The Iditarod isn’t over.  The top teams are in but mushers are still moving up the trail looking for trail markers, putting on booties thinking about their dogs and the finish line.  Dogs are still getting off their straw and running down the trail, one foot after another.

Till the last team comes to the finish line, the ”Widows Lamp” will burn as always.

This year we had a great batch of rookie teams racing for the rookie of the year award. That of course was won by Dan Kaduce. Though a rookie to the Iditarod Dan is no mushing rookie. He had run a large number of races before entering the Iditarod and successfully completed many Yukon Quest sled dog races. He would be a good example of someone doing their homework and training well before entering the Iditarod. Though they weren’t the first rookies to cross the finsh line we should also note that Mike Willams Jr., Michelle Phillips and Peter Kaiser also had very competitive finishes coming in 26th, 27th, and 28th.  Each of them did a great job preparing  for and completing the Iditarod.

Dan Kaduce, who finished 21st,  said the the race seemed relative short to him.  Maybe that’s because one and all set a very fast pace this year. Along the trail the word amongst the race officials was there is no back of the pack this year, just the front of the pack and the middle pack. Everyone is running a fast pace and chances are they will all we across the finish line before the awards banquet.

Dan also commented that he was surprise by the constant changes of the landscape. The Iditarod , more than the Quest which  he has run many times, goes through a number of Alaskan environments from the south-central coastal forest, the Alaska Range mountains, the  interior forest and wide Yukon River to the vast open expanses of the frozen ocean of the Bering Sea coast. Mushers have everything thrown at them and get to see an Alaska that most only dream of. Each new landscape gives the mushers a feeling that they are making progress.

Lots of folks are still watching our Jamaican musher Newton Marshall’s progress up the trail and it looks like he’s doing a good job though some said he wasn’t enjoying the 40 below weather that the interior gave the mushers.

None the less he’s still on the go.

There’s lots of talk in Nome amongst the mushers of next year.  Some say they’ll never race again, some are planning already for next year. Others talk of taking a year off to run other races around the world. Dog trades are going on, breeding’s for puppies talked about.  Some mushers came across the finish line already talking of next year race. That’s the way  it always goes. Before one race is over another is being planned.