Allen, Beemer, Biscuit, Boondocks, Chemo, Chipper, Commando, Dutch, Felix, Junior, Kodiak, Lester, Pepe, Sandy and Viper are through Safety and on their final 22 miles to Nome. They set a blistering time from White Mountain to Safety – just 6 hours, six minutes!
We are heading to the finish chute shortly to cheer them home! We’ll see to the dogs and Allen first then update you with pictures and video as soon as we can.
Go Team! We are so proud of you all (including Olivia and Driver at home)!
Congratulations to Vania from South Dakota. Vania is a fan of Biscuit who is currently on the trail between White Mountain and Nome in his 8th Iditarod.
Biscuit is known as a superstar wheel dog but what most people don’t know is he can also lead the team. Allen said to Ryne earlier today in White Mountain checkpoint that Biscuit led the Black Team for around 300 miles!
Vania wins the second of our Iditarod goodie packs including a fridge magnet, pencil, car decal sticker, bookmark signed by Aliy and Allen and a couple of patches, along with a winner’s certificate.
Thanks to all our Dog Fan Club members! We have another double bonus draw next Friday, March 27th and everyone who hasn’t already won and all new members will be in the draw to win. Note: those of you who have already won but are fan club members of multiple dogs are still in the draw for the dogs you have not won with.
Click the button below for instructions on how to join:
Click this button below to take you directly to the Dog Fan Page.
According to the GPS tracker, Allen and his team mates have left White Mountain on their final run towards Nome.
I’ve been waiting for the current standings to update to tell us his leaving time and whether he has all 14 team mates with him but I guess they’re a little behind so we’ll catch up with that information hopefully soon.
This last run is about 73 miles and the team will travel on the Fish River for a short time then go overland, crossing rolling tundra and several streams (some of which are reported to have overflow i.e. wet). They then climb a series of ridges to 400ft Topkok then drop to the coast. They will run along the beach for a time before reaching the Safety checkpoint and then follow the Safety-Nome council road to town. They have one last climb up Cape Nome then they run home.
We can’t tell you how excited we are to see them. It’s unlikely we’ll sleep much tonight as we watch the little green flag on the tracker progress towards us. We’ll be up early to ready their straw filled kennels at the dog lot, get their finishers’ steaks and kibble/meat meal ready and make some food for Allen.
Earlier today Ryne caught up with Allen for a short while in the checkpoint and asked him how it’s all going. Check out the video below. Before you watch it, take a guess at who his current two lead dogs are…
The Nome Dog Lot is a wonderful place to be. There are many dog teams resting peacefully and mushers and handlers wander through feeding, massaging and tending to the teams. The fantastic volunteers there keep an eye on everyone, replacing blankets that might have come askew and giving ear scratches when required.
Quito gets flowers
Yellow roses for Scout
Izzy hams it up; Mismo just wants his butt scratched please
Nacho enjoys a mid-afternoon nap; Scruggs keeping an eye on what’s happening next door
Chica-choos!, Silly Willie is so handsome
Clyde believes he is THE man; Mac disagrees with Clyde
Waylon’s head is heavy; Schmoe is a bit bashful today
Scooter still takes her cheerleading role seriously; Queen Quito
We’ve been watching the GPS tracker closely all morning, tracking the Black Team’s progress towards White Mountain. All 15 athletes (including Allen) pulled in to the checkpoint at 10.13am after a six hour, seven minute run through from Elim.
They have an eight hour mandatory rest here before their final 77 miles home. Allen will feed the team a couple of meals and plenty of snacks. He’ll massage them and prior to taking off, will walk them around to loosen them up ready or the last run. He’ll also get a nap and some food for himself.
Here they are at the start in Fairbanks to remind us what they look like.
As a rule of thumb we say teams could be in to Nome about 18-20 hours from when they arrive into White Mountain so we can expect them very early tomorrow (Saturday) morning. We can’t wait!!!!
Right now, the Black Team is resting in Elim. They had a good run through from Koyuk and Allen will be happy to be in Elim.
Read here some more information about the conditions the mushers faced on the run from Shaktoolik to Koyuk. It sounds like it was a wild night and we are thankful everyone is safe now.
Their next run will be to White Mountain some 46-odd miles away. They pass through Golovin which, although not an official checkpoint, can be used as a rest stop if necessary. Once in White Mountain the team has a mandatory eight hour rest before embarking on the final leg home to Nome.
All is well back here at the kennel.
The young dogs, the retirees and I are enjoying the warmer temperatures… over 40 degrees in Two Rivers today! Dog naps all around.
The seven current house dogs are obsessively watching the GPS tracker over my shoulder and reminding me to hit “refresh” every 30 seconds.
Bullet wants to know who’s in lead and ChaCha keeps reminiscing about the “good old days” when she used to run Iditarod. She claims it was way harder back then. I just pat her head and say, “I know, Cha, you’re very tough,” and throw her another biscuit.
We all look forward to hearing the race dogs’ stories when they return (Champ, above, is particularly excited). I can just hear Mismo back in the dog yard, “I mean, it was a thousand miles, Champ, I’m kind of a big deal now. Maybe you should call me Mr. Mismo.”
– Meghan
Aliy has had a good sleep, some good food and good coffee and is now feeling fantastic!
We’ll get more stories and pictures soon but in the meantime Aliy just wanted to thank you all for your support; for all your well wishes and love. For everyone that was in Nome or at home watching, everyone who has commented on the blog, Facebook and Instagram and sent emails and messages, or even just liked a post or picture – she really appreciates you all.
For those that didn’t get to hear her finish line speech:
“Thank you for welcoming me. You guys are too good to me. That’s all, I don’t know what else to say”.
Screen shot from Insider video
When asked how did she feel about this run? “Good, it went really well. It felt really good, I thought I had a chance for a little while honestly and then by the time I got to Shaktoolik it was pretty obvious Dallas had the team to beat. I kinda tried to, let’s see, I threw a Hail Mary in Shaktoolik and apparently it was caught by the other team and intercepted coz it didn’t work out quite as well as I wanted it to. It was a good shot.”
“My dog team is phenomenal. They were a little bit slow this afternoon – is it afternoon? – because of the heat but by the time we got to the outskirts of Nome all these people cheered them up and they ran like the heck, so it was great. It was a great run. Starting at 40 below and now it’s, what, 40 above?
She was asked about the “Hail Mary”: “I thought that maybe if I could push my team to catch Dallas going across the pack ice going into Koyuk then maybe I could keep up with him but it turned out that was… I didn’t catch him and I ended up having the rest my dogs a little longer anyway.”
“I saw you have a moment with your lead dog, did your lead dog help you get through a lot of this?” – “My little red lead dog, his name is Scout, he’s seven years old. He’s not the most social guy, in the dog yard he’s the fun police, he doesn’t like a lot of other dogs having fun around him. And he’s that way on the trail, he’s all business. So, he was getting a little irritated at the rest of the team ‘coz I kept telling them to go down the centre of the road. They weren’t doing it so he was getting a little irritated. He’s a fantastic guy… Scoutee”
More soon.
