This is an article about the 5 women mushers in the current Iditarod.
alaska ping
Lots of whiskey?
Huskies are so darned beautiful. And I cannot imagine a team of dogs so faithful that they’d trek 1k miles with you. (They evidently revolted on the Frenchman, but who wouldn’t?) (Admission, I’m a Cajun frog.)
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Women mushers have done well this year - 3 finished in the top 7, 5 in top 20!
FINISHED:
3 - Jessie Royer
4 - Aliy Zirkle
7 - Paige Drobny
16 - Kristy Berington
17 - Anna Berington
STILL RACING:
32 - Jessica Klejka: out of White Mountain today, on her way to Safety (55 mile run). From Safety, it’s 22 miles to the finish at Nome
33 - Sarah Stokey - on her way to White Mountain as of yesterday
35 - Alison Lifka: out of Koyuk today. She’s still got a ways to go with a 48 mile run to Elim, 46 miles to White Mountain, then 55 to Safety & 22 to Nome.
36 - Kristin Bacon: also out of Koyuk today.
37 - Anja Radano - on the way to Elim
38 - Blair Braverman - in to Koyuk today
39 - Victoria Hardwick - in to Koyuk today
41 - Cindy Gallea - in to Koyuk today. Cindy is the “Red Lantern” .... last musher in the field still racing.
A few minutes ago I opened a package from Alaska. A friend just
moved to a village in the Alaskan interior. The village is an Iditarod checkpoint. They sent me an official Iditarod Volunteer hat and a race used dog bootie.
BTW - its 1049 miles vs 1000. officially and over 1100 in reality.
Ceremonial start in Anchorage and official start in Wasilla - I hear it changed to Willow some time after I left.
We used to fly out to the checkpoints and follow the trail with mushers down below.
Cindy said this was her last Iditarod ..... a lot of folks think it may not be as long as she has dogs or access to a team. Anyway, sad news that she had to scratch & SO close to Nome (22 miles), but the dogs are always priority #1:
Iditarod Trail Committee
2 mins ·
We are reporting this news: Cindy Gallea scratches at Safety checkpoint
Anchorage, Alaska –– Veteran Iditarod musher Cindy Gallea (bib #53) of Wykoff, Minn., scratched at 12:00 a.m. this morning at the Safety checkpoint.
Gallea made the decision to scratch in the best interest of her race team, which is her No. 1 priority.
Gallea had seven dogs in harness at the time she made the decision to scratch.