"THANK YOU! See you in Nome!"

Dallas Seavey pulled the hook at 7:53am in White Mountain and his team of 10 Alaskan Huskies trotted back out onto the Iditarod Trail, they have just 77 miles until they reach the finish line. Seavey has a three hour lead over current second place team of Matt Hall. Should Dallas maintain his lead he will achieve an historic sixth victory in the Last Great Race.

While it may seem like this is a runaway win for Dallas Seavey, the veteran musher knows not to celebrate just yet. Just ten years ago Dallas was third out of White Mountain following well behind the leader Jeff King who was nearly three hours ahead of Seavey. Aliy Zirkle was chosen to play spoiler having left White Mountain an hour behind King. As the trackers made their way through the Topkok Hills it looked like everything was going to stay as it was. No one was gaining, and King wasn't faltering...

...until he did. Halfway from the hills to the checkpoint of Safety King's tracker stalled. And stayed stalled. Reports came in of hurricane force winds in the Blowhole. Joe Runyan blogged that anyone out there was risking their life. A midnight, Jeff King hit his SOS button ending his race. He was blown off trail with no way to continue. Aliy Zirkle in the meantime was totally unaware of Jeff's misfortune and made it to the checkpoint of Safety completely rattled by the storm. She was advised to stay and wait until the winds died down. She had a two hour lead on Dallas and it seemed the right idea.

Then Dallas came into Safety and quickly signed out - he didn't want to be in the wind anymore than he had to be, and with no real barrier from the wind for the dogs it was better to keep moving in his opinion than sit there and wait it out. He was unaware Aliy was still there. Unaware that Jeff was not in Nome. 

Dallas won his second Iditarod that night in crazy dramatic fashion.

A similar storm hit in 2022, Dallas didn't win that year, but he came awfully close to it. We can sit and rehash the fairness of Brent Sass getting a message on his InReach device telling him to get moving as Dallas was still moving while Sass hunkered down to wait out the storm, but it's done and over with. Sass managed to hold Dallas off, but again Dallas proved that while one team is stuck in the final leg another can make progress. If anyone knows that the race ain't over in White Mountain, it's Seavey.

Faster finishes from White Mountain to Nome take 10 hours, sometimes they can take 11 to 12 hours. If Dallas manages to stay first and doesn't get stalled in the Topkok Hills or The Blowhole outside of Safety, look for a finish around 5:30pm AKST tonight.

John Beargrease 40th run canceled due to lack of snow

As the Midwest continues to experience a historically whacky winter of no snow nor freezing temperatures, the mushing community has anxiously watched their season disappear. Most teams were still training teams with ATVs instead of the traditional sleds over the Christmas holiday. Races preparing for late January and Early February starts made statements warning that decisions would be announced after the new year.

Gunflint was first to announce a postponement of their race. With a race date of January 6, they had to announce a change of date as soon as possible. December 23 they announced that they would postpone the race until February 10, saying they took into account dates of other races so as not to take from anyone. Race officials say they need at least two feet of snow and frozen lakes to be able to pull off a race and will be watching weather reports obsessively.

Then today, January 2, the news broke with the release of the statement by the John Beargrease board that there would be no Beargrease in 2024. They could not find a future date that would not interfere with other races and so they've chosen to postpone the 40th running for a year citing the new date as January 26, 2025.

"For Immediate Press Release:

RE: John Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon 2024 Race

January 2, 2024

After months of waiting for the weather to cooperate, the Board of Directors for the John Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon has made the decision to postpone the 40th running to January 26, 2025. This was not an easy decision. But, with concerns over the weather, safety of the dogs, mushers and volunteers it was the only decision that we felt comfortable with.

There have been many discussions about postponing to a later date this winter but the weather is unpredictable. Likewise, in the effort to find a postponement date and in the spirit of sportsmanship, there was not another date that didn’t impede on another established race.

The Beargrease will continue to have several fundraising events so stay tuned to our socials and website for how you can continue to support this amazing race that we all love so much."

Mushers in the region had already made alternate plans seeing the writing on the wall that their winter season was in jeopardy. Ryan Redington and Wade Marrs posted over the weekend that they were on the road with a full dog truck headed for Knik Alaska to run the Knik 200. Redington also announced he was on the roster for the Kusko 300 - replacing Brent Sass who has chosen to focus on training for bigger races this season. Any team from the Midwest facing no snow for the season who plan to run the Iditarod will no doubt have to make similar decisions to head north earlier than originally planned - with no Beargrease to run in January those moves could happen at any time.

With no winter weather in the forecast for the foreseeable future, races are now asking everyone to "think snow!"

It's an Upside Down World

Bradley Farquhar's lead dogs at the Ceremonial Start
of the 46th annual Iditarod Sled Dog Race.
March 3, 2018 Anchorage, Alaska

2018 will definitely go into the record books as one of the more exciting Iditarod races. Equally as exciting is the new found interest in the Norwegian long distance sled dog race the Finnmarkslopet. As standings currently sit, a Norwegian is set to take the top prize in the Iditarod and an American is leading the race in Norway.

Times they may be changing.

While the race in Norway has seemingly gone off without a hitch, the Iditarod has had a tumultuous run. And we're not just talking politics. This year's Iditarod is giving long time fans all the feelings of a good ol' fashioned dog race in the 90s. We've had blizzard like conditions for most of the week. Just when teams think the worst is over another storm would blow in slowing them down once again. The Norton Sound proved to be the breaking point for Nicolas Petit's team as they were blown off course and ended up an hour and a half down the wrong trail only to find, once they backtracked, Joar Leifseth Ulsom's team in command of the race.

Joar entered the White Mountain Checkpoint at 7:52am, and so far no other team has joined him (though at 11:15am Nic is coming up on White Mountain and should be in fairly soon). He will have a substantial lead out of White Mountain (he can leave the checkpoint at 3:52pm). It's 77 miles to Nome from there. At the average speed he's going it may be a long night of mushing. Danny Seavey has him in at 1:30 or 2:00am. I'm going more conservative and saying closer to 4am. Until he starts running we won't really know what to expect.

Should Joar win he will be only the second Norwegian to win the Iditarod. Robert Sorlie is out on the trail via snow machine and cheered on his friend from the sidelines as he came into Koyuk yesterday. Sorlie won the race in 2003 and 2005.

And while all that unfolds, Dallas Seavey is showing that he's not just a force to be reckoned with on the Iditarod, the rookie in the Finnmarkslopet is so far commanding the race in Norway. Not that he wasn't expected to do well, but even he came out and said in the days leading up to the race that he had no idea what to expect but that "it's still dogs, and mushing, right?" And you'd be hard pressed to find an argument to suggest Dallas isn't one of the best (if not the best) mushers in the world right now. Yes I said it, please don't tell him I said it though!

When Dallas does get to the next checkpoint he will rest and then prepare to turn around and head back. Unlike the Iditarod and Quest where they start in one place and end in another, the Finnemarkslopet follows a loop. They will not take the exact same course, but some of the trail will be very familiar to the teams. This is not a foreign concept on a sled dog race. The Junior Iditarod runs similarly to this style, as do many of the mid-distance races in Alaska (for example the Tustumena 200 is also a loop, and this year was two shorter loops). This does not have the same effect on a team as does a course correction resulting in backtracking. There the dogs can sense that the musher "made a mistake" and they begin to second guess the musher.


So while the world of dog mushing seems to be on its head both in who's winning what and just the state of mushing politics in Alaska, one thing remains constant: the dogs. It doesn't matter where they are, or what the trails are like, it's just dogs and it's just mushing, and you can do that from anywhere.