***Photo taken less then a mile from the finish*** What a race this was!!! Turned into an epic storm that was quite exhilarating to be in!!! Had a very nice run on the first leg before the storm hit putting us in fourth place at the checkpoint. It was quite windy at the checkpoint however. We tried to keep the dogs as protected and cozy as possible but the wind increased and by the time we left it was pretty near a white out in the field! Had a few stops in the beginning, tangles, replacing broken coyote tails (for frost bit protection) ect costing us valuable time... with the 5th place team overtaking us during our first stop. But we were able to catch back up to a couple teams and ran with one team for quite a ways it was really fun! Eventually that team slowly pulled away though. Closer to the finish the trail runs by the lake and the wind was gusting up to 55 and even 70 mph some said! It was near white out, couldn't see hardly at all and the sled was almost getting blown over. I pretty much just crouched behind my sled and trusted the dogs to follow the trail. They were driving and seemed to almost enjoy the stormy windy/blizzard conditions as much as me:) The harder the wind blew the more I whooped up the dogs and we were flying those last 4-5 miles or so into the finish! Caught and passed the 3rd and 2nd place teams about 2 miles from the finish, didn't see them until we were right behind them it was crazy! We came into the finish line all in a row, seconds apart! SO proud of my leaders and team for how awesome they were driving through that and bringing us in to a 2nd place finish!!! Thanks as always to my mom for handling and driving in such extreme conditions and for my dads help with care of the dogs and training, couldn't do it without their help!!