Anna didn’t wast any time wrapping up her 24 in Kaltag-1 early Sunday. Accounting for the time change, she hit the trail at 4:46am, only 2 minutes past her official release time adjusted for the starting differential. She resumed her journey with all 13 of her remaining canine athletes. She did manage to send off a text after she had been on the trail for a bit, and I was thrilled when she reported that conditions were no longer as bad as prior mushers had led her to expect, or fear.
Anna ran 42 miles out of Kaltag-1, headed south on the Yukon, completely counter to any of her previous Iditarods, and camped with the pups trailside. She did the same length run again and camped once more. Then she made a short dash to Eagle Island-1, arriving at 6:18pm Sunday, stayed just 9 minutes to resupply, and was on the trail again.
With 56 miles from EI-1 to Grayling-1, Anna traveled with the dogs over 18 of the miles before stopping to camp again. That left a nice 42 mile run into G-1 where Anna elected to stay with the dogs in checkpoint. Anna got to Grayling-1, race mile 582 and the designated halfway point in this year’s race, at 8:30am Monday morning.
After 14 hours out on that last section of trail, Anna stayed in G-1 for 5 hours 20 minutes. Long enough to bed down the dogs, make them a warm hearty meal, spend some time caring for each dog, and get a little food and nap herself. Kristy communicated more with Anna, and she said that Anna was considering returning Twister before she pulled her snowhook again. Apparently Twister was showing signs of a sore shoulder that wouldn’t loosen up, and Anna was likely to send her back home vs pushing on and risking an injury, especially in such a young dog.
Anna did leave G-1 with 12 dogs in front of her sled, so Twister is in fact headed back to Anchorage. Kristy hopes to be able to pick him up Tuesday (as well as a couple of dogs from two other teams… Kristy is helping out a couple fellow mushers with returned dog pick up).
Anna also told Kristy that while the weather wasn’t too terrible, the trail wasn't exactly stellar, alternating between sugar snow and a hard crust. But still not as bad as she expected.
After 7 full days on the trail, Anna and her dogs are finally halfway Nome. Anna hit the trail out of Grayling-1 around 1:45pm Monday in 16th place. GPS has her racing at mile 596 just after 4pm Monday and closing in on Anvik. She’ll likely only make a brief stop here to resupply before heading on to Shageluk (race mile 631) before she and the dogs rest again.
Several mushers have checked off their 8 hour rest required on the Yukon (specifically on the south/north loop between Kaltag-1 and Kaltag-2 this year). Depending on how she and the dogs are feeling, Anna may take her 8 hour in Shageluk. If she doesn’t, expect her to take her 8 in Eagle Island-2 as she travels back north to Kaltag-2.
And this loop does make for interesting GPS map viewing. We now have all sorts of new colors and mushers passing one another head on. Fortunately dogs and mushers are well acquainted with this, and etiquette dictates who pulls aside if the trail isn’t wide enough for teams to pass side by side.
As for the rest of our field, Jessie Holmes is in the lead with his 13-dog team at mile 748. He has completed his 24 but not his 8 on the Yukon. Matt Hall and Paige Drobny are at miles 725 and 722, respectively, but they both have completed their 8s. They may well pull ahead of Jessie when he makes his longer stop. Rounding out the top 5 teams are Mitch Seavey at mile 715 and Michelle Phillips at mile 699. They’re all running either 11 or 13-dog teams.
Our current Red Lantern (or musher in last place) is rookie Quince Mountain. He is reported out of Kaltag-1 and GPS has him at mile 499. This gives our field a current spread, 7 days into this 1,128 mile race, of 249 miles.
We did have one additional musher scratch from the race. Veteran Gabe Dunham, from Willow, Alaska, scratched in Eagle Island-1 on Saturday night, March 8th. This leaves 27 of our original 33 mushers still racing to Nome.
Two other items to note and I’ll wrap up this post. First, when Anna was on the trail between Kaltag-1 and Eagle Island-1, a snowmobiler stopped to chat while she was camping. This thoughtful gentleman warned her that there had been a grizzly bear sighting near Eagle Island. Fortunately Anna is well past this area and didn’t see any sign of the newly woken bear. Nor have any other mushers as far as we know. This is the very first time I can recall ever hearing of a bear with respect to the Iditarod. Normally they’re still well into hibernation (or torpor, really - research the difference if you’re not familiar, it’s interesting). Testimony to Alaska’s extremely mild winter, I guess.
Second, here are pictures from over the weekend that Kristy took of our previously returned 3 dogs. Ruckus, Maverick, and Elmer are all doing great and relaxing back at Seeing Double’s kennel. Kristy took one small team of dogs for a run and all 3 were barking up a storm hoping to go along. I’ll ask Kristy to get us a picture of Twister, too, when he’s home.
Anna ran 42 miles out of Kaltag-1, headed south on the Yukon, completely counter to any of her previous Iditarods, and camped with the pups trailside. She did the same length run again and camped once more. Then she made a short dash to Eagle Island-1, arriving at 6:18pm Sunday, stayed just 9 minutes to resupply, and was on the trail again.
With 56 miles from EI-1 to Grayling-1, Anna traveled with the dogs over 18 of the miles before stopping to camp again. That left a nice 42 mile run into G-1 where Anna elected to stay with the dogs in checkpoint. Anna got to Grayling-1, race mile 582 and the designated halfway point in this year’s race, at 8:30am Monday morning.
After 14 hours out on that last section of trail, Anna stayed in G-1 for 5 hours 20 minutes. Long enough to bed down the dogs, make them a warm hearty meal, spend some time caring for each dog, and get a little food and nap herself. Kristy communicated more with Anna, and she said that Anna was considering returning Twister before she pulled her snowhook again. Apparently Twister was showing signs of a sore shoulder that wouldn’t loosen up, and Anna was likely to send her back home vs pushing on and risking an injury, especially in such a young dog.
Anna did leave G-1 with 12 dogs in front of her sled, so Twister is in fact headed back to Anchorage. Kristy hopes to be able to pick him up Tuesday (as well as a couple of dogs from two other teams… Kristy is helping out a couple fellow mushers with returned dog pick up).
Anna also told Kristy that while the weather wasn’t too terrible, the trail wasn't exactly stellar, alternating between sugar snow and a hard crust. But still not as bad as she expected.
After 7 full days on the trail, Anna and her dogs are finally halfway Nome. Anna hit the trail out of Grayling-1 around 1:45pm Monday in 16th place. GPS has her racing at mile 596 just after 4pm Monday and closing in on Anvik. She’ll likely only make a brief stop here to resupply before heading on to Shageluk (race mile 631) before she and the dogs rest again.
Several mushers have checked off their 8 hour rest required on the Yukon (specifically on the south/north loop between Kaltag-1 and Kaltag-2 this year). Depending on how she and the dogs are feeling, Anna may take her 8 hour in Shageluk. If she doesn’t, expect her to take her 8 in Eagle Island-2 as she travels back north to Kaltag-2.
And this loop does make for interesting GPS map viewing. We now have all sorts of new colors and mushers passing one another head on. Fortunately dogs and mushers are well acquainted with this, and etiquette dictates who pulls aside if the trail isn’t wide enough for teams to pass side by side.
As for the rest of our field, Jessie Holmes is in the lead with his 13-dog team at mile 748. He has completed his 24 but not his 8 on the Yukon. Matt Hall and Paige Drobny are at miles 725 and 722, respectively, but they both have completed their 8s. They may well pull ahead of Jessie when he makes his longer stop. Rounding out the top 5 teams are Mitch Seavey at mile 715 and Michelle Phillips at mile 699. They’re all running either 11 or 13-dog teams.
Our current Red Lantern (or musher in last place) is rookie Quince Mountain. He is reported out of Kaltag-1 and GPS has him at mile 499. This gives our field a current spread, 7 days into this 1,128 mile race, of 249 miles.
We did have one additional musher scratch from the race. Veteran Gabe Dunham, from Willow, Alaska, scratched in Eagle Island-1 on Saturday night, March 8th. This leaves 27 of our original 33 mushers still racing to Nome.
Two other items to note and I’ll wrap up this post. First, when Anna was on the trail between Kaltag-1 and Eagle Island-1, a snowmobiler stopped to chat while she was camping. This thoughtful gentleman warned her that there had been a grizzly bear sighting near Eagle Island. Fortunately Anna is well past this area and didn’t see any sign of the newly woken bear. Nor have any other mushers as far as we know. This is the very first time I can recall ever hearing of a bear with respect to the Iditarod. Normally they’re still well into hibernation (or torpor, really - research the difference if you’re not familiar, it’s interesting). Testimony to Alaska’s extremely mild winter, I guess.
Second, here are pictures from over the weekend that Kristy took of our previously returned 3 dogs. Ruckus, Maverick, and Elmer are all doing great and relaxing back at Seeing Double’s kennel. Kristy took one small team of dogs for a run and all 3 were barking up a storm hoping to go along. I’ll ask Kristy to get us a picture of Twister, too, when he’s home.
 Ruckus |  Maverick |  Elmer |
Screen shot from Iditarod Insider GPS. Green and darker orange are outbound, dark blue and light orange are headed back to Kaltag-2.
