TSD was followed by 100+ miles of INCREDIBLE transit... Fast and twisty. We also scored our first recovery when we towed the #10 WRX out of a shallow snowbank. Now we're off to the 5th TSD. More later.
Doug
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