Lots of action on the slough over night and there’s plenty more to come today. As of breakfast on Monday, 25 teams have made the coast. Temperatures in the single digits below zero this morning are more typical of Iditarod. Unusual for the coast, the winds are rather light. Visibility is listed at ten miles but really you can see as far as the human eye can see.

Jessie Royer is back in Iditarod after taking a year off to mend an injury. She took an eight-hour rest at Unalakleet before heading to Shaktoolik in the wee hours of Monday morning, 02:23, with eight dogs in harness. Winds of the day before had diminished by the time she took the trail. Jessie grew up on a cattle ranch in Montana and has worked as a horse wrangler. At the age of fifteen she got her first sled dogs. Four-time Iditarod Champion, Doug Swingley was her mentor. At seventeen, Jessie won Montana’s Race to the Sky as the youngest musher ever and first female. In 2005, she won the La Grande Odyssey French Sled Dog Invitational. Jessie earned Iditarod Rookie of the Year honors in 2001 finishing in 14th place. For 4-years, 2007 to 2011, she was the highest placing female in Iditarod. Kuling, Royer’s leader received the Golden Harness award in 2009. Kuling has quite a history finishing 9 Iditarod runs with her final run being at the age of 12. A special place on the living room couch awaited Kuling who retired after that race. What a dog!

Ken Anderson came in just before 22:00 last evening. He cared for his dogs very efficiently. They were napping on straw within five minutes of arriving. Ken mixed up dinner using water heated in the high volume wood fired Iditarod cooker. After feeding, Anderson set to massaging wrists and lubricating feet. With eleven pairs of front paws and wrists wrapped in neoprene, Anderson put coats on the dogs and let them rest and recharge their batteries for almost four hours. From the coats, or are they life-jackets, you can tell Ken is Sponsored in part by the US Coast Guard.

Lance Mackey parked his dogs in UNK just a few minutes before Anderson. He was immediately swarmed by the media and the folks doing his documentary. The best interview for all to hear was lead by Brent Sass’ father. Lots of questions and Lance was very talkative with his usual sense of humor. He was happy with the performance of his team as well as being only a few hours behind the leaders rather than more than a day like last year. One woman stated she’d really like a ride. Lance quipped, “Mam, how about I’ll give you the whole team and you can drive them to Nome. I’ll go to Hawaii right from here.” Lance and Ken Anderson made the run to Shaktoolik together.