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" After his buddy traded a fully trained dog team for the services of an Alaskan bush pilot, photographer Ken Tape found himself following his friend&amp;#039;s progress in the 1000-mile Yukon Quest dog race\u2014from the air. The mushers started out from Whitehorse, Canada, on Feb. 10, and are our now making their way towards Fairbanks, Alaska. Tape will be filing reports here from checkpoints along the course.  DAWSON CITY, Yukon Territory, Feb. 15 \u2014 We landed the plane on the stretch of Yukon River in front of town in the growing darkness. We couldn&amp;#039;t have landed here at this time of day one week earlier, but at this time of year, in this part of the world, we are gaining daylight rapidly. Materials and equipment, if not people, are behaving more normally now, as temperatures have risen to a balmy 10\u00B0F.  Shooting photos out the plane door yesterday was nearly bearable, and we were lucky to see teams ascending and traversing alpine sections of King Solomon&amp;#039;s Dome. Once past the dome, we spotted our friend, Brent, resting his dogs, and Zack put the plane down on a section of mine tailings near an old gold dredge. The tailings we landed on resembled a straight 30-ft.-wide dike, and had broad undulations in the surface. Zack &amp;quot;drug&amp;quot; the dike about six times before putting the plane down.  There wasn&amp;#039;t room on the ridge to spin the plane conventionally, so we got out, lifted the back, and turned it around in its tracks. Turning around a bush plane in tight quarters is a surprisingly manual procedure. Under even tighter quarters earlier in the trip, I stood outside and held the wing strut, while Zack gunned the prop. The other wing swung around, pivoting the plane abound the position where I was standing, and we were off.  Zack is part of the &amp;quot;Yukon Quest Volunteer Air Force,&amp;quot; so when possible, we transport gear, veterinarians, and even dogs from remote locations. The four dogs we picked up from Scroggie Creek yesterday had run 501 miles. Dropped from the race due to injury, they were tired and agreeable after running so far. We put the dogs in plastic woven bags, with their heads sticking out, and they relaxed on the floor of the plane behind my seat for the ride back to Dawson. Teams began arriving in Dawson Tuesday night for the 36-hour mandatory layover, and the first team departed shortly after noon today. Since Braeburn, Brent has climbed from 20th to 13th place, and is running 12 dogs. He is scheduled to leave early tomorrow morning. From here, the teams will follow the Yukon for the majority of the 306 miles to Circle, before the trail hooks to the southwest and travels overland 243 miles to Fairbanks. \u2014Ken Tape  PREVIOUSLY: Reattaching Plane Doors and Saving a Runaway Dog Team, Following a 1000-mile Dog Race\u2014from the Air  Pilot Zack Knaebel in front of his 1947 Piper PA-12 ski plane (CLICK TO ENLARGE) David Dalton on a ridge near King Solomon&amp;#039;s Dome (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Richie Beattie mushes past an old gold dredge (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Dropped, bagged dogs in the back of the Piper (CLICK TO ENLARGE) "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/adventure/a4927/4212839/>