50th Iditarod

You may not know it, but I am a HUGE dog-mushing enthusiast. I firmly blame Kathleen Anderson at Wintermoon Summersun, who introduced me to it several years ago at a mother-daughter mushing weekend. At that time, we also met Cindy Gallea, who had run the Iditarod 12 times. And thus, I also became hooked on the Iditarod.

(I had not actually seen a dog race until we went to the Klondike Dog Derby in Excelsior this year. It was every bit as amazing as I had hoped, and I even got to fangirl over Blair Braverman and Pepe.)

In any case, a few years ago I started following the Iditarod more closely. At that time, there were still old school forums on their site. At the beginning of the pandemic, I remember a person on the forum live-streaming the Nome finishes from their hotel room window, and I will never forget the thrill of hearing the horns and seeing the racers come through the burled arch in. It's as close as I may ever come to seeing it live (though it's a bucket list item for sure).

And then I started to "know" people online on Twitter in that world (Alex Stein and Toni Chellak, I'm especially looking at you!), and started to learn more and more about the race. I learned about #uglydogs and #Igivearod and all kinds of exciting things.

Last year, with covid, it was a shorter route, but this is the 50th year for the race and it's lived up to the hype. Unfortunately, our original inspiration Cindy withdrew before the race, though she did take 3rd in Montana's Race to the Sky in February. But Minnesotan-turned-Alaskan Brent Sass won earlier this week in a hard fought victory, and it was so exciting! He almost didn't; the wind and ground conditions in the final section were terrible (here's his account). And the weather continues to be a huge factor, with  several mushers still stuck in White Mountain (about 69 miles from Nome) until the weather gets better and the "ground blizzards" taper off. There have also been several dramatic and tragic scratches, including due to injury (a scratch is when a musher withdraws  during the race, for a variety of reasons). This video, from the Berington twins, shows what that almost-final stretch was like during "passable" conditions.

I'm feeling vey emotional about the Iditarod this year, because I also know that many people I have followed over the years have said this would likely be their last Iditarod. As I hope I have indicated, it's a really hard race, but a very special kind of situation. This year in particular there have been so many stories of mushers helping others — Mitch Seavey giving Mille Porslid his extra sled when the runner on hers broke, Paige Drobney running with rookie Hanna Lyrek in a sea ice section because Hanna was worried about the open water of the sea beyond the ice, and 4-time winner Jeff King running Nic Petit's dogs when Nic got covid right as the race began. As you can probably tell, I'm feeling pretty emotional about it right now!

The "Last Great Race" for sure!