Defending Champion Joar Leifseth Ulsom is pretty much in the driver seat right now. He set the stage with his nothing short of phenomenal run from Rohn to Nikolai. His actual runtime was 8hours, while resting 4hrs of the trail. That was a blistering fast run and his teams speed has not really dropped off since. In comparison: Nenana´s Aaron Burmeister took 9 hrs and 44 minutes to reach Nikolai after resting in Rohn. That is a huge difference. Joar and Nicolas are traveling neck on neck right now, but Nick will have to pull over soon, while Joar has taken a nice 4 hr break on the trail. Time will tell if he makes it into Iditarod, before the heat of the day catches up to him. Take a look at the cool, home made harnesses Joar`s team is wearing. They are a native Chukchi design. Mille Porsild, who has been working with Joar for many years has hand made them. Their padding is reindeer skin. It took a while to get the design just right. Like most ” short harnesses “, they do not give as much pulling power, but on the upside they are a bit gentler on the dog. Not as much pressure on the hind end and virtually no harness burn possible. 

8 out of 10 times, an Iditarod Champion has taken his 24 hour layover in Takotna. Aliy Zirkle took a big chance to push Iditarod. A big factor is trail conditions. Whereas trails between Nikolai, Mc Grath, Takotna have regular local traffic throughout the winter, the Trail from Ophir to Iditarod and towards Shageluk ist pretty much exclusively put in for the Iditarod. That means there is no base and chances for a soft, bottomless trail are high, specially when a team travels close to the trail breakers. 

Looking at the trail into Ophir, paints the same picture. Joar was able to shave 10 minutes of Nick`s time. Teams traveling behind that were yet another 10 minutes faster, like Jessie Royer, Richie Diehl and Pete Kaiser. The chase pack is strong and full of capable mushers. Mitch Seavey is only slightly off pace. He had to leave he prized lead dog Pilot in Rohn. 

A lot can happen on the way to Nome. Snow is deep along the Yukon River. The Coast keeps getting hammered with storm after storm, Nome got another 10 inches in the last couple of days. There is a lot of snow to blow around if the winds pick up. 

Meanwhile the logistics train keeps on moving down the trail.  Hopefully I make it into Grayling sometime today.