It was pretty strange to check the leader board and GPS this morning and see practically no change in team positions from last night. That’s a sure sign that the weather has pretty much everybody bogged down. Aliy remains in Shaktoolik with 14 other mushers. She called Kaz last night to say that the dogs are all under shelter and tucked in between bales of hay. That’s pretty much like living at the Ritz for our furry friends, so they should be quite fine. The mushers are all hanging out together inside the community center. Don’t you wish you could see and hear what’s going on in there!
Allen is in Kaltag, also with a dozen other mushers. We have not heard from him directly, but the Iditarod Insider has a clip with him saying it was hard going up the Yukon and the team did very well. It sounds like little Dingle was in lead for most of the 11 hour run but “lost it” a little toward the end. Allen says he then put one of his few “adults” in lead to finish the job. I imagine that was Hoss, but let’s give two year old Dingle some props for being such a main leader on his first Iditarod!
There’s no sense in trying to fly out until the teams get across the ice, so I’m still hanging out in Nome. There’s no telling how long the weather will remain impossible, but it is quite telling that the last time I looked only 8 teams were moving on the entire Iditarod Trail. Stay tuned!
