FAIRBANKS, Alaska (KTUU) – Departing in two-minute intervals, the race to Nome is officially underway.
On Monday morning, 33 sled dog teams began the 1,128-mile race to Nome for the 53rd Iditarod.
This year, teams will encounter the longest Iditarod race to date after the Iditarod announced last month it was moving the race to Interior Alaska due to a lack of snow on the southern route.
“I think we are very fortunate to even have a race this year,” Iditarod veteran Jason Mackey from Fairbanks said.
This year’s race consists of just two former champions: three-time winner Mitch Seavey and 2023 winner Ryan Redington.
Including them, the race features 17 veteran mushers and 16 rookies.
“[It’s] kind of an even playing field across the board … all the rookies that are here are damn good rookies, but we’ll see. I would love a win,” Mackey said. “I’m going to try and stay out of the checkpoints, if I get caught up in the checkpoints and there are too many distractions … I am looking for a good race.”
According to Mackey, this year, he is racing with a team of dogs that have made it to Nome at least once, with the exception of a three-year-old dog “Flash,“ who is the only new addition to the team this year.
Mackey told Alaska’s News Source that he considered Flash an “all-star dog” and hopes that this team will guide him under the Burled Arch in Nome.
“The biggest goal is to get to Nome, and wherever that position may be — we say it every year, and that’s the truth,“ Mackey said. ”Happy, healthy dogs, and whatever is after that, it is what it is.”
Unlike past years, to get to Nome, teams this year will no longer have to cross the Alaska Range; instead, teams this year will be facing a long stretch of running on the frozen Yukon River.
“I am excited for the new trail,” Anna Berington, a veteran musher, said. “I think it’s better mindset to see it as a fun new challenge, instead of complaining that it’s going to be on a boring river.”
Joining Mackey and Berington on the trail to Nome this year are also 16 rookies, including the musher wearing the last bib number 34, Emily Ford from Duluth, Minnesota.
“I love hanging out with my dogs,” Ford said. “Ready to get out of this and go into that.”
Ford told Alaska’s News Source that part of her focus with this new route will be staying awake.
“Not just us, but keeping these guys [the dogs] interested, my leaders interested in looking at the vast white for a while,” Ford said. “Hopefully we will be watching a bunch of teams ahead of us and my dogs will be excited about that.”
Ford said she wants to remind people that the outdoors — and the sport of mushing — is for everyone.
“I am stoked to be here and be like — inside secret, you can also do this, even if you are Black,” Ford said. ”I am super stoked to stand on the shoulders of — especially Becca Moore — you know, being the first Black lady to do it. I always thank her for paving the way for me and be like, I’ll do my best to keep the tradition going.”
Joining Ford on the rookie list this year is Mike Parker. In December of 2023, Parker was running his team along the Denali Highway near Cantwell when the team of dogs he was working with was hit by a man on a snowmachine, resulting in three of his dogs dying and one being severely injured.
“We lost three of our main lead dogs — a fourth one really badly injured — that would have been here with us today,” Parker said. “I am carrying the ashes of Solo, John, and Buttercup, with me on the trail so we can leave them and let them rest on this trail where they were always supposed to be.”
The next checkpoint for teams is Nenana — 52 miles into the race — followed by Manley, which sits 137 miles in.
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