Rachael Scdoris flew into Nome today, discouraged but still smiling after scratching frustratingly close the finish line for the sake of her dogs on Friday. Legally blind, she’d left Koyuk with her visual interpreter Joe Runyan to see if her increasingly small dog team had what it takes to make it to Nome. But two of the dogs were sore and she could tell that others wouldn’t make it all the way, so she and Runyan made the tough decision to run her team back to Koyuk. Once Scdoris was safely park, Runyan made a U-turn and has continued his personal journey to Nome with a strong 14-dog team. He’s due shortly as I write this.

Kim Franklin, the British musher who scratched early in Rohn after two of her leaders got loose on the trail, also flew in to Nome to see the finish. Franklin, whose previous experience has been limited to dry-land races on wheeled carts, has worked with 1984 champion Dean Osmar for the last two years to learn about distance sled dog racing in Alaska.

Franklin learned a lot getting through the Alaska Range, where her race ended in a snafu. Her two lead dogs got loose when a dog behind them chewed their tuglines as Franklin fixed a minor tangle near an open creek on the way to Rohn. Being inexperienced, she didn’t wait long enough for the friendly but momentarily spooked dogs to come back to her. (The best plan would have been to pull over and park, for as long as it took, calming the situation.) After a few minutes, she continued down to Rohn to report the missing dogs.

With her gone, the two dogs, attached collar to collar by a single short neckline, trotted together back they way they had come, somehow slinking in to the Rainy Pass checkpoint unnoticed. The pair of leaders were loaded into an airplane headed back to Anchorage because checkers there assumed they were dropped dogs.

Franklin’s missing dogs were “found” among dropped dogs in Anchorage, but by that point, about a day behind the next-to-last musher because of the delays, she had to withdraw from the race. Rules say mushers have to account for all the dogs they had leaving one checkpoint when they reach the next checkpoint, and Franklin had left Rainy Pass with 15 dogs, arriving at Rohn with 13.

Molly Yazwinski had a long break back in Kaltag after having to drop some key dogs and regroup, but she’s continuing on up the trail and expected to finish, said David Monson, here in Nome to greet Yazwinski. She’s running dogs from the kennel of Monson and Susan Butcher in this year’s race.

Happiest musher to reach Nome award goes to Haltmann

Most mushers are grinning ear to ear when they pull up to the burled arch, regardless of their position in the race. But Sven Haltmann was downright pumped when his sharp, energetic team trotted neatly up the finish chute in 36th place Thursday night.

Mushers want their dogs to be crisp right up to the end, and Haltmann was obviously happy with his self-discipline to stick to a conservative schedule instead of busting loose with short rest or super long runs in order to move up in the standings. “The further we went, the better we got,” he said. As a rookie, his mission was to introduce his young team to the race and gain experience. Haltmann, an apprentice of Martin Buser with dogs from the bloodlines of Buser and Jeff King, obviously is a musher to watch in the future.

“We’re just warming up,” he told spectators with a grin. “We’ll be back next year, and the next year, and the next year, and the next year…” As his team was led out of the chute, Haltmann showed some leaping ability, jumping up to slap the beam of the burled arch with the palm of his hand.

Jason Mackey, younger brother of two-time Iditarod champion and four-time Yukon Quest champ, Lance Mackey, was on his runners in the Bering Sea as Lance was on his way to a second victory. “The trip from Shaktoolik to Koyuk was one emotional ride,” Jason Mackey said at the finish line, after a strong burst of speed propelled his young team to 33rd place.

“He’s one crazy guy,” he said of Lance. “He seems to pull magic tricks out of his hat.”

If Lance was dealing with all kinds of issues at the front of the pack, so was Jason Mackey. He said his second Iditarod was an up and down ride. It started from the beginning, when a key leader was left home. Mackey realized this team would need TLC right from the start and he scrapped any intentions of a top 20 finish. He used his printed run-rest schedule to light his first campfire on the trail.

He would feel the dogs speed up, then slow down, and if they flagged, he’d rest them.

Mackey said he does indeed have aspirations to be the fourth Mackey to win the Iditarod someday, following his father, Dick, and brothers Rick and Lance. “I won’t give up until I do win this thing,” he said. First, though, Jason Mackey wants to run the Yukon Quest next year, returning to the Iditarod in 2010.