After twelve days of dutifully following the Iditarod to its conclusion, I am in withdrawal, headed toward the depths of depression. Thanks to the Internet and especially to Iditarod Insider, it is possible to follow the entire 998-mile race in real time. You can’t beat waking up at 2:30 am and being able to check the status of your favorite musher, even if he/she is camping out in the wilderness, bedding down the team in thirty below zero weather.
This year’s winner, Ryan Redington, was a very popular one. His grandfather, Joe Redington, Sr., is given credit for initiating the Iditarod tradition, in an effort to keep the heritage of sled dogs alive. He competed in nineteen Iditarod races, actually finishing in thirty-sixth place in 1997, at the age of eighty. His sons, Joey, Jr. and Raymie, and grandsons, Robert, Ray, and Ryan also carried on the family tradition by competing successfully in the race. Ryan is the first to win, and to bring the Joe Redington Sr. Trophy back home.
Ryan is also a favorite because of his Native American heritage; his mother, Barbara, is descended from Inupiat Eskimos. As the race progressed through the indigenous villages in the Alaska Interior, he was cheered loudly by the natives; this was also true for runner-up Peter Kaiser (part Yup’ik) and third place finisher Richie Diehl (Dena’ina Athabascan). For the first time, mushers with Native American blood finished one-two-three in the Iditarod.
Unlike most of the other mushers, Ryan chose to spend the Fall and early Winter training his team in in Brule, Wisconsin, a small town east of Duluth at the west end of Lake Superior. Apparently this site has the perfect combination of sufficient snow during the training season and superior economics to Alaska, where the cost of dog food and straw has sky-rocketed. He did spend the summer at Girdwood, Alaska, about 35 miles southeast of Anchorage where his brother Robert operates Girdwood Mushing, a successful tourist kennel.
Ryan changed his overall strategy for the race this year. In previous years he was known for fast starts and then fading toward the end of his run. This time he consciously lengthened the rest time for his team by about an hour, regardless of their apparent condition. He elected to take his rest times at checkpoints, rather than camping out along the Trail, the way most of his close competitors do. This appears to have paid off, as his team was still strong enough to fight off a serious challenge by Kaiser in the last run into Nome.
Because the mushers begin the race with a staggered (every two minutes) start, it is difficult to know who is actually in the lead at any specific time, until the handicap is resolved when they take their mandatory twenty-four hour rest stop. Ryan was first into Skwentna (MP 83) primarily because of his early start. By Finger Lake (MP 123) Jessie Holmes had opened up an impressive lead. Redington barely beat Hunter Keefe into Rainy Pass (MP 153). Nik Petit then took over, negotiating the Dalzelle Gorge and arriving first into Rohn (MP 188). He maintained it for the long run into Nikolai (MP 263) before relinquishing it to Redington at McGrath (MP 311).
Redington beat Holmes into Takotna (MP 329), a favored spot for “twenty-fours”, because of its heated bunkhouse and world-famous pies. Here Holmes took over by not stopping, but drove on to Ophir (MP 352) for his rest. With everyone else resting behind him, Wade Marrs elected to make the long run to Iditarod (MP 432) and take his twenty-four there. While he rested, the pack caught up with him. 2022 champion Brent Sass took the lead at Shageluk (MP 487), and held it into Anvik (MP 512), on the Yukon River. All this time Redington had kept pace in fourth or fifth place. He was second into Eagle Island (MP 592), where he learned that he was the new leader; Sass had scratched because of personal health problems. Ryan maintained a slender leader over Kaiser and Richie Diehl as he pulled into Kaltag (MP 652) where the Trail leaves the Yukon and heads overland to the Bering Sea Coast.
From this point on it was a three-team race. He negotiated the Blueberry Hills between Kaltag and Unalakleet (MP 737) and arrived on the coast with a lead of thirty-five minutes over Kaiser. He lost five minutes on the run to Shaktoolik (MP 777), where the three teams rested before tackling the sea ice on Norton Sound en route to Koyuk (MP 827). He, Kaiser, and Diehl had fast runs across the Sound and all stopped for a proper rest in Koyuk.
At this point Redington made a “gutsy” decision, to make the ninety-four mile run to White Mountain (MP 921) without a normal rest stop. Instead he stopped briefly every two hours to snack and hydrate his team, then went back on the Trail. In contrast Kaiser stopped halfway, and rested his dogs for four hours. Although Ryan’s average speed while running was significantly less than Kaiser’s, his overall time into White Mountain permitted him to open his lead to thirty miles, and ultimately ensured his final victory. White Mountain to Nome is seventy-seven miles; when Redington crossed the finish line, Kaiser was one hour and twenty-four minutes (about ten miles) behind him. Not much of a lead in a race 998 miles long!
Ryan’s time of eight days, twenty-one hours, and thirteen minutes was within two hours of the all-time record for the southern Iditarod route. It was also three days and five hours ahead of the last finisher, Jason Mackey. Jason is the brother of four-time Iditarod champion Lance Mackey, who died last year; he spread Lance’s ashes along the trail.
“The Last Great Race” is a wonderful, unique event, a welcome respite from the dreary late winter here in western Pennsylvania.