Well, so much for the guessing that the race schedule would be similar to a "normal" Iditarod year. The teams are running at fast paces and the front runners are already past the Happy River Steps, Dalzell Gorge and Rohn. Ryan Redington let the pack out of Rohn and currently rests near Farewell Lake. He will soon be joined by Martin Buser and Richie Diehl.
While a lot of talk happens on how hard the Steps and Gorge are on sleds, it's the Farewell Burn that can really give teams hardship. The frozen tussocks continually hammer the sled and the musher. Sore muscles (if the musher is lucky that's all it will be) and banged up sleds are the norm. Most teams are more than thankful to reach the checkpoint of Nikolai by the end of the run.
The burn is often unique in that this is most often the part of the trail with the least amount of snow (not counting Anchorage and "downtown" Nome). It's no surprise to see teams rest a while after coming out of the mountains before hitting the trail again. It could be a good mental rest for the mushers as much as it is a physical rest for the dogs. While the tussocks wreak havoc on the sleds and the mushers, the dogs manage really well on the more solid ground even with the bumps. There's no post holing so they can get good speed so long as the sled stays upright.
With the race being 100 miles shorter it looks like a lot of the top teams feel they need to maintain a fast speed early on. There's less time to catch teams that may falter so they all need to be fast but not too fast and definitely not slow. There are a lot of top names that are further down in the standings still trying to run this race like it's the typical 900-1000 mile jaunt. It's anyone's guess on this new loop which strategy will play out.
There's a snow storm on its way (is it Iditarod without one?) and it could dump quite a bit of snow on the teams in the next couple of days. The live cam at Nikolai show big heavy flakes coming down. Should make for an interesting night of mushing.
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