Tracker Showing All Mushers Between Ophir and Cripple Early Friday (Photo: Iditarod)

You’re a serious race fan if you check tracker before email in the morning.  What you found this morning was a rather amazing sight.  There were mushers moving again so green versus orange flags AND they were all between Ophir and Ruby.  Roughly 143 miles separates the leader from the 38th team.  That’s right 38 of 38 teams are racing.

Lauro Eklund mentioned to Insider at McGrath that the 13 rookie teams which comprise the back of the pack are staying with the middle of that pack.  At this point those rookies are running a 10-day race pace.  A great deal can happen on the Yukon River and upon leaving Unalakleet for the coastal run to Nome but this rookie group is a remarkable bunch of mushers.  Will the Nome Widow’s Lamp be extinguished by a rookie musher running a ten day race?  Time will tell.

Big Lake musher, Nicolas Petit was the first musher to reach the Yukon River village of Ruby.  As the winner of the First to the Yukon Award, French born Petit will enjoy a meal prepared by Top Chefs from Locally Grown Restaurants, which owns popular Anchorage eateries Spenard Roadhouse, Snow City Cafe, Crush Wine Bistro and South Restaurant and Coffeehouse.

Nic Petit First to the Yukon, Enjoys Meal by Top Chefs From Locally Grown Restaurants (Photo: Siri Raitto)

The menu consisted of a seared scallop appetizer with a butternut squash puree and crispy Prosciutto, arugula salad with a champagne vinaigrette, Italian sausage soup, a ribeye steak topped with gorgonzola truffle butter, paired with smashed rosemary and parmesan fingerling potatoes and a strawberry crème brûlée with white chocolate and fresh berries for dessert.  Nic thoroughly enjoyed his meal, which hje shared with Ruby resident and long-time Iditarod volunteer, Nate Titus.

Petit pushed to the Yukon River for his 24 saying he wanted to try something different.  Two mushers since 2006 have made the same move.  In 2006, Paul Gebhardt was the first to the Yukon and took his 24 there.  In 2022, Jeff King running Petit’s team (Nic was quarantined with COVID) was the 21st musher to arrive in Ruby and completed his 24 there.

How’d it turn out for those guys who pushed to Ruby?  Gebhardt finished the race in third with a time of 9 days, 15 hours and 23 minutes.  He received the Leonhard Seppala Humanitarian Award for the race.  King finished the race in 28th place with a time of 11 days, 1 hour and 58 minutes. 

Over his career, the late Paul Gebhardt has been first to the Yukon twice.  Gebhardt finished in the top ten both times.  King has been first to the Yukon seven times coming up with a championship in ’93 and top ten finishes in five of the six other years.

Nic Petit Snacks His Team In Cripple (Photo: Siri Raitto)

Nic Petit has now been the first musher to the Yukon four times – ’17, 18, 19 & 24.  In 2017 he finished in third, ’18 he was second and ’19 he scratched.  You can draw your conclusions about resting long on the Yukon compared to being first to the Yukon after resting earlier.

Ophir returned to ghost town status when Josh Robbins departed Ophir early on Friday.  While Cripple was a busy place over night, only Gabe Dunham, Jessica Klejka, Deke Naaktgeboren and Anna Berington are in the old gold town now but the final 14 are in route.

Deke Naaktgeboren is running his fourth Iditarod.  Last year he finished in 20th place with a full team of 14 dogs.  He was honored with the Leonhard Seppala Humanitarian Award.  The award included an entry fee for the 2024 race.  Deke finished his 2020 rookie run in 27th place and his 2022 run in 29th place.  His best time came with the 20th place finish – 10 days, 19 hours and 5 minutes.  Deke moved to Alaska in 2011 to mush dogs.  He is employed by the Bureau of Land Management during the summer and has winters off.  It’s a perfect situation allowing Deke to focus on training dogs during the winter months and racing.  Every dog on his Iditarod team has been born in his kennel.  He feels that knowing a dog from birth cultivates two-way trust. Deke worked at a dog kennel in Northern Sweden located 100 miles north of the Arctic Circle.  From that experience he decided he wanted be a musher and raise his own dogs.  After working in Seward for the Park Service as a Ranger, Deke took a similar job in the Florida Everglades.  After 3 years he returned to Alaska but went further north to mushing country in Fairbanks.  He purchased dogs from a musher moving to Germany He began raising dogs, training, doing qualifirsd and found his way to the Iditarod.

Mats Peterson from Sweden is in route to Cripple.  This is his eighth Iditarod.  His previous best finish, 18th place, came in 2018.  Mats ran the 2017 Fairbanks route in 9 days, 10 hours and 0 minutes for 25th place.  In 2016 he completed the northern route in 9 days 20 hours and 44 minutes.  In 2019 Mats was honored by his fellow mushers with the Sportsmanship Award for helping Linwood Fiedler secure his team near the Post Glacier.  Mats has been mushing since Y2K after visiting Jeff King’s Kennel.  He runs a Sled Dog tourism business located 180 miles north of the Arctic Circle in Kiruna, Sweden.  Mats says his passion for nature and the cooperation between humans and dogs fuels his love of mushing.  He says he very much appreciates musher friends in Alaska who welcome him into their homes, “These friendships make me come back year after year.”  Pettersson played semi-pro hockey as a goalie.

Jeff Deeter is a few miles ahead of Pettersson running to Cripple.  Deeter ran his first Iditarod in 2008 at the age of 19.  The next ten years he stepped away from the race to focus on building a home and business in Fairbanks. Jeff then competed in four consecutive Iditarod runs 2018 to 2021.  In 2022 he and his wife KattiJo were two of the 6 mushers caught in the blow hole storm and was forced to scratch.  KattiJo took the Black Spruce team in 2023 to successfully finish what she began the previous year – finishing the Iditarod, and that she did.  Jeff is back on the trail for his seventh time with a team comprised of the kennels best, most experienced race veterans along with a couple of new comers.  His best finish has was 12th in 2021 on the gold Trail Loop.  His best northern route time is 10 days 5 hours and 8 minutes.