Time 7.40pm Race Mile 582
Aliy and her 12 teammates checked into Nulato checkpoint at around 5:20pm this afternoon (official time tbc). Having spent 4 hours, 38 in Galena and only 12 minutes in Ruby, she will have needed to declare an eight hour stop either here in Nulato or at Kaltag. We will know in a few hours if she chose Nulato.
Nulato checkpoint is not based in the village as it is normally, but by the looks of the videos from there the dog teams are camped out on the river. Mushers have their drop bags and supplies and race personnel are present so it is still a functioning checkpoint. We can see from the current standings that communications from there are a bit slow as they may be relying on satellite phones to transfer the information. Check out the latest post by Sebastian Schnuelle about the checkpoint – and see a couple of pics of Aliy!
This last stretch into the checkpoint was the closest we have watched the tracker all race and we were very happy to see that Mille was just ahead of the team and Ramey was immediately behind. This is a significant stretch of trail for Aliy since 2016 and that she ran it during the daytime was also a blessing.
The weather there is very snowy at the moment. And warm, with temperatures hovering around freezing. When Aliy phoned before Galena it was snowing but so not hard. It was closed in, however, and she couldn’t see the tops of the trees. The light was flat so no shadows and difficulty perceiving depth and distance. Seeing the Insider videos and interviews from Nulato and Kaltag the snow looks to be really coming down. The trail over from Nulato to Kaltag and beyond is a slow slog for everyone with many inches of snow already and more to come. Trail speeds will be low!
Woohoo! Thank you Sebastian!
Awesome pics of Aliy and a great shot of Miss QT in front of Aliy’s sled in his next post.
Thank you for covering the middle of the pack, or rather the latter part of an extremely heavy leader pack.
We were paying special attention to the tracker too on this leg and found solace in seeing she was surrounded by Teams moving along together. I bet there is a feeling of cameraderie building within this group since they have been on the trail or in check points together for most of the race. It was nice to see pictures of Aliy in Sebastian’s post….kudos to the Iditarod staff who hustled together to create an alternative place for the Mushers to stop.
Thank you Sebastian!
GO ALIY!!!
Ditto – big thanks for Aliy pic opening her what looks like a small pizza box (I’m sure it wasn’t a pizza???).
WOOF WOOF WOOF
Hope the 4-legged members of the team are enjoying themselves – and a shout out to QT – you go girl!!!
GO RED TEAM!!! GO ALIY!!!
Aliy did look happy – which is great considering how really weird this race has been all the way around.
It is really good to see her in good spirits.