Imagine standing on a sled behind a team of 16 dogs, traveling mile after desolate mile in the Alaska wilderness without any sign of other human life.
All of a sudden, lights shine off in the distance, the first village to come into view in a very long time.
Whether it’s a single cabin or a booming village of several hundred people, for mushers on the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, the villages are not only checkpoints to eat, rest and recharge, but a chance to interact with someone other than their dogs.
“There are no checkpoints that I dislike,” said defending champion Dallas Seavey. “Every time you come around the corner and see the lights of a checkpoint approaching, it’s a great sight.”
Four-time champion Martin Buser rested at the checkpoint in Rohn after a blistering fast 170-mile run that had put him hours ahead of the other teams.
Buser reached Rohn at 9:53 a.m. Monday, where he took a break and watched other mushers arrive and leave.
That put Paul Gebhardt in the lead Tuesday morning. He pulled into the checkpoint about nine hours after Buser and then got back on the trail. Aliy Zirkle was in second place.
There are 26 checkpoints along the 1,000-mile trail from Anchorage to Nome, and for last year’s runner-up Aliy Zirkle, the welcomes they receive are truly Alaska events: Villagers greet the dogs first.
“And it’s an open-armed greeting, where they want to make sure all the dogs are OK, and they get straw for them and food for them,” said Zirkle, running her 13th Iditarod. “Then they say, ‘How are you doing, Aliy?'”
There are four ghost towns that serve as checkpoints along the trail, including the race’s namesake, the former mining village of Iditarod, which once boasted a population of 10,000 people.
The ghost towns fill up with support staff during the race, but are empty the rest of the year.
But other villages are just like small towns in the Lower 48.
“They have schools, they have post offices, they have a runway,” race spokeswoman Erin McLarnon said.
“They’re basically like any small town community except inaccessible,” she said of the state’s limited road system. “You can only get there by dog team, snowmachine or air.”
The checkpoints serve a purpose. Veterinarians staff the checkpoints to examine the dogs, and race officials make sure the mushers are fit to continue.
Mushers are required to take three mandatory rest periods during the race. They take one 24-hour layover any time during the race. They must take one eight-hour rest at a checkpoint along the Yukon River, and the other eight-hour rest at White Mountain, 77 miles from the finish line in Nome.
The village of Takotna is becoming a popular place for mushers to take the longer rest period. It comes 329 miles into the race, at a time when the dogs are ready for a break and mushers need a good meal.
And why not at a foodie village? The town of about 50 people on the Takotna River is renowned for filling the school …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News
