Jeff King, who had been leading the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race all Monday, scratched outside of the checkpoint of Safety on Monday night amid strong winds sweeping along the trail leading up to the final checkpoint before the finish line in Nome. Meanwhile, other racers moved on to Safety and prepared for the final push to Nome, and 2012 champion Dallas Seavey had jumped out in front.
Aliy Zirkle of Two Rivers passed King on the trail late Monday, arriving in Safety a short time later. From there, it looked as though Zirkle would press on to Nome and claim the Iditarod title that has eluded her.
But then, she stopped too. Zirkle checked into Safety just before 11 p.m. Monday, and by 1:30 a.m. Tuesday, had yet to check out. The weather, it appeared, had finally caught up to The Last Great Race after a mostly-mild run through the Alaska wilderness that, while largely snow free in parts, had allowed for a record pace throughout the race.
One musher who didn't appear to be having much trouble with the weather was Dallas Seavey, who was steadily making up ground and approaching Safety at about 1 a.m. Tuesday, moving along at nearly 9 mph. Shortly before 1:30 a.m., he appeared to pass Zirkle, according to the race's GPS tracking data. Seavey arrived into Safety at 1:13 a.m. and left just three minutes later, with all seven dogs he arrived with still in harness. Seavey defeated Zirkle for the No. 1 spot in 2012, with Zirkle nabbing her first of two second-place finishes in a row. She lost the next year to Dallas's father, Mitch Seavey. Zirkle left not long after Seavey had passed through, at 1:35 p.m., meaning that officially Dallas had a nearly 20-minute lead.
Zirkle set out in pursuit with 10 dogs.
King's GPS had stopped moving a couple of hours before midnight Monday. Race observers wondered what had happened; if King had been hurt, or if perhaps his dogs had quit on him.
According to Joe Runyan at the Iditarod Insider, King may have blown off the trail by a particularly strong gust tearing off Norton Sound onto the southern coast of the Seward Peninsula. King's team was then reportedly snagged on driftwood. By the time King had untangled his dogs' lines, they'd apparently decided they had enough and King and his team "wadded up" where they were, Runyan said.
A release from the Iditarod didn't go into great detail, but said that King was having trouble "navigating"the trail:
"King indicated to Race Officials that the wind is severe in the area and he was having difficulty navigating the trail. He stayed with his team for approximately two and one half hours before asking a snowmachiner to help him by taking him to the Safety checkpoint to contact race officials. Jeff and others are moving the team to the Safety checkpoint for the night."
He scratched at 11:50 p.m. in a tragic end to what could have been a record-breaking run.
The National Weather Service was calling for lows between minus 2 and minus 7 degrees on the southern Seward Peninsula Tuesday morning, with winds between 15 and 25 mph. East of Nome -- where the Iditarod's leaders found themselves late Monday -- was expected to get the worst of it, with frigid gusts of up to 40 mph and blowing snow to obscure the trail.
Meanwhile, in Nome...
Even in Nome, the wind was making itself known. City Police Chief John Papasodora wandered into Iditarod headquarters early Tuesday, hoping to check on the race status as the city police force was set to conduct crowd control duties on Front Street as the mushers arrived. He said he'd driven about two miles outside of town earlier Monday down Beam Road, where conditions were windy and icy, with gusts up to about 30 mph.
People were streaming in and out of the race center, hoping to get an update on where the leaders were. Most were hunched around a public computer, constantly refreshing the tracker page. While the center was mostly full -- and getting fuller as the night went on -- most lamented over waiting for the mushers, worried about getting to work the next morning.
John Dean of Nome, who used to work with Zirkle's step-daughter, Bridgett, said he came down to the center once he got word Zirkle was in Safety. He hasn't missed her since he met her under the burled arch in 2011 for the first time.
"This whole town is rooting for her," he said. "But it's hard when you have to work in the morning."
Tom and Amy Jamgochian were thinking the same thing around 12:30 a.m. -- when the winner was originally expected to arrive. They were heading home to take care of their dogs and get ready for the coming workday.
Amy Jamgochian was rooting for Zirkle, but as she watched Zirkle stay settled in Safety, she was visibily disappointed.
"Shucks," she muttered.
Race Executive Director Stan Hooley didn't have much new information to report. He didn't know what exactly weather conditions were like on the ground in Safety, except that they were horrible.
"The conditions were bad enough that (Zirkle) didn't feel comfortable traveling, for whatever reason," he said.
Overall, Hooley seemed tired but alert, watching over the hustle of the convention center.
"It's exhilarating, it's exciting, it's puzzling and a whole lot of other different emotions," he said.