Holmes, Drobny, and Hall on their way to Grayling

We are about to hit the unofficial halfway point of Iditarod 53. The lead pack have fully entered the "loop" part of this year's trail and are closing in on the checkpoint of Grayling. Holmes and Drobny played leapfrog several times throughout Saturday but are now firmly planted in first and second respectively. 

Paige Drobny had a strong run Friday night into Saturday morning and chose to rest for over five hours in Eagle Island before leaving Saturday afternoon for Grayling. Holmes, who was first into Eagle Island, chose to spend just minutes in the checkpoint gathering supplies before heading back out on the trail. The musher drove his team for another two and a half hours or so before camping on the trail for most of Saturday afternoon, pulling the snowhook around a similar time as Drobny left Eagle Island.

Matt Hall is in a lone chase pack of sorts as he sat in Eagle Island for another hour and change before following Paige out of the checkpoint. Currently Holmes is 16 miles to Grayling and holding a 9 mile (or one hour-ish) lead over Drobny who has a thirteen mile lead over Hall (one and a half ish hours). Michelle Phillips just left Eagle Island and is about 11 miles behind Hall.

The next chase pack is currently led by Ryan Redington, who rounded out the top five into Eagle Island Saturday. Mitch Seavey and Mille Porsild came in nearly together with the elder musher coming in just ahead of one of Iditarod's leading ladies. More recently Travis Beals, Nicolas Petit, and Riley Dyche rounded out Eagle Island's top ten. More teams are on their way so the volunteers of Iditarod's most remote checkpoint are about to get very busy (but I hear beef stroganoff is on tonight's menu).

The trail report coming from those who made it to Eagle Island were harrowing. Sean Underwood of Iditarod Insider reported that Ryan Redington said that this was the hardest Iditarod he's ever run. Bruce Lee of Iditarod Insider reported that Paige Drobny told him Saturday morning that the run from Kaltag to Eagle Island was in the top ten worst trails she's ever run. 

Trail reports are that of overflow as well as a trail that has set up extremely hard where the trailbreakers went through. That's normally a good thing, but the trail breakers drove over the overflow when it was... well... overflow. That trail has now hardened and there are post holes and ski ruts that are essentially throwing sleds all over the place. Mushers told war stories to each other of being thrown all over the trail, dumping sleds, and coming up battered and bruised.

The back of the pack are making their way to Nulato having taken their 24s. Red Lantern Quince Mountain passed many of them in the wee hours of Saturday and found himself in Nulato around 2:20pm, Mountain has taken many long rests whenever he stops so it's anyone's guess if he's planning to push further into the race before 24ing or if Nulato will be home for him until Sunday afternoon. Mileage wise Mountain is no longer the Red Lantern (for the next hour or so anyway), however he is the last of the back of the pack to take his 24 so hours wise he's still mathmatically the Red Lantern.

No more scratches have been reported after the wave of them yesterday, however KTUU reported the preliminary necropsy results gave no answer as to why Dan Kleins dog Ventana passed away. They did report that the initial exam post mortem revealed the dog was pregnant but there was no information as to how far along into the pregnancy the dog was or if it was known that she was pregnant. A full necropsy takes time, last year final results were not given for the three expired dogs until fall.

Reminder: Most of the US SPRINGS FORWARD an hour Sunday morning, so keep that in mind when you see in and out times and calculate rests. Alaska participates in Daylight Saving Time.