This race blog is where the Alaska’s News Source team will post breaking updates from the trail, race standings, photos and more 24/7 until the last musher crosses the finish line.
The 2021 Iditarod began with 46 mushers leaving the starting line at Deshka Landing and traveling out to the Iditarod checkpoint before traversing back.
After being the first musher to reach Skwentna, heading south in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, veteran musher Dallas Seavey has won the Northrim Bank Achieve More Award.
The leaders raced through Rohn and will now have to go through the Dalzell Gorge overnight. The stretch notorious for wrecking sleds with it’s sharp turns, open water, and snow bridges.
Pete Kaiser the 2019 Iditarod champion has decided to scratch after resting in McGrath. Kaiser, Richie Diehl, and Joar Leifseth Ulsom bunching up and running large stretches of this race together before the news of the scratch.
While mushers care for their dogs between checkpoints, the veterinarians of the Iditarod trail make sure they stay in good health whether or not they cross the finish line.
Iditarod has zero year-round residents. For a brief few days every other year, the ghost town sees its population swell with hundreds of sled dogs and their mushers passing through.
Shortly after leaving the Rohn checkpoint past the Happy River Steps, veteran Iditarod musher Victoria Hardwick ran into a tree and the front end of her sled fell apart. Immediately the Bethel musher thought her race was over.
Veteran musher Gunnar Johnson, bib number 11, has been withdrawn from this year’s Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race after testing positive for COVID-19 at the McGrath checkpoint.
As the first musher to reach the McGrath checkpoint, veteran musher Dallas Seavey, bib number 23, has won the Alaska Air Transit Spirit of Iditarod Award.
Joe Reddington had a way of getting people to help. The skill came in handy in the early days of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. The dream was big but resources were tight.
The Iditarod continues to be unpredictable, fan-favorite Aliy Zirkle has suffered an injury on the trail that required her to be evacuated to Anchorage. Ryan Redington was the first to Rohn and Aaron Burmeister is making moves.
Veteran Iditarod Aliy Zirkle was injured outside a checkpoint Monday night and is being evacuated to Anchorage, according to the Iditarod's race marshal.
On Monday, the McGrath checkpoint was quiet aside from the few volunteers, pilots and vets helping put on the race in addition to the town’s residents.
He added most volunteers and veterinarians are staying at one checkpoint, and flights are taking twice the amount of normal material to checkpoints to limit travel.
Early in Iditarod 2021, Ryan Redington seems to have made an early move. How his team recovers from a tough early run could determine how other teams are forced to mush going forward.
While the number of mandatory rests and their duration are the same, details of each have been amended to go along with the changes to the trail itself.
It's still early in Iditarod 49 but moves are already being made, Nicolas Petit was the first to Finger Lake, Ryan Redington has since passed him checking in and out of Rainy Pass.
