Aaron Burmeister passed Dallas Seavey from where he was camping on the trail around 1:45pm today. Seavey did not give chase as some speculated he would, and allowed Brent Sass and Ryan Redington to pass by before he, too, pulled the snowhook. It's now 3:35 and it looks as those Seavey has already passed Ryan Redington.
With his rest on the trail Seavey still has the advantage over Sass and Burmeister - and it's assumed the both of them will rest in Rohn. Dallas should slingshot out ahead of them as he chose to rest closer to the checkpoint and he'll be the first to head UP the gorge.
I've gotten a few questions in the last day if this trail has ever been done in reverse in Iditarod history. As far as racing, absolutely not - this is the first time. However, race fans may remember that Jeremy Keller chose to scratch after the first breaking news of Covid shutting the world down hit last year. Keller wanted to get home to his family before everything went crazy (he had a sixth sense it, if you think about it). So he chose to run the trail with the dogs backwards instead of waiting for transport off the trail which we know can take a few days. So it's been done, and been done recently. It's not easy, but it's doable.
Dallas said in a pre-race video up on his youtube channel that he does not enjoy this part of the trail they are on now (other than Hal Hanson I haven't heard one musher say they enjoy it... rookies). It doesn't mean Dallas will struggle, but it's anyone's guess how any of this will play out. We are looking at him hitting the gorge as the day begins to cool down and the sun starts to sink lower. I would guess he SHOULD be through the "worst" of it before dark, but it doesn't matter much now because I don't expect a team to really stop when in the gorge.
Dallas is currently 2 miles behind Sass who is 7-8 miles behind Burmeister.
This is going to be a fun night.
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