Dear Friends, What a day it was on the Iditarod Trail! Storms and overflow on rivers and bodies of water really have slowed down our mushers. Three mushers got in trouble with high winds and deep overflow of water near the Safety checkpoint and had to call for help: Sean Underwood, Tom Knolmayer, and Matthew …
Dear Friends, My friends and I have been watching the GPS tracker and Race Standings the past couple of days. Why aren’t all the mushers moving? It’s not required to stay another 24 hours!! Today we have some proof of what’s going on. They were being safe. Yesterday was the official first day of spring, …
Dear Friends, Many of you chose a musher to follow on the 2020 Iditarod. 23 teams have made it to Nome, but there are 15 teams who are still working their way along the coast, which can be a brutal run, depending on snow conditions and weather. There are some interesting stories located in …
Dear Friends, We have had 16 mushers reach Nome! Jeff Deeter, Kelly Maixner, Aliy Zirkle, and Tom Frode Johansen are currently racing toward the burled arch from White Mountain and Safety. As I write, five more mushers have or soon will reach White Mountain, so that’s an eight hour wait before they leave for …
Dear Friends, We have a new Iditarod champion this morning! Thomas Waerner of Norway finished in Nome after 9 days, 10 hours, 37 minutes, and 47 seconds! Congratulations to K2 and Bark, his leaders, who led him all the way! It should be an exciting day in Nome. There is a long line of close …
Dear Friends, White Mountain is a checkpoint where mushers and their teams are required to take a mandatory 8 hour rest. This gets the teams prepared for the final 77 mile push toward Nome! Teams park and the dogs rest on the frozen Fish River that runs alongside the village. A hole is chopped …
Dear Friends, If you are keeping up with the race, you will see that the front teams are now running along the Bering Sea Coast and Norton Sound. See the map below. Between Unalakleet and Nome, they are often running on frozen bodies of water, not land. Thomas Waerner of Norway is in the …
Dear Friends, Some of the mushers or “drivers” of the dog teams are driving puppy teams in the race. Rookies sometimes take puppy teams belonging to a veteran musher for their first race. This year, Tim Pappas is running Martin Buser’s A team, and veteran Martin Buser is running a team he said will be …
Dear Friends, In order to keep track of the dog teams, musher sled bags have booties pinned onto them! Inside the booties are GPS tracking devices. There are two placed on each musher’s sled. They not only record the location of each musher’s sled, but they also record the speed with which they are traveling, …
Dear Friends, Some of the mushers are now leaving Ruby, the checkpoint where they will then start running on the mighty Yukon River. The only problem with running on the huge river, which is frozen over, is that it can get boring for the dogs. Did you know dogs can get bored? On the mile-wide …
