Jeff King made it into Unalakleet as the first musher to reach the coast…but just by 22 minutes. Doug Swingley came in next, boasting that along the trail he had passed King sometime after “Old Woman’s Cabin†about thirty miles out from Unalakleet, but then he had to put an injured dog in his sled, and he lost the lead…costing him the $2,500 prize. Leaving Kaltag 2 hours behind King & Swingley were DeeDee Jonrowe & Aliy Zerkle.
The trail from Kaltag to Unalakleet was a tough one as there is a storm on the coast. The mushing time between the two checkpoints was about 12 hours for a team going around a brisk 7.5 miles per hour. Normally the first musher into the costal village of Unalakleet goes onto win the race, but not always…and this is a year where all bets are off. You’ve got two solid leaders who are fighting for first and have been mushing at a fast pace for the entire race, and then a pack of top ten contenders who are known for boosting up the the speed the last third of the race. You could see Ed Iten, Bjornar Andersen or Mitch Seavey really start to work up the standings over the next 48 hours and make a push for the highest placing finish possible. Bjornar hinted to the Iditarod insider that team Norway might have changed their strategy this year from a “lead the whole race†gameplan to a “make a hard run at the end†outlook. I’ve been looking forward to this stretch of the trail since the beginning; I know this is where the dramatic runs and surprising upsets will take place.