Into Shaktoolik

It appears as if Jeff King is either pulling ahead of the other racers, or Doug Swingley & DeeDee Jonrowe are pulling back, in an effort to muster energy and strength for a bliz run at the end of the race. They’re running out of time though, with teams starting to go through Shaktoolik there are just 5 checkpoints left before heading into Nome. We’ll have to see what today holds for our the mushers and how the storm on the coast effects them.

The small village of Koyuk is next, then Elim, Golovin, and White Mountain. There every musher in the race will have to take a mandatory 8 hour layover before heading onto Saftey and then Nome. These small villages are all great places with amazing people. We were lucky enough to be able to travel to these villages when we lived in Nome, my wife would head out to atleast one of them a week with her job as a social worker.

Bjornar Andersen is making a run for the top of the pack, rising to 4th place out of Unalakleet. The rest of the top ten has all left within 4 hours of Andersen. John Baker from Kotzebue, Paul Gebhardt, Aliy Zerkle, Aaron Burmeister, Jason Barron & Mitch Seavey are all contending for the highest spot possible.