Alaska News

Iditarod leaders pausing to rest

GALENA -- As four-time Iditarod champ Jeff King from Denali Park settled into a 24-hour rest here Thursday, two-time Iditarod champ Mitch Seavey was 50 miles back down the trail in the village of Ruby waiting for his 24-hour stop to finish.

And ahead of them both, defending and two-time champ Dallas Seavey from Willow, Mitch's son, was pushing on for the race's halfway point at Huslia with a gang of about a half dozen that included four-time champ Martin Buser from Big Lake; Aily Zirkle from Two Rivers, the runner-up in the last three Iditarods; Thomas Waerner, a Norwegian rookie with an all-star Scandinavian dog team, and a handful of other top contenders.

Aaron Burmiester from Nome led that group in just before 10 p.m. to claim the GCI Dorothy G. Paige Halfway Award and $3,000 in gold nuggets. Paige was one of the Iditarod founders.

The Iditarod requires one 24-hour stop of all mushers and teams somewhere along a 1,000-mile route that traditionally runs from Willow up over the Alaska Range and across rolling Interior hills to the Yukon River and then on to Nome. But this year, race organizers put together a new route starting in Fairbanks mainly using the big rivers of the Alaska Interior to reconnect to the traditional Iditarod trail at the village of Ruby.

Where the traditional Iditarod has some tough mountain going and a long haul across the rolling Interior, this Iditarod is running on a pretty flat track. Mushers expected the race to be faster because of that. What wasn't clear was where it would be best to take the 24-hour rest to gain maximum advantage in helping dogs recover from hard runs or stay ready for hard runs.

Mitch, who led the race into Ruby, took his 24 first. King, who went beyond halfway before stopping for the 24 last year, stopped here at Galena, one checkpoint before halfway. He was being cagey as to why.

When pressed on why he didn't run as far this year before stopping, he insisted he was solely focused on setting his team up for later in the race.

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"I stuck with something I knew versus something I didn't know," he said. "I think that's good strategy."

Or maybe he just wanted a first-class meal.

King appears to be making the First to the Yukon award with its five-course dinner an annual event. He collected it for the second consecutive year Thursday.

This checkpoint is actually the third on the Yukon in this reconfigured race, but the Iditarod picked Galena as the designated location for the First to the Yukon award which comes with a five-course meal.

On the menu were jumbo spotted prawns wrapped in prosciutto, Bering Sea red king crab stuffed tenderloin and bananas foster flambé served with Dom Perignon. King seemed to be enjoying the feast.

He couldn't remember how many of these meals he has enjoyed over the years, but reminisced about how it used to be considered bad luck to win them. There was a time, he said, when the Iditarod was considered to have a "halfway curse.''

Early halfway leaders never won. But Dean Osmar from Calm Gulch killed the curse in 1984 on his way to besting the late, great Susan Butcher to win the Idiarod. And King was among those to follow who proved that being first at halfway was no impediment to victory. King collected the halfway award in 1993 and went on to win the race.

King said the decision to stop about 400 miles into the race was based in part on how well he thought his team would rest in this quiet community of about 500. He added that it might also be an advantage to watch other top competitors make their way to Huslia, 80 miles up the trail.

While the trail between here and Huslia is well used by locals, it's new to mushers. King said that by tracking his competitors as they move up the trail he might get a sense of how fast they're moving and whether there are any trail obstacles he'll have to avoid.

"I'm not expecting any big mind-boggling revelations," he added.

Still, Huslia might not be the best place to rest a dog team. There is expected to be a bit of a celebration in the village that has never before hosted an Iditarod. Race organizers, needing to gain distance between Fairbanks and Nome to maintain a 1,000-mile race, swung north far from the Yukon to Huslia because it is the old hometown of the late George Attla, the Huslia Hustler.

Attla died only weeks ago at the age of 81. He is an Alaska mushing legend who traces his roots back to a village rich in great mushers and great mushing traditions. Huslia was busy getting ready to welcome the Iditarod in honor of all of them.

CORRECTION: This story was edited on March 13, 2015 to note that Dean Osmar was the musher who first broke the so-called "halfway curse.''

Reach Suzanna Caldwell at suzanna@alaskadispatch.com and Craig Medred at craig@alaskadispatch.com.

Suzanna Caldwell

Suzanna Caldwell is a former reporter for Alaska Dispatch News and Alaska Dispatch. She left the ADN in 2017.

Craig Medred

Craig Medred is a former writer for the Anchorage Daily News, Alaska Dispatch and Alaska Dispatch News. He left the ADN in 2015.

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