Everyone at Cripple Checkpoint was expecting John Baker to be the first musher in to Cripple,  but John got confused  and thought he may be on the wrong trail or had gone past the checkpoint,  so he stopped and waited for about 5 hours.   Our best guess is he was only 3-5 miles from the checkpoint.  Dallas Seavey came up behind him, reassured him that there wasn’t another fork in the trail and Dallas then passed him and was the first in here winning the halfway prize. This is a deja vu of the 2008 Iditarod when Paul Gebhardt thought he had missed the trail to Cripple and turned his team around.  While heading back down the trail  he ran into Dee Dee and she passed him and won the 1/2 way prize that year.

It’s been said that it’s a gamble to go to Cripple for your 24.  It may help you but it’s possible it could cost you the race.

If you check the current standings the statistics speak for themselves as far as to who is traveling the fastest.  An on sight observation of teams shows that Jeff King has one of the strongest, healthiest looking dog teams out here.

Other notable teams in appearance are Hugh Neff, Lance Mackey, and Sonny Lindner.

Conditions around Cripple are 10-20 above, clear skies during the day and 30 to 40 below at night.

Mushers report a firm, fast trail base with lots of moguls.  Generally this trail will benefit the teams with speed.

It certainly looks like this may come down to the classic battle of the tortoise and the hare.  Long steady runs versus short runs with more rests to keep your speed up.

We’re only halfway into this thing but one thing is obvious at this point.  Whoever wins this thing is going to have to beat Jeff Kings team.

We’re now heading to Ruby to catch the leaders there sometime tomorrow morning.