KALTAG - After having the place to herself for more than three hours, a crowd of Iditarod frontrunners elbowed in on race leader Aliy Zirkle Saturday afternoon at the last checkpoint on Alaska's mighty Yukon River.
Defending champ John Baker of Kotzebue pulled in at 2:32 p.m. behind 12 dogs, with 2004 winner Mitch Seavey of Sterling just a minute behind. Aaron Burmeister of Nenana arrived at 2:56, with the musher everyone was eyeing joining the crowd at 3:19. That musher, 25-year-old Dallas Seavey, Mitch's son and last year's Yukon Quest champion, posted the fastest speed on the run from Nulato. In fact, his 10.7 mph average was more than 1 mph faster than Zirkle and seemed to suggest a battle loomed on the Seward Peninsula as mushers headed toward Nome.
By 4 p.m., four-time champion Jeff King of Denali Park joined the growing crowd in Kaltag. But, for Zirkle, enough was enough. By 4:55 p.m., she was back on the trail climbing through spruce forests and along the Kaltag River, beginning an 85-mile run to Unalakleet on the Norton Sound.
Before dawn Saturday Saturday, a determined Zirkle pushed past a resting Mitch Seavey to grab a tenuous lead in the 1,000-mile race from Willow to Nome. Including his rest, Seavey took nearly 12 hours to complete a 37-mile run from Galena to Nulato. Zirkle did the same run in six hours, 20 minutes.
"The bottom line remains — Aliy Zirkle now controls the race," former Iditarod champion Joe Runyan wrong on the race's website. "Deft moves and a resilient dog team, have in effect put her one checkpoint ahead of the competition in her run/rest schedule."
On Friday, Seavey, the 2004 champion, had driven his team 50 miles from Ruby to Galena. At that point, he'd earned about a two-and-a-half-hour lead over Zirkle, whose long runs behind a race-hardened Quest team has impressed onlookers checkpoint after checkpoint.
Upon hitting the Yukon, many mushers expected their dogs to perk up. Harder trails and cooler weather are more advantageous than the daytime sun and deep snow of the days leading up to Yukon River running.
Few mushing groupies
Midnight in the mid-race checkpoints is a far lonelier experience than the fanfare of more notable spots and the comfort of daytime temperatures. Gone are all but the most dedicated groupies. And although race staff and volunteers are on hand, they seem fewer in number when working beneath a blanket of stars and in subzero weather.
As Zirkle put stockings and booties on her dogs here, she realized she doesn't just have just one Seavey zeroed in on her. Mitch's son Dallas, last year's Quest champion, loomed, too.
"He's chasing with a faster team," said Jon Korta, a former Iditarod musher and race checker said of Dallas. "He gained almost one hour" on the run from Ruby to Galena. "He's reeling in his dad and he's got speed so he doesn't feel the need to press it."
That same speed allowed Dallas to rest his dogs longer than either musher in front of him. He didn't pull out of Galena until 1:15 a.m., about four hours after his father. Dallas rested nearly four hours here, while dad stayed just 12 minutes.
By midnight, the checkpoint that had for hours been sleepy sprung to life. Mitch Seavey had come and gone hours ago. Zirkle was up and about preparing her sled and her team for their next long haul, leaving just before midnight. Last year's champion, Baker; King and 12-time finisher Burmeister pulled in. Dallas Seavey reappeared from a rest, checked a pair of boots he'd been drying, and got ready to give chase, leaving at 1:15 a.m.
Baker: lots of racing left
Mushers could be seen lumbering up the hill from a low-lying field where the dogs were bedded down to fetch water, a bag heavy with food in one hand, a water bucket in the other. Their footsteps were audible in the hollow tones of cold, crunching snow.
As Baker entered the checkpoint building to fill his bucket, the Kotzebue musher said he'd just finished his best run yet. Harder snow was making a noticeable difference for his dogs. Zirkle and the Seaveys weren't on his mind.
"I think I'm racing people two teams behind me," he said, explaining that he believes the frontrunners will begin to fall apart.
Burmeister agrees, if only because it's one of the inevitable curses of the 1,000-mile Iditarod: Someone's bound to fizzle.
Contact Jill Burke at jill(at)alaskadispatch.com