Rookie of the Year Nathan Schroeder

You can almost say Rookie(S) of the year, that is how close the hightest placing rookies arrived in Nome. Nathan Schroeder from Minnesota edged out Two Rivers Yukon Quest Musher Abbie West by 6 minutes. Another close race within the race. I wish I could have seen them finish, but I was already at the airport boarding a flight for Unalakleet with Bering Air ( gotta love those names )  where I currently am  at the airport waiting for the connection with Pen Air to Anchorage. The good news is, I just saw my iron dog on the Tamarack here in UNK and it being loaded back on the NAC flight. Phew! Nathan and Abbie were in Safety together and both checked out at 6.15 a.m. I am sure there was some running up Cape Nome involved this morning. The Coast has received a bit of a snow cover and trails are not as bare as they used to be. 

There is a big group of mushers arriving in Nome right now. They all started traveling together back in Elim where they waited for the weather to clear. Matter of fact, most mushers are traveling in bigger groups right now, as they pile up in Shaktoolik and Koyuk, also. This will make fun and exciting runs within those mushers, as now some of them have a chance to catch up to people who used to be 6 or 8 hours ahead of them. Plus everybody is driving well-rested teams.

The difference was visible yesterday when the later teams started arriving. Teams like Hans Gatt had a lot more energy left when they got to the finish line. They just came off a nice 14 hr break in White Mountain and that does a big difference.

Now within one flight, about 250 miles back down the trail here in Unalakleet, all for sudden I could catch up with the tail end of the race. There is one single team resting in the dogs’ lot. A nice big team, of Eliot Anderson who is driving Martin Buser’s puppy team. The name of the game is to get as many dogs to the finish line and give them a positive experience. There are 15 dogs resting comfortably in the sun… all looking like little Kermits in their green dog coats. Elliot is doing a great job of keeping that young team together. The checkpoint has a much different atmosphere than for the early teams. It’s quiet. The locals have gone back to their daily business. Up at the airport it is a whole different story. The place is buzzing. Volunteers trying to catch a flight to Nome, others like us south to Anchorage. Nicolas Pett’is sled is ready to be loaded up. Unalakleet is a hub for dropped dogs and big dog boxes are sitting outside. Most dogs have left this morning en route to Anchorage. Yet a lot of gear has to still fly out.

Talking to Jeff Paille of the Insider, he has to go snowmachine all the way past Rainy Pass down Dalzell Gorge through hell and back, to retrieve gear still at Rohn and a broken down snowmachine. He is already making plans on how to winch it back up the tough spots. Iditarod might be coming to an end for some of the mushers, but it is far from over for some and far from over for the logistics crew. 

Enjoy a few pictures of this morning:

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