How can the first team to cross the finish line be the winner if teams depart from the start at 2 minute intervals?  Teams are required to take a long rest.  For the JR Iditarod it’s 10 hours and for Iditarod it’s 24 hours.  A time adjustment is added to their departure after the long rest.  To get the idea of how this works, let’s use the JR Iditarod with eight mushers.  The last musher to leave the start will not have any extra minutes to serve after the long rest.  The first musher to leave the start will have fourteen minutes added.  The rest of the mushers will serve two minutes for each position the are from the final musher.  Make a chart of the JR Iditarod mushers to see how the differential works.  Here are the mushers and a hypothetical starting order – Anna Stephan, Sierra Bobby, Grace Hill, Bjorn Keller, Anna Coke, Ida Kohnert, joanna Badalich and Cassidy Meyer.

Answer to How Many Booties

There are 17 checkpoints on the 2021 Gold Trail Loop.  That means 17 checkpoints multiplied by 14 dogs with 4 feet each would equal 952 booties.  To meet the requirements of Rule 16, eight booties multiplied by 14 dogs would be 112.  Accounting for overflow and losing booties along the trail, Sanka thinks it would be wise to pack an extra 112 booties to put in the sled when leaving each checkpoint.  The answer to this question isn’t exact as there’s much room for interpretation but somewhere around 3,200 would be adequate.