I just woke up with a jolt -- had to check to see if any word on Bryan was available. There was. Thank God he is okay, but had a terrifying experience and Sebastian Schnuelle reported the following: "Talking to Bryan on the phone the wind was sustained 35 to 40 mile an hour. Whereas Benjamin Harper made it safely to Koyuk and is currently resting in Elim, Bryan Bearss ran into trouble. His leaders were getting tired of charging through the snowdrifts.  Bryan tried walking in front of his team for a while before deciding to stop for good. Some mushing greats like Libby Riddles had to do so before, during her 1985 win. Bryan figured he went to sleep in his sled about 3.30 a.m. His dogs were all curled up in one big bunch next to the sled, which he had flipped over to sleep inside. In strong wind gusts the sled was being pushed upright again. He felt he was getting colder and starting to shiver.
As Bryan put it: ” This was the coldest sleep I ever had, and the closest I ever felt to mortality. ”  That is when he decided to hit the spot tracker button. That signal apparently was never received. Several hours later, realizing no help was arriving and daylight breaking he could make out landmarks and decided to get going again. Driving a team of 10 dogs the team kept on veering over to ” Gee ” and were not responding to his ” Haw ” commands to go towards the village of Koyuk. Bryan saw that he was on the river past Koyuk and stopped again. He also noted that his tracker was not turned on anymore, changed the batteries and hit the hep button again. This time, within 30 minutes search and rescue arrived and helped him back to Koyuk"