Hello Race Fans! We have a winner in this years Iditarod! Pete Kaiser of Bethel arrived under the Burled Arch in Nome at 03:39 this morning. 🙂 Were you awake to see the finish? A few of us set an alarm and watched it live on the Insider, and Maren went down to the finish in Nome to see it in person. Well done, Pete! Also a great run by Joar as last years’ Champion, and to Jesse Royer – now the third team in to Nome!
Timing worked out pretty good for us -while we were up waiting for Pete to come in, Jeff and his team of 13 departed Elim for the run to White Mountain. This run is a 36 mile run, and the trail runs over the “hardest climb on the last half of the race”, Little McKinley at 1,000 ft. Jeff arrived in at 10:24, posting a run time of 7 hours 31 minutes.
Now that Jeff is in White Mountain he will be here for eight (8) hours as this is the last mandatory rest requirement for Iditarod. The dogs will get a thorough check by the vet team, they’ll eat a couple of times, and the Boss man will hopefully get a little sleep before making the final push to Nome.
We don’t often receive emails from schoolchildren (we prefer snail mail, and will reply as long as a SASE is included) but we received some fun ones yesterday that we’ll be sure to share with Jeff when he makes it back home. Here’s a peek at them:
While the end is in sight for Jeff and those teams around him, there are a number of mushers that are persevering further back on the trail. This year has been a tough one for many teams, and we know those that had to cut their races short had a very difficult decision to make. We applaud all of the teams that began the race, finished the race, and those that continue to push on.
There’s still more to go, so stay tuned!! 🙂