Goodbye Willow – Hello Alaskan Wilderness

The re-start in Willow went as planned and we now have 95 Iditarod teams out on the trail on their way to Nome. GB Jones became the first official musher to scratch from the race, he ran the 11-mile course in Anchorage with his Iditarider, and then withdrew due to a previous injury.

Late tonight some of the first mushers will make it into the first of twenty three checkpoints; Yentna Station. Yentna is just 52 miles up the trail from Willow, most serious mushers will breeze through this point and head an additional 30 miles up the trail to Skwentna where many will camp off the trail once they have picked up food and straw for their dogs. The Skwentna checkpoint is located in the cabin of postmaster and former Iditarod checker Joe Delia.

There are many exciting factors in this year’s race, the return of Kjetil Backen and the other half of team Norway, two 4-time champions looking for a record tying 5th Iditarod win, a whole field of potential first time champions (like last year’s winner Lance Mackey) and some old Iditarod favorites returning to the race for the first time in a few years.

Even though 1989’s champion Joe Runyan hasn’t run the race since 1993, he is no stranger to the recent happenings of the Iditarod. For the last few years Joe has been writing articles about the Iditarod, he has served in producing roles for television coverage on OLN and the Versus Network, and often is even in front of the mic interviewing mushers at checkpoints all along the Iditarod trail. His return to the Iditarod would be similar to Terry Bradshaw jumping back onto the football field for a season. Joe isn’t running this year as a competitor though, he is taking Tim Osmar’s place and running his team as Rachael Scdoris’ visual trail interpreter. Rachael is a legally blind musher that the Iditarod Trail Committee (ITC) has given special permission, she completed her first run (in her second attempt) in 2006 with the assistance of veteran musher Osmar.

Tomorrow we’ll take a look at the other Iditarod legend running the race again the year: Joe Garnie of Teller, AK is back again and we’ll look at his involvement with the race and what exactly puts him in the Iditarod history books.