Hindsight is always 20/20, and mushers spend their lives second-guessing decisions made in previous Iditarods. Now that the top racers have locked themselves into the first major decision of the race, who made the correct move and who wishes they had a redo?
We'll run through the top contenders by where they stopped for their 24-hour layover.
Ruby
Jeff King was still moving down the trail and had yet to take his 24-hour rest Thursday morning. By mid-day Thursday, he was well into the 70-mile run from Cripple to Ruby and has been moving about 6.8 mph on that run. That's significantly slower than what he had been averaging — but not necessarily an indication of a slowing team.
The late Don Bowers wrote an incredible description of the Iditarod trail that explains the reason why this run from Cripple to Ruby is usually one of the slowest. Bowers completed the Iditarod three times, the last in 1999.
The trail will head up through the old Poorman town site and will begin to follow old mining roads. Shortly, it will drop down the valley of Fourth of July Creek to the Sulatna River on a long downgrade. After crossing the old steel bridge over the Sulatna River, the trail runs up an old mining road. The terrain is generally wooded rolling hills for the entire route, with black-spruce taiga (Russian for "land of little sticks") interspersed with heavier forests on better-drained slopes and in river bottoms, as well as the inevitable open swamp and muskeg areas. The road from Sulatna Crossing to Ruby has some moderate hills with long but relatively easy grades, with a few excursions to timberline. Scattered overflow is common along the leg, as are short glaciered and drifted sections, especially on the road to Ruby.
King pulled into Ruby early Thursday afternoon to claim the First to the Yukon Award while declaring his 24-hour rest, putting him about six hours behind the lead pack. King tried this schedule in 2014 and came up 25 miles short of shattering the existing record when he got caught in an awful storm outside of Safety. However, King is now more than five hours off his 2014 pace.
King's Ruby in time: 1:02 p.m. (five hours behind his 2014 schedule)
Cripple
Dallas Seavey led the way into Cripple after a four-hour stop in McGrath and a 3.5-hour stop on the trail between Ophir and Cripple, giving him a solid run into Cripple where he declared his 24-hour break. Seavey's moving time between Ophir and Cripple was nine hours, 40 minutes, the fastest among the teams that pushed on to Cripple before taking their mandatory stop. Seavey can leave Cripple at 5:40 p.m. Thursday and will probably run straight to Ruby. Look for Seavey to have a slightly faster run time over to Cripple than the teams that took their rest farther back on the trail.
Dallas Seavey's projected Ruby in time: 2:30 a.m. (Two hours, 20 minutes ahead of his record-breaking 2014 schedule)
Ophir
Brent Sass has put together an excellent race up to this point and has put himself in a position to challenge for the lead. Sass has decided to keep to himself and his first rest in a checkpoint was at his 24-hour stop in Ophir. Sass left Ophir at 2:46 a.m. Thursday and by the looks of his tracker was making a push all the way to Cripple. He arrived in the early afternoon, giving him a very quick run about nine hours.
In comparison, most of the teams that pushed on to Cripple before taking their 24- hour stop posted times between 10 and 12 hours. If Sass keeps with his "stealth mode" strategy, look for him to camp just outside of Cripple and give his team a five-hour rest before heading to Ruby.
Sass's projected Ruby in time: 2 a.m.
Ken Anderson and Nicolas Petit are running a similar strategy to Sass's since taking their 24-hour rest and are making a very strong push to the front.
Takotna
Mitch Seavey and Pete Kaiser both took mandatory rests in Takotna and departed an hour apart beginning at 11 p.m. Wednesday. Both mushers blew through Ophir after identical run times from Takotna, only staying long enough to grab some straw and dog food.
It appears that Mitch Seavey learned from his 2012 race where he was considered the team to beat in Takotna, but ended up running all the way from Takotna to Cripple without any breaks and lost the speed he once had, ending up a distant seventh, nine hours behind his son. This year Mitch Seavey and Kaiser elected to take a break at Carlson Creek Cabin (roughly halfway between Takotna and Cripple) where Seavey increased his lead to 13 miles over Kaiser by resting 30 minutes less. Both Seavey and Kaiser will most likely stop in Cripple for four hours and make the push to Ruby in one shot. I wouldn't be surprised if the two Seaveys leave Cripple within minutes of each other.
Mitch Seavey's projected Ruby in time: 3 a.m. (1 hour ahead of his 2014 schedule)
Kaiser's projected Ruby in time: 4:30 a.m. (5.5 hours ahead of his 2014 schedule)
Aliy Zirkle left Takotna at 12:25 a.m. after taking her 24-hour rest and, as she has done in the past, is setting herself up to make a big move to the front by skipping stops in Ophir, Cripple, or Ruby and potentially taking her eight-hour mandatory rest on the Yukon in Galena. Up to this point, Aliy is executing this strategy incredibly well, breaking the run from Takotna to Galena into three even 70-mile runs. Essentially Aliy has cut out one rest that everyone else took that rested in McGrath or Takotna. This move will catapult Aliy to the top of the leaderboard.
Zirkle's projected in time to Ruby: 5 a.m. (5 hours behind her 2014 schedule)
Zirkle's projected in time to Galena: 11 a.m.
McGrath
Wade Marrs has run a very even race up to this point, which has allowed him to maintain some great speed and even lead the mad rush of mushers out of Takotna, 15 minutes ahead of Mitch Seavey. With Marrs's decision to rest in McGrath, his options were much more limited than the teams that took their rest later on. Marrs ran from McGrath to 10 miles outside of Ophir, where he shut it down for a four-hour rest. He is now pushing on to Cripple, where he will arrive very close to Mitch Seavey and will most likely stay four hours and depart with both Seaveys around 5:30 p.m., making the long and hilly run into Ruby in one straight shot.
Marrs's projected Ruby in time: 3 a.m (6.5 hours ahead of his 2014 schedule)
Jake Berkowitz is a three-time Iditarod finisher, including an eighth-place finish in 2013, when he was awarded the Alaska Airlines Leonhard Seppala Humanitarian Award. He has finished the Yukon Quest twice, both times in fourth place, and won the Rookie of the Year award in 2012. This is his first year of Iditarod commentary for Alaska Dispatch News. Look for his commentaries daily during the race.