It was (mostly) sunny and around freezing, if not above, in Anchorage this morning for the Ceremonial Start of Iditarod 41! Both Red and Black teams took 12 dogs from their “squad” on the 12 mile route (each musher must provide a squad of dogs of which they can choose 12 for the ceremonial start and up to 16 for the re-start on Sunday).
Aliy and her Red team of Beemer, Quito, Olivia, Rambler, Boondocks, Nacho, Chica, Mac, Dingle, Scruggs, Biscuit and Willie left 4th Avenue at 10.50am with her Idita-rider in her sled and Moira travelling along behind on the tag-sled. The route was lined with thousands of people waving and cheering all the mushers on and dedicated volunteers manning road crossings and intersections.
Allen and the Black team of Viper, Honda, Spicy, Pud, Kipper, I.V. Ranger, Spoog, Bonita, Moxie, Tatfish and Fang left 42 minutes later with his Idita-rider in his sled and Meghan riding the tag sled behind. Pics of the Black team and some video from the day coming asap…
Final team rosters will be posted on Sunday morning – they are not finalised yet!
Great photos!
Wonderful start all of you! Thank you so much for keeping us posted! God bless!
Thank you …. can't wait to watch all this fun from here as well as refreshing the GPS every 30 seconds!
Woof, woof, woof!!!
Watched part of the Ceremonial Start from the Tampa airport on the way home to CT (on my computer)!
Lovely interview with Aliy on the Iditarod site!!!
Ditto comment 1! I saw the whole thing in Maine! Go Allen and Aliy!
The dogs looked SO ready to go! It's gonna be an exciting race.
Here are the links:
Article – Transcript of the interview
Video Interview
great interview! Here we go SP!