News
Wondering how race information gets back to Anchorage from Skwentna? We have a satellite phone with a computer connected. We put all the data we collect into emails. Then simply enough we send the emails. It’s fairly efficient when it works. The picture to the right was taken in a good year when the Internet …
How ironic is it that you can be right in the middle of all the Iditarod action but not know what’s happening along the trail? I’ve worked as a communications specialist at Skwentna Checkpoint for eight years and the same has been true for all eight years. The race runs through the checkpoint sitting below …
Thank you Brent Sass! Sounds strange to say thanks to a guy who wisely withdrew from the Iditarod after sustaining a head injury during the Yukon Quest. Sass and Allen Moore were on track for an exciting finish. Prior to the finial checkpoint of the 1,000-mile Yukon Quest, Sass and Moore were playing leapfrog on …
The doors opened at 5:00 and there were plenty of ardent Iditarod fans as well as volunteers, mushers and sponsors in the large windowed lobby waiting to be the first to enter. The musher banquet held at the beautiful Dena’ina Convention Center in downtown Anchorage on Thursday evening prior to the race is always a …
The thrill is not in victory but in the courage to join the race! Nowhere could this be more evident than at the Junior Iditarod banquet. These young mushers dreamed one day of running dogs. Later they dreamed of camping with their dogs. Even later these juniors dreamed of racing. They DARED to dream and …
From the Yentna Station end of the Junior Iditarod, it was clear that the race would come down to the wire and it did. Conway Seavey left the layover stop two-minutes ahead of Ben Harper, his closest competitor. IAF planes aren’t air born before daylight so there was little chance that I’d see the winners …
With ninety-four sled dogs parked at the Yentna Station Roadhouse on the big bend of the Yentna River, the bush country was not silent. Likened to a slumber party or teenage lock in for canine athletes, there was lots of barking and howling. First the dogs greeted each new team that arrived then there were …
Conway Seavey drove a smart looking team off the Yentna River into the checkpoint at 4 minutes before four o’clock this afternoon. Right on the tails of his sled runners was Jimmy Lanier arriving at 2 minutes past 4:00. Ben Harper was in at 16:10 followed by younger brother Kevin at 16:19. Do some quick …
Snow woes have caused officials to reroute the Junior Iditarod set to start Saturday morning, Feb 22nd at 10:00. Much of the traditional trail the juniors follow out to the Yentna Station Roadhouse is ice covered and slippery, not surprising being that it runs on the area’s winter roadways – frozen rivers. By relocating both …
With all the concern of where the re-start would be, it was a relief to hear the final decision and move onto things like speculating about the elite-ten. What looks good on paper and in theory doesn’t always turn out to be true when the runners hit the snow. As with anyone trying to pick …
