This year’s race, which has 33 mushers taking part, will last a record distance of 1,128 miles across Alaska
The world’s most famous sled dog race is longer than ever this year thanks to a lack of snow.
This year’s Iditarod race, which began on Monday, March 3, will last a record distance of 1,128 miles, according to the Wall Street Journal, with mushers racing from Fairbanks to Nome in Alaska. This is more than 100 miles longer than the usual route, per the official Iditarod website, with the Iditarod typically called a 1,000-mile race.
There are 33 mushers taking part this year and as of 6:50 a.m. local time on March 4, musher Jason Mackey and his 16 dogs were in first place, per the website. The number of mushers competing this year is tied with 2023 as an all-time low, per the Associated Press. The largest field ever was 96 mushers in 2008.
But this isn’t the first time the race has had to head further north.
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According to AP, this is the fourth time in the race’s 53-year history that the starting line has moved to Fairbanks due to a lack of snow near Anchorage — where the ceremonial start was held on March 1 — or elsewhere on the trail, which includes long stretches across frozen rivers.
A total of 19 checkpoints were changed and the ceremonial start was also pared down from its typical 11-mile path through Anchorage, per the WSJ, while one stretch of the course hadn’t seen any snowfall since late January.
“We had to re-engineer the entire race,” CEO Rob Urbach said, per the outlet. “But the Iditarod and challenges are synonymous.”
The change in course due to a lack of permafrost is because this poses a serious risk of injury to the dogs, even though they wear booties to protect their paws. (According to the WSJ and AP, the dogs competing — which includes at least a dozen per team — will go through a total of 100,000 booties during the race.)
“There’s all kinds of cascading decisions that had to happen after months of planning another route.” Urbach added, per WSJ. “It’s amazing how much people can rise to the occasion. In Alaska, it’s the biggest event … The Iditarod inspires so many people.”
The winning team is expected in Nome about 10 days after the start of the race, according to AP.
