With the arrival of Gregg Vitello in Nikolai, all but one of the mushers of Iditarod 51 have successfully traversed the Steps, the Gorge and the Burn! Jennifer LaBar scratched in Rainy Pass after injuring her hand on the first Step. Gregg is likely breathing a big sigh of relief in knowing those challenging segments …
When Nicolas Petit Arrived in Nikolai at 06:57 on Tuesday morning, he asked for a 24-hour parking spot (quiet) and then declared his 24-hour rest. With bib #9, Nic will stay in Nikolai for 24 hours and 50 minutes to serve his start differential. Fifteen more mushers arrived in Nikolai within the next 6 …
Ah, the comforts of straw and a double layered coat! It’s a perfect sled dog morning! One of the Berington twins enjoys a seal-a-meal breakfast at Finger Lake.
As the race was getting started, analysts suggested the teams would spread out quickly. Well tell that to the people manning Rohn Checkpoint. The secluded BLM cabin that mushers spill into after sledding the challenging Dalzell Gorge was nothing less than Grand Central Station beginning late Monday afternoon. First to be checked in at Rohn …
The race is all of 1 day old! We’ve got teams in Finger Lake, Rainy Pass and getting very close to Rohn. Yentna and Skwentna are back to their prerace populations who are attending to dismantling the checkpoint for another year. Up at the front of the pack, Nic Petit is leading ten other veterans …
Ryan Redington has crossed Willow Lake and climbs the bank to enjoy wooded trails ahead. Imagine what this sounds like. Brent Sass with Pink and Slater in lead along the wooded trails beyond Willow Lake. Imagine what this sounds like. We track mushers thanks to low tech dog booties and large safety pins. …
Jessie Holmes cruised into Finger Lake checkpoint at 04:02 Monday morning. Brent Sass was close behind at 04:08. Holmes parked his team. Sass spent enough time to chat with the vets, have his vet book signed and he went on down the trail a couple of miles to camp. Richie Diehl, Nicolas Petit and Mille …
Veteran Jessie Holmes, wearing bib #2 led the field of 33 mushers out on the trail for the fifty-first running of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. I almost said the fifty-first trip to Nome but there was the Gold Trail Loop of 2021 that made the trip from Deshka Landing out to Iditarod and …
A standard marathon is 26.2 miles in length. Iditarod’s Southern Route is 998 miles long. That is pretty close to the length of 39 marathons. If you’ve ever met a marathoner at the finish line, the runner is spent. Even if you give your runner something to drink, a chunk of banana and an orange …
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. In the case of Iditarod photos, a person could study a picture for a very long time and find something new the next time around. Throughout the race, photographers David Poyzer and Siri Raitto will be populating the race photo gallery. There are two places to …
