Iditarod leaders reach Nikolai as race shifts into a strategy phase

Most mushers in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race have crossed the Alaska Range and are entering a strategic phase of the contest as they position themselves to take their mandatory 24-hour rest in the coming days.

By Tuesday morning, all 38 teams were scattered between Nikolai on the south fork of the Kuskokwim River, 263 miles into the race, and the Rohn checkpoint, less than a hundred miles back, where a group of 10 — mostly rookies — was resting. Everyone has made it over the Rainy Pass crossing, and so far no teams have scratched.

At the front of the pack, veteran Mille Porsild was the first to mush into Nikolai at 9:09 a.m. Tuesday. After several conservative runs punctuated by rest breaks crossing the Alaska Range, Porsild made a big 9 hour, 17 minute run straight from Rohn to Nikolai, covering the full 75 miles through the Buffalo Tunnels and Farewell Burn in one go.

Within a half-hour of Porsild’s arrival, veteran Travis Beals, last year’s winner Ryan Redington and five-time champion Dallas Seavey all pulled into Nikolai and parked their teams for a rest. Those three each pushed through the Rohn checkpoint overnight and opted to split up the run to Nikolai by camping out for a few hours of rest along the trail.

The one front-pack musher who broke away from the rest Tuesday morning was Jessie Holmes, who stopped in Nikolai just long enough to rifle through his drop bags for provisions and lash a bale of hay to his sled bag before his team of 13 strong, energetic-looking dogs tore back out. According to commentary by veteran Iditarod racer Bruce Lee in an Iditarod Insider video livestream, Holmes was planning to keep going another 10 or 20 miles down the trail toward McGrath before taking a rest, which could set him up to keep running all the way to the spartan checkpoint at Ophir, 352 miles into the course, before declaring his 24-hour rest.

Less than an hour later, veteran Matt Hall of Two Rivers repeated Holmes’ move and kept mushing out of Nikolai after a 9-minute rest.

For the competitive mushers angling for a victory, where to take the 24-hour rest required by the race rules is a critical decision that shapes how they drive their teams before and after the crucial break. Many push their teams to the limits of their abilities, counting on the long rest to rebuild their strength for long runs through the race’s interior and Yukon stretches on the way to the Norton Sound coast.

Mushers will also be grappling with warm weather forecast for much of Tuesday. Nikolai and the town of McGrath 48 miles up the trail are both expected to see highs around 30 degrees, which is suboptimal for racing sled dogs. Overnight lows are projected to be in the teens, according to the National Weather Service, but there’s also the chance for snow showers that could slow down the trail.