An odd year here for the “Last Great Race”.
The Iditarod started this past weekend, as mushers and dog teams left Willow, AK on Sunday. Due to the lack of snow, there had been talk of changing the start of the race to Fairbanks, which is actually closer to the historical serum run that the race commemorates, but race officials decided to stick with the southern Willow Run.
Maybe, they should have come north:
With treacherous, snowless trail conditions, eleven of the sixty-nine mushers who started the race have already scratched. Another, has been withdrawn by race officials after an injury.
Scott Janssen, a 52 year old musher/undertaker from Anchorage , broke his ankle on a section of trail between Rohn and Nikolai. Known as the Mushing Mortician, Janssen said, “There’s a lot of heaven to be seen along the Iditarod route, but that part of the trail was all hell.”
Photos courtesy of AP/Anchorage Daily News