The Challengers have piled into Unalakleet.

Teams have been arriving in rapid succession.

Jeff King, who was by the Iditarod Checkpoint about 12 hrs behind the leader Martin Buser, now sits in a strong 3r place. He is followed by Jake Berkowitz about 2 minutes later. Jakes mood was not good. He had been upbeat all trip, but this run from Kaltag took the wind out of his sails…. well, and the sails of his strong dog team. He is not sure what exactly is going on, but the once strong and barking team, is not subdued and also having diarrhea. Jake was down. Real bummer. He’s had a strong performance to this point.

Aily Zirkle came in all smiles, but was honest, that her team did not do well after leaving Kaltag. She initially had wanted to run to Tripod Flats cabin, but decided to pull over earlier. Her good energy was feeding onto the team, as they seemed happy. Massage Oil in hand, ” she started to work “

Mitch at the same time came walking out of the checkpoint, getting ready to go. Aaron is having lunch. Both look visible tired. But that is to be expected at this point.

Than Ray Redington came in, looking strong. Watching him make dogfood, we were joking around, stuff which not necessarily can be repeated here.

Next a fast moving team appeared in the bay and ROOKIE Joar Leifseth Ulsom ran in. His tea, of all of the arrivals so far looked the freshest, although a bit on the thin side.

It is a tight packed race and with pretty much every musher, you can get the sense, that this last run was a pivotal point in their race.

Here a few shots. Talking about which. I hope you enjoyed the ones to this point. Because I LOST THEM ALL to a computer crash. Yes, I did not do a backup, with lack of time. Hard lesson learned. Luckily I have this second computer with me…. so I can keep on blogging. Maybe when I get back I can find someone to try to work on the other mac. Urgh.

Looking at the hard fact numbers. Yes I like to crunch these. Jeff has had the the fastest non stop running time to UNK. 1 HOUR faster than MITCH, and 2 HOURS faster than AARON. That says a lot about what is happening.