The latest standings I've seen, 12:25 PM, shows 29 teams into Nome and 31 still on the trail.  The current Red Lantern is Donald Smidt in Eagle Island with his entire team of sixteen dogs.  Sigrid Ekran is Rookie of the Year at 21st place.  She and ten dogs made it to the finish in 10 days 13 hours 21 minutes 7 seconds.  For the first twenty years of the Iditarod, that would have been fast enough to win the race.  This year the top ten teams finished in less than ten days.

This photo by Bob Hallinen of the Anchorage Daily News shows current Champion Lance Mackey with Zorro, who had to be dropped at White Mountain when he developed pneumonia.   There's a strong bond between man and dog there.  Zorro is eight years old and is the father of seven out of the eight dogs who finished in Nome Tuesday.  Excited at winning the championship and the much-needed new truck that is part of the prize, Lance was nevertheless saddened and worried by Zorro's illness.

All just about anyone knew for several days was that Eric Rogers had left the Ophir checkpoint at 11 PM Saturday with fifteen dogs to go the ninety miles to the ghost town of Iditarod.  Today, race officials and some race insiders along the trail released the information that I quoted from the Anchorage Daily News in my earlier entry.  Then, hoping for more details about what had happened to Eric, I checked his website.

I found much more than I had hoped for.  There is an audio file of a phone call in which Eric gives a report on his current situation and describes his experiences over the past three days.  I've transcribed a lot of it and will give you the edited highlights.

He was having the same sorts of problems everyone had around Rainy Pass.  Several falls left him bruised and taking ibuprofen.  Coming out of McGrath, he caught some straw, a chunk broken off a bale that he'd left there, under his brake.  It left him with no brake and no drag.  In the fall that resulted from that he, "drug [his] shoulder into a protruding piece of ice."  More bruises, and he added acetaminophen to the ibuprofen, and that was before things got really rough for him.

Part of his problem was that he has a better team this year than last year.  They were cruising about four miles an hour faster this year, and the trail was rougher so he was crashing more often, and the crashes were hurting more.  He reported, "seven major crashes, ...last 3 major incidents that took me off the trail."

Out of Ophir, "they said it was going to be gnarly, and it was.  Got lost a couple of times, navigating from missing stake to missing stake, no snow through some of the tundra."

"...we're coming down... we crossed a creek bed with overflow [That's water that is flowing out over the ice on a frozen stream.]  and the dogs balked.  I had to get out and walk my Northern Outfitters [$200.00 boots rated to -60°F]  through the overflow and my feet got wet.  They advertise that you can wring out the liners and then put them back on and walk 'em dry.  It didn't work."

This happened about 1 AM Sunday.  Later on, about 6 AM, over some rough trail blown free of snow he was riding,

"...with my toes out on the runners and my heels on the drag so I can kinda control the team just by changing weight and the way I balance.  My right toe caught a tussock, rotated the foot, overextended it to the right, flipped it around underneath, overextended the ankle again, drug it underneath and broke the left runner."

He used the patch kit he was carrying, and patched the runner.

"I said, 'Golly darn that hurts.' [Yeah, right, I'll bet that's not quite what he said. ]  He was trying to get on down the trail when Ellen Halvorson caught up with him.  They camped there until about noon before getting back in motion.

"At that point I'm feeling that my foot's in trouble.  I stopped and put some handwarmers in [the boots].   My big toe had frozen from the overflow I'd crossed about 1 AM -- just the tip of it, mild to moderate frostbite they said, no big deal, but it's a little painful."

"So we went down the trail about 8 miles, saw Don's Cabin, went past that **laughs** It's a hole in the wall.  Made it about another mile and a half, caught another tussock the same way, rotated the foot back almost the same way, said ow again, and broke the right runner on the sled and the patch on the left runner, so now I've got a sled with both runners broke and my foot's all tore up."

"It took me two hours to get from there back to Don's Cabin.  I kinda jury-rigged it, tied the runners from the foot pegs to the stanchions, tried to sit in the seat and only crashed three times on the way to Don's.

That was about 3 PM on Sunday.  The trail sweeps on snowmachines found him there about five on Monday.  One of them was a physician's assistant.  She examined him and treated him as much as she could and they eventually moved him to a location where a plane could land to airlift him out.  He was calling from Unalakleet.  His dogs are fine.  In response to a question about trying again next year, he said if he can find a way to pay the mortgage he will give it another try.  He said, "I'm not mentally trashed about this."

You can hear the whole story here:
http://www.rnorthbounddogs.com/Audio/EricRogers_031307.mp3

Last night in Nome when someone told Lance Mackey that the governor wanted to speak to him, he said, "You're kidding me."  When Governor Sarah Palin finally got Lance on the phone, she told him that he is, "a huge Alaska hero."  There are a lot of us today in agreement with her on that.

I can't remember another Iditarod that has held this much excitement for me, and Greyfox said the same thing last night.  I suppose part of it is that Lance Mackey is an easy person to empathize and identify with.  As Greyfox put it, he has that quintessentially Alaskan combination of cockiness, unpretentiousness, strength and humility.  I guess it's his wife's good luck that the man doesn't realize how good looking he is.  He has even referred to himself as "ugly" but I've gotta disagree.

That's Larry and Lippy there, celebrating their second major victory in about a month's time.  At the Yukon Quest, Lance referred to the dogs he has this year as a "once-in-a-lifetime team."

I wished I could have been there in Nome yesterday, but the best I can do is quote some people who were there.  Someone asked him in Nome if he would try it again.

"Yeah, I'd love to come back and repeat that performance, but I'm really realistic here. Once in a lifetime is probably a rare opportunity," he said while one of his dogs licked frost off his goatee.

He acknowledged that his dogs were a one-of-a-kind team -- and that next year they will be older.

"I owe it to them. I think I'm smart enough to know when enough is enough, to back off a little bit. They're in their prime, they proved that. So I think it's time for a little R&R," he said.

But Tuesday night, the down-to-earth musher planned a little whiskey for his own rest and relaxation and to celebrate the feat with his family. Both his father, Dick, and half brother, Rick, are past Iditarod champions.

"This is a damn dream that I've been living, you know, dreaming about since I was a little, little boy when my Dad won this race," said Lance Mackey, 36.

. . .

About a thousand fans braved subzero temperature to cheer Mackey to the finish. He lived the moment, slapping high-fives with fans as his dogs led him down the last block, sometimes jumping off the sled and running with them until his family mobbed him at the end.

"Dreams do come true, Mama, they do," Mackey said, fighting back tears.

"This is my passion," he said, adding he was proud to follow in his father's footsteps and joked about being thankful his father was a musher and not a lawyer.

"It's our lifestyle, it's something we breathe, eat and sleep," he said of the Mackey family's love of mushing. "This is what we do."

On Feb. 20, Mackey won his third consecutive Yukon Quest, starting in Whitehorse, Yukon and finishing in Fairbanks.

With only 10 days rest, Mackey took most of his 16 dogs from the Yukon Quest to Willow for the start of the Iditarod. In the two races, the dog team covered a distance equivalent to mushing from Boston to Salt Lake City.

Mackey's father, Dick, and brother, Rick, both won the race wearing bib No. 13, and each did so in the sixth time they ran the Iditarod. Lance Mackey camped out for days at the Iditarod headquarters last June to be the first person to sign up for this year's race, enabling him to select the No. 13 bib.

"I didn't know exactly what this bib was going to do for me, but what an honor," said Mackey. "This is the most cherished piece of memorabilia I'll ever own."

Many mushers have long believed it would not be possible to win both races in the same year with the same dogs because the animals would need more time to recover from one grueling race before starting another. But Mackey said he wasn't pushed much in the Yukon Quest, and it served as a good mental and physical training run for the dogs.

"I kept saying I want to be the one to prove that wrong. For those who don't believe it can be done, I thrive on underestimation. Don't ever doubt that I can't do something. I lived through cancer," he said. Mackey was diagnosed with neck cancer in 2001 and underwent surgery and radiation. He had the cancerous tumor removed from his neck and is now considered cancer free.

Canadian Hans Gatt, 49, a three-time Quest winner who was also runner-up to Mackey twice in that race, said Mackey's team was the best-looking on the Iditarod trail this year. Instead of tiring, his team recovered faster than any of the others, and maintained their speed.

"I can't run my dogs like that," Gatt said Tuesday, almost 100 miles back on the trail. "He obviously has figured out something we have not figured out yet."

Sled dog racing is a sport where mushers perform more for glory than big-time payouts, having to rely heavily on sponsorships to continue feeding their dogs.

For winning the world's longest sled-dog race, Mackey will pocket $69,000 and be handed the keys to a $41,000 pickup.

Mackey had been thinking about that truck along the trail and for good reason. One year, when he was trying to get to the start of the Quest, he was fined $500 for missing a meeting for mushers. The reason he was late was that the two trucks he was driving broke down. One lost an engine and the transmission went out in the other.

Just before this year's race, he splurged on a used, 14-year-old pickup.

Thrusting both arms high in the air, he yelled out an elongated, "Yeah! Oh, the truck!"

adn.com

Last time I looked at the standings, nine teams had finished:

1. Mackey 9 days 5 hours 8 minutes 41 seconds
2. Gebhardt 9:7:28:12
3. Steer 9:12:46:7  People keep referring to Zack Steer as the surprise of this year's Iditarod.  This is just the fourth Iditarod he started and the third he has finished.  He came in 22nd in 1998, and 14th in 2000.  In 2004, he ran his first Yukon Quest and finished in second place, earning Quest Rookie of the Year.  In 2005 he ran the Iditarod again and scratched at Ophir.  This year he got out in front at the start and either led or chased hard behind the leaders all the way.
4. Martin Buser 9:13:7:4
5. Jeff King 9:15:5:17
6. Ed Iten 9:16:34:10
7. Ken Anderson 9:18:28:48
8. John Baker 9:18:36:22
9. Mitch Seavey 9:19:30:23

Lots of fast teams out there this year, and several very close finishes.

Craid Medred wrote today about Eric Rogers, "600 miles back and struggling."

As a smiling Lance Mackey rolled toward victory in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race on Tuesday, an Eagle River musher far back down the trail was being helped to reach a spot where an airplane could land just so he could quit.

There was no report on his mood.

What exactly happened to 59-year-old Eric Rogers and his team was unclear, but by Tuesday afternoon they had been gone for more than two days from the Ophir checkpoint without reaching the Iditarod checkpoint 90 miles down the trail.

By Tuesday evening, Iditarod executive director Stan Hooley was able to report trail sweeps on snowmobiles had Rogers safely with them, but further details were sketchy.

Eric Rogers was out of Ophir for 65 hours.

The run between the two checkpoints usually takes 12 to 20 hours.

Concerns grew because the 155 miles of Iditarod Trail across the Innoko River country from Takotna, population 50, to Shageluk, population 139, crosses some of the wildest country left on the continent.

Most of the time, there isn't even a trail there. Only for a few weeks in odd-numbers years, when the Iditarod traces its southern route for 1,100 miles from Anchorage to Nome, is a trail put in.

Often it is drifted in with snow and impossible to find by the time the first musher crosses the race's finish line. This year, with little snow in the area, that wasn't a problem. But the rough trail was smashing sleds and making life tough for the trail sweeps, who follow the Iditarod on snowmobiles to make sure all the dogs and drivers make it through safely.

There were unconfirmed reports the sweeps found a frostbitten Rogers and a sled with two broken runners at Don's Cabin, a shelter about halfway between Ophir and Iditarod on Tuesday. Rogers was running in last place, well back of any other musher.

"I think part of that is accurate,'' Hooley said when reached on his cellphone as he waited for Mackey to cross the finish line in Nome. "The last thing I heard, he was going to scratch. I knew he was getting an escort.''

"The only thing that (race manager) Mark Nordman told me is that the trail sweeps met him at Don's Cabin, and they were going to take him to a place where a plane could land,'' [Jan] Newton [in Takotna] said. "Evidently, there was nothing too seriously wrong with him.''

adn.com

At about 8:12 PM, give or take a minute or a few, Lance Mackey's team pulled under the burled arch in Nome.  This makes him the first musher ever to win both the Yukon Quest and the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in the same year.  It was also a record-setting time in the Quest and his third Quest championship in a row.

I'm unsure of the exact time, because the webcam was so busy that it kept timing out for me and when I finally got it to refresh that time, he was under the arch and the crowd was moving in that direction.

UPDATE:

They arrived at the arch at 20:08:41 on 3/13/07.  Their time was 9 days 5 hours 8 minutes and 41 seconds.

Eric Rogers finally made it into the Iditarod check point at 5 PM today, after 65 hours on the trail from Ophir.  He scratched there.  Ellen Halverson is the current Red Lantern, out of Shageluk with 12 dogs.

Mackey paused only five minutes in the Safety checkpoint and left there at 4:44 Alaska Daylight time.  He could be in Nome as early as 6:15 or maybe as late as 7:30 or so if everything runs okay.  Alaska time is one hour earlier than the West Coast, four hours earlier than East Coast.

  The Front Street webcam is here.

Lance Mackey was first through Elim last night and first through White Mountain this morning.  His lead is substantial, and barring some mishap to him or his team, he'll be the winner.  There is just one more checkpoint, at Safety, before his team reaches Nome.  It's 55 miles from White Mountain to Safety, and 22 miles from Safety to Nome.  Don Bowers, who wrote the official trail notes on iditarod.com, estimates travel time from White Mountain to Nome at seven to eleven hours, not counting any rest taken in Safety.

Of the White Mountain to Safety run, Bowers says:

His summary of the Safety to Nome stretch is:

If Lance wins, he will be the first musher ever to win both the Yukon Quest and the Iditarod in the same year.  I think it is significant that he has run both races with the same dogs.  Thirteen of them made the Quest finish in Fairbanks last month and those same thirteen were with him until yesterday, when he dropped one in Koyuk and another in Elim.  He dropped two more in White Mountain today, leaving him with nine dogs now.  They left there at 9:38, so by Don Bowers's estimate, he should be in Nome sometime after 4 PM today.

Below is GCI's webcam image of the burled arch on Front Street in Nome as it appeared when you loaded this page.  The cam went offline during last year's race.  In January, GCI's system manager for Nome, Gary Samuelson, assured me he would work on getting it fixed before this year's finish.  It has been up and running for about three days now.  Thanks, Gary.  You can click this image for a bigger one that refreshes every minute.

I've been entertained watching this refresh even though there are no crowds along the fence right now, and not a musher in sight.  I have been watching a couple standing in the lower left corner, a man in a beige parka and a woman in a white jacket with a cell phone.  I'm sure she is calling people and telling them to check her out on the webcam.  I've seen her apparently dialing and/or disconnecting several calls, waving, posing and posturing as she looks up at the camera.  It's a hoot!

Paul Gebhardt entered White Mountain at 4:16 with ten dogs.  Everyone takes 8 hours there, so he'll be leaving about a quarter past noon.  Martin Buser entered White Mountain with ten dogs at 9:45.  Next was Zack Steer at 10:05 with eleven dogs.  Jeff King and his eleven were less than two hours behind Zack leaving Elim.  Ed Iten, in sixth position, dropped a dog in Elim, down to 13, and left there about two and a half hours behind Jeff King.

Robert Sorlie of Team Norway, who came into this race confident of another win, is at twelfth position, out of Koyuk with ten dogs at 7:38.

Sigrid Ekran is still looking good for Rookie of the Year.  She was out of Shaktoolik at 7:00 with ten dogs in twenty-first position.  Behind her the next rookie on the trail is Silvia Willis who entered Shaktoolik in 28th position with 11 dogs, eighteen minutes after Sigrid left there.

Bryan Mills and his team of twelve dogs were out of Eagle Island, the checkpoint with the igloo outhouse I mentioned in last night's post, at 3:36 this morning.

At last report, 10:15 AM, the current Red Lantern, Eric Rogers, had been out of Ophir on the trail to Iditarod for fifty-nine and a quarter hours.  Don Bowers says about that run:

This is one of the emptiest legs on the entire race, a full 90 miles of lonely country and endless trail.   ...miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles.

You should plan for 12 to 18 hours, including a good several-hour rest somewhere along the way. Many drivers stop at Don’s Cabin, 36 miles out of Ophir. It’s a ramshackle plywood hut but it’s sheltered in the trees and has a stove. Another good camping spot is the tree line at the Windy Creek crossing, 10 miles past Don’s Cabin, or the Dishna River, a couple of miles past Windy Creek.

If you don't count Rogers (for I have a strong feeling he's not going to make it to Nome this time), there are sixty teams still in the race.

---

Personal stuff:

WYRMFaery burned herself this morning and thought of me.  She asked me how my hand is healing.  I had to stop and think about that, then I remembered that I had posted about a serious 3rd degree burn a while back.  That one is now just another scar on the back of my hand, and there are currently only two unhealed second-degree burns on my wrist from my most recent episode of sensorimotor deficits a week or two ago.  I'm doing great.  I've managed to keep the fire burning all winter so far, so that my tropical houseplants are still alive, except for the ones the cats have dug up, knocked over, or eaten.  Don't worry, the ones they like are non-toxic.

UPDATED -- look below for some typical trail humor.

While I cooked my breakfast today, I was trying to decide whether to start this entry with one of the comments I received last night, or end with it.  You can see what my decision was.  The comment begins with an out-of-context quote from Lance Mackey, which I'd gotten from adn.com.  He was talking about the extraordinarily rough trail conditions this year and the "smart-ass attitude" with which he felt he needed to face them:

Posted 3/11/2007 8:25 PM by wixer

One of the things that I don't consider "worth doing" is trying to sway the attitude of anyone who has her mind made up about anything, so all I'm doing here is expressing my view.  In one very limited sense, which I suppose is the same sense she means, I agree.  It would not be worth what I'd have to go through personally to attempt the race to Nome.  The only way I could have a chance would be to do it by the Scdoris method, bringing the competition down to my own level.  That, I think, would diminish the race for everyone and rob it of some of its value and usefulness.

The way I see the value and usefulness of the Iditarod is similar to that of space exploration, another of mankind's strivings that many people don't find worth doing.  We can't know yet just when we might need another planetary home, but even if we never need one, we know that space exploration programs have already expanded scientific knowledge and spurred invention and innovation that have value and use to us here and now.

Dee Dee Jonrowe has said that when she started running the Iditarod in 1980 the legendary Shishmaref Cannonball, the late Herbie Nayokpuk, was using ivory runners on a bent-wood sled.  To get an idea of what has been developing in just the area of one man's sled design, read Articulating on Innovation, about Jeff King.

The sleds may be the least important of the Iditarod's contributions to our lives.  My best buddy Koji eats a commercial dog food formula that has been tested by Iditarod teams and improved for the dogs' health.  Veterinarians from all over the country volunteer to work in the checkpoints, not simply for humanitarian reasons.  It is good experience.  They learn there and have opportunities to use skills not needed in everyday practice.  The vet who cares for our family's animals values the Iditarod enough to sponsor Martin Buser's team.

Every time I think about Martin Buser, I think about his rapport with dogs.  Interspecies communication and cooperation are a factor in all the teams, and probably the most important factor among the greatest teams.  I have heard enough rookie stories about how the Iditarod inspired them to start working with dogs that I understand the race's importance in that area.  If the vicarious excitement sparks an interest in only one person that leads to that person making an empathic / telepathic bond with even just one dog, that makes the Iditarod worth doing in my estimation.

Lance Mackey was first into Koyuk this morning at 9:05, down to the same core team of thirteen that pulled him to his Yukon Quest championship last month.  Out of Shaktoolik at 2:41, he had been three and a half hours ahead of Martin Buser.  Martin and eleven dogs left Shaktoolik nine minutes of Paul Gebhardt and his team of ten.  About an hour and a half after Gebhardt, Zack Steer left Shaktoolik with twelve dogs.  Jeff King was almost an hour behind Steer, with twelve.

In Unalakleet yesterday, the ADN interviewed several of the front runners.  It reported that for the first team into Nome:

Lance's truck is infamous.  It has won at least one ugly truck contest, and on one occasion someone unhitched a trailer, stole the truck, but changed his mind and abandoned it after less than a block.  You gotta know that Lance Mackey considers the Iditarod worth not only doing, but doing WELL.  Greyfox has been rooting for Lance all the way this year.  Now I have started rooting for him, too, since I understand that he doesn't have a sentimental attachment to that ugly old truck.  Jeff King and Martin Buser have each won four of those new Dodge Rams.  Neither of them needs another.  Nobody needs a new truck any worse than Lance does.  Go Lance!

Sigrid Ekran dropped a dog in Kaltag last night, leaving there in seventeenth position at ten minutes to midnight with eleven.  It looks as if she currently has the best shot at Rookie of the Year.  The closest rookie to her now is still Silvia Willis, out of Kaltag at 4:35 this morning in 24th position with twelve dogs.

Ms. Ekran grew up in Norway, is in her mid-twenties, has a degree in wildlife biology, and is currently in a Masters program in Northern studies at UAFairbanks.  In previous Iditarods, she did support work for Team Norway.  This winter she lived in Kotzebue and trained with Inupiat musher Louis Nelson, Sr.

If anyone has gotten pictures of her on the trail, I haven't seen them.  I have heard and read descriptions of the two black eyes she received when she hit a tree and broke her nose early in the race.  Needless to say, she apparently thinks the Iditarod is worth doing.

Some of us need challenge and drama in our lives.  I shudder to think what sorts of outlets the more testosterone-poisoned men of the Iditarod might find for their competitive urges and their excess energies if they weren't spending the whole year nurturing and training dogs for this race.  I couldn't suppress the big grin on my face right now if I wanted to.  I always grin or chortle at the thought of men such as Rick Swenson, the Iditarod's only five-time champion and a male chauvinist pig of legendary proportions.

In the mid-1980s, when first Libby Riddles won one Idiarod and then Susan Butcher won four out of the next five, Rick Swensen was livid, bitter, and venomous.  To gauge by his comments, it sorta spoiled the whole endeavor for him.  But he kept trying.  Old Rick (shown in a 2006 shot from ADN) left Kaltag at 8:16 this morning in 29th position with ten dogs.  Last year, he had to scratch for the first time in his career, because his team didn't want to run. 

I wonder if he has mellowed any, or gained any respect for women as competitors.  I wonder how much attention he's paying to the standings.  I wonder if he knows that there are four women ahead of him and that two of them are rookies.  The Iditarod is one of few major sports events where women and bitches compete with men and dogs as equals.  That, for me, would make it worth doing (worth their doing, not me 'cause I'm not up to it) even if the race didn't have so much else going for it.

Latest standings:
Lance Mackey rested three hours in Koyuk and left with his lucky thirteen at 12:13 PM.

Paul Gebhardt passed Martin Buser on the trail from Shaktoolik, spent nine minutes in Koyuk, leaving with ten dogs at 12:36.

Martin Buser got into Koyuk at 1:30 PM with eleven dogs and was still there at last report (1:37 ADT).

Zack Steer and Jeff King are still on the trail from Shaktoolik.  Ed Iten, Ken Anderson, and Mitch Seavey are currently in Shaktoolik. 

Karen Ramstead became this year's twentieth musher to scratch, yesterday afternoon at Grayling. 

Bryan Mills (with a broken tibia) dropped two dogs in Grayling.  He left there at 9:15 with twelve dogs in 45th position. 

Rookies Heather Siirtola and Donald Smidt are still fighting it out, or hanging in there, for the Red Lantern.  She left Ophir at 6:12 yesterday morning with an undisclosed number of dogs, and he left eighteen minutes later with his full team of sixteen.  Doing the math, I see that they've been out there between Ophir and Iditarod for almost 32 hours.  I wonder if they're having fun.  I hope they're okay.

UPDATE
about 2 hours after original post

Here's another story from ADN that I can't resist sharing.  This part of it is about Keith Larson, a 24-year-old trail volunteer from Boise, Idaho, who has been assigned to the Eagle Island checkpoint on the Yukon River.  While the checkpoint volunteers were making preparations before the first mushers got that far --

Once mushers began pulling in, the work earned instant appreciation for the volunteers.  The article, in part, is focused on the dry and warped humor of some of the people who run this race.

There's enough going on with the Iditarod to justify another update, and even if there weren't, I'd want to share some of the things that were in today's Anchorage Daily News.  For my race updates, cabelasiditarod.com gives me up-to-the-minute standings, refreshing automatically in the background while I'm doing other stuff here or playing solitaire.  The color commentary comes from various sources including the newspaper's website, mushers' personal websites, the Alaska Public Radio Network, and the neighborhood grapevine.

Ed Iten (right, photo from ADN) is running his ninth Iditarod this year.  His best finish was second place in 2005.
 He's doing pretty well this year, now out of Kaltag in sixth position with fifteen dogs.

That was one of the musher quotes I just had to share with you.  Lance Mackey has moved into second position since Martin Buser had to remove one of his leaders after he was injured in a dogfight.  Lance said about what it takes to compete when the weather and trail are the way they've been this year:

King, Mackey, Buser and Gebhardt are all in Unalakleet now, with 12, 14, 12 and 11 dogs, respectively.  The front 44 teams have all taken both of their mandatory layovers.  Siirtola and Smidt are still in contention for the Red Lantern, and right now Sigrid Ekran in 18th position in Kaltag with 11 dogs is looking like the Rookie of the Year.

More tomorrow.

I wish I could remember all the blogrings I've said (to myself or others) I'd join if I didn't already belong to the legal limit.  I think I could now join them all.  I've been browsing blogrings and joining a bunch of them that appear to be places where I will fit in.  I even created a new one for the  dually-diagnosed.  If you are an addict with a psychiatric disorder (like me and nearly everyone I know--whether they know it, or want to admit it, or not) join me at Double Trouble in Recovery.

C'mon, please... if I ever told you I'd join your ring if Xanga raised the limit or if I could decide which one of my current rings to drop, or if you just belong to or know of one where I might fit, let me know.

Check out my blogrings list and see the ones I belong to now.

Jeff King with 13 dogs took over the lead from Martin Buser with 12, after Buser's lead dog Marlin was injured in a fight and airlifted home.  King was thirteen minutes ahead of Buser out of Kaltag this morning.  Paul Gebhardt with 11 dogs and Lance Mackey with 14 were five minutes apart out of Kaltag, about an hour and a half behind the leaders.

Ken Anderson (11 dogs), Zack Steer (12), and Ed Iten (15), entered Kaltag within fifteen minutes of each other, about five hours behind Gebhardt and Mackey.

Everyone still in the race has completed the mandatory 24-hour layover, and all but three of those who have reached the Yukon River have completed the 8-hour mandatory river rest.  Jon Korta in 34th position with 13 dogs has been resting in Grayling for five hours, and back in Shageluk Cindy Gallea in 44th position with 13 dogs and Dallas Seavey, who still has his original team of sixteen in 45th position, appear to be taking their eights there.

Back at the other end of the race, a pack of twelve teams, all with rookie mushers except for Kelly Williams in 54th position with sixteen dogs and Eric Rogers in 60th with fifteen, are out of Ophir on the way to the ghost town of Iditarod.  Heather Siirtola and Donald Smidt are currently in contention for the Red Lantern, close together over five hours behind their nearest competitor.  Smidt still has all sixteen of his dogs, and nobody seems to know how many dogs Siirtola is running now.  Maybe that oversight will be corrected when she reaches the next checkpoint.

Under the heading of, "If you thought we were rid of her, think again:"  Rachael Scdoris is hitching a ride this year with a camera crew from the Discovery Channel.  The ADN story held a few hints of possible interpersonal conflicts which should come as no surprise to anyone who has been around the race the last few years:

There was even the implied threat that she may attempt to follow the trail on a sled again (she never was and cannot be a competitor) when she said that she wasn't in the race this year so she can concentrate on college.

Nineteen teams have scratched from this year's tough trail and rough weather, but it's not a record.  In 1980, twenty-five teams scratched.  What with injuries to mushers, diarrhea among some of the dogs, other dogs in heat and getting into fights, this year's race could still beat that record.  I'll be here to let you know what happens next.