There was no need to cancel the Yukon River Quest last week.”

That’s the word from Steven Mooney, one of a team of four paddlers who made an unsanctioned run along the River Quest course last week after the last-minute cancellation of the famous race. It had been scheduled to start last Wednesday in Whitehorse.

Interestingly, Mooney is a member of the River Quest board of directors – as well as one of the most experienced and successful paddlers around.

“I know I’m going to take some flack for this, but I think we could have done the race,” he said this morning during an interview with the Star.

“I’m going to take that back to the board. It’s something they need to know.”

He and three teammates left for Dawson at noon last Wednesday – the same time the Quest was to officially start.

Several other teams went out with Mooney’s group, but his was the only one to press on. The others stopped at Lake Laberge.

He said conditions for much of the race were near-perfect. The section up to Lake Laberge had a south wind, which is nearly ideal.

The only conditions that would be any more desirable, Mooney said, would be a calm wind.

North winds, along with northwest and east and west winds, can be tricky and challenging, Mooney said.

He believes the most dangerous part of the race is through the lake.

That would have been manageable for the racers if organizers had simply run a power boat up that section of the course to check on its condition.

It’s the most patrolled part of the course, he said, and making the transition to the easier river sections would have been quite manageable.

The team ran into its largest waves at the end of Lake Laberge.

“Thursday was stinking hot on the river,” Mooney said. “But it was good otherwise. We thought there would be way more debris on the river.”

Mooney and his team had initially planned to do the race non-stop, but wound up making a one-hour stop in Carmacks.

While the conditions were good, Mooney said that without a support team following the paddlers by road, everything in the way of food and water had to be carried in the canoe.

That, of course, made the boat heavier than normal, compromising its speed.

Mooney said there were some injuries as well. He hurt his shoulder steering the boat through the lake, and there were other injuries.

Those challenges worked in tandem to slow the paddlers. The team finished with a time of 44 hours and 18 minutes, well off the record they were trying to beat.

“All in all, we were happy with our time,” Mooney said. “It’s just a slugfest out there anytime.”

The sanctioned, cancelled Quest had involved almost 50 teams and 136 paddlers.