Sass is on the Yukon

Brent Sass pulled into Ruby, the first stop on the Yukon River, at 5:57 this morning. Brent did not stay long. The Wild and Free team took off down the river just five minutes later and has picked up speed as they are now on Alaska's "super highway". At this point only one other team has made it into the checkpoint of Ruby, but no one has truly given chase to the musher from Eureka.

At this point it looks like Brent Sass has a solid win on his hands, they've gotten through the hard part of the trail and now are on what is typically the best groomed section of the entire race. That being said, there's still another third of the race to go after the River, and we've seen teams have issues after dominating early.

Behind Sass are Hugh Neff, the only other team currently in Ruby, Dallas Seavey, who reported in Cripple that his dogs weren't eating like he'd like, Jessie Holmes who made his move to get into the chase pack yesterday, and Richie Diehl the only musher from the Alaskan coast in the mix. Each team has their own strategy, and it will really start to play out today. The race is on. Many of those that were confident they could catch the leader a day or two ago are now less confident. Sass says he's playing it conservative, and he's running like he's trained all season. 

Expect the lead teams to pick up speed today as they hit the fast trails along the Yukon. At some point they will all have to decide where they will take their mandatory 8 hour rest.   

Ryne Olson second musher to scratch

Ryne Olson chose to scratch just after 5pm Alaska Time today in the best interest of her team. The Ryno Kennel team was seemingly having some trouble when fans noticed that the musher was down to 9 dogs, having flown 5 back to Anchorage, and not even halfway through the race. While teams are only required to finish with five dogs in harness, you don't typically see teams return so many dogs this early in the race.

Ryne's social media team posted on her page after the press release stating in part: "We’ll leave the details up to Ryne for later on. But over all, for the health of the dogs and the musher herself, it’s the best decision for the team. Making these tough decisions and top notch dog care is what mushing and racing is all about. And if we’re not having fun, it’s time to rest up and try again another time."

Ryne has run the Iditarod three times (this being the fourth), with her best placement coming last year when she finished in 18th place. This is Ryne's first scratch in Iditarod.

Anja Radano scratches in Nikolai

Overnight the Iditarod reported that Anja Radano of Swamp Dawg Kennel chose to scratch in the checkpoint of Nikolai. The press release stated that she made the decision in the best interest of her dogs. Fans had been concerned much of Wednesday when they watched her tracker leave Nikolai only to return, with some faithful tracker followers noting that her tracker posted speeds closer to snowmachine than dog team on the return back.

This morning the folks running her kennel page while she is away confirmed she has scratched but said they would not comment further on the scratch or make  more posts on her behalf - that they would let her choose when to tell her trail stories when she returns in the next day or two.

Trail continues to be impacted by heavy, wet snowfall near McGrath as teams are in the midst of taking their 24s.

Radano had 12 dogs on the line when she scratched and is the first team to end their race early in this year's Iditarod.

Brent Sass first to Cripple, again.

 As in 2021, Brent Sass is first to the halfway mark of the Iditarod. The musher received 3000 dollars worth of gold nuggets as his prize. Brent should take his 24 in Cripple after what one can only imagine was much of a slogfest of snow and not well packed trail in the heat of the day. His dogs will no doubt need at least a little break before continuing on, and the musher has yet to declare and take his 24hour+differential rest in the race.

Dallas Seavey is running about 20 miles behind Brent, picking up a little bit of time off the front runner who most likely had to break trail. Behind Seavey are Hugh Neff (9miles behind Dallas), Mitch Seavey (3 miles behind Hugh), and Ryan Redington (4 miles behind Mitch). All of the teams on their way to Cripple have yet to take their 24.

Meanwhile back in McGrath Aaron Burmeister is counting down to when he can take off after taking his mandatory 24+. He should be out of the checkpoint sometime after 5:40pm Alaska Time (I didn't do the math to get exact time). The conditions in McGrath are wet, heavy snow and a lot of it. Teams behind those in McGrath are having slow yucky go of it. 

Still no scratches in this year's Iditarod which is a huge feat and I'm not even sure this has happened before. 

Hope everyone's enjoyed a much more relaxing day today. Tomorrow will run about the same as we wait for Burmeister to slingshot past those who are up ahead miles wise now but don't have their 24s completed.

The race will truly start from there.

Brent Sass on the trail to Cripple

As teams begin taking their 24 hour plus differential rests, the leader and the chase pack continued up the trail Tuesday night into Wednesday morning. Brent Sass is currently running to Cripple - the half way point of the Iditarod in the Northern Route years - where as Redington, Neff, and Seavey Squared are all camped out further back and just outside of Ophir. With snow hitting the trail and the storm on the way it could be teams are trying to get out ahead of it before breaking trail slows them down. It could also be their strategy set weeks ago.

It's a good bet that these teams will twenty four in Cripple before hitting the Yukon River where they will have to choose a checkpoint to take their first of two mandatory eight hours. For the next day and a half fans need to get in their own mandatory rest. As teams stop along the trail to take their 24s there won't be much to follow, and so catching up on sleep, work, chores, etc should be the priority for those sitting at home.

Sass reported to the Insider earlier that he was surprised and "a little scared" of how fast his team is going, but he says he is taking the same amount of rest at this point as he did in both 2020 and 2019 so he feels his team is just very strong and fast this year. 

As I get ready to post this very short update - it looks like Dallas Seavey has popped the snow hook and started his run to Cripple now. He was camped near his dad Mitch, and will pass by where Neff and Redington are camped shortly. The race to the 24s is on.

Mushing Radio - Iditarod 50: Into McGrath

Burmeister looks to be first to McGrath

With just twenty miles to go, it looks like Aaron Burmeister is set to be the first into McGrath. With that will come the "First to McGrath award", according to Iditarod this year's prize consists of "a pair of musher mittens made of beaver fur and moose hide handmade by Loretta Maillelle of McGrath as well as a musher hat made from beaver fur and beaded velvet made by Lucy Miller of McGrath.  Alaska Air Transit will also be providing hand-made awards in Nikolai." This is the first of the "special awards" given out on the trail. 

Aaron Burmeister has had a solid, strong race to this point having kept right with Seavey and Sass as well as Redington. He narrowly missed beating Dallas Seavey for the top prize in last year's Iditarod and he is hungry to bring home the championship to Nome, his hometown. If he can continue as he is, he'll be right in the mix for first to the finish line.

Behind Burmeister are Richie Diehl, Ryan Redington, and Dallas Seavey. Brent Sass is camped out on the trail. Mille Porsild looks to getting nearing to passing where he's stopped.

The Insider live feed went down I assume they are getting ready to move up the trail, and hopefully they'll have the McGrath feed up soon.