The trail from Nulato to Kaltag is well travelled by locals, and thus hard and fast. The 2015 Iditarod has had some of the best conditions I have seen in my 11 times up the trail, either as musher or now the iron dog. Calm conditions, yet cold. No wind until this point, no overflow, no snowdrifts. Pretty nice going for the mushers.

River running as nice as it comes, Yukon River en route to Kaltag

When leaving Nulato, somebody ran out the door behind me, “Here Sebastian, your “to go” package.” I am afraid I am known of my liking of food up and down the river.

Smoking up the trail, Dallas Seavey

Dallas Seavey had just switched his headlight on when we passed him. His team was half trotting, half loping. They most definitely are not in the long distance shuffle mode. They are moving fast. He ran into Nulato about half an hour faster than Jeff King and 18 minutes faster than Aliy Zirkle. Once again his team is speeding along at 8.2 miles an hour on this run. 

Enduring the cold, Jeff King en route to Kaltag

About 5 miles before Kaltag is where we caught Jeff King. He was not ski poling this time and looked pretty darn cold sitting on his sled. His dogs seem to be oblivious to the fact that their master was suffering back there.

Aaron Burmeister had a long run coming to Kaltag. 23 miles before Koyukuk, 18 miles to Nulato and now 36 miles into Kaltag, total of 77 Miles. Much of those were during the daytime hours. He is now taking his 8 hr layover. Jeff King ran 54 miles to here. He rested almost 6 hrs in Koyukuk. I can see him stay here about 5 hrs. That would get him out about 3 hours ahead of Aaron.  Dallas should get here about 1.30 a.m. If he stays for 4 hrs again, that would get him out about 5.:0 a.m., shortly behind Aaron Burmeister. Those 3 teams then will do a hard push into Unalakleet. 

Jeff was a good sport about my attempt so use the snow machine headlight to light the trail up enough, to get a couple of shots. Here they are: