ON THE IDITAROD TRAIL, Alaska — Matthew Failor had a goal of finishing in the Top 5 at the 2024 Iditarod Sled Dog Race.
Nearly one quarter of the way through the 1,000-mile event across the nation’s largest, coldest state, the Mansfield native is flirting with that goal.
As of Tuesday at 7:30 a.m in Ohio, the 41-year-old Mansfield St. Peter’s graduate was fifth among the field of 38 mushers, traveling in the darkness between the checkpoints of Rohn and Nokolai.
He left Rohn on Monday night at 11:45 p.m. (Tuesday at 3:45 a.m. in Mansfield).
Failor was 8th in 2023, his first Top-10 finish in what’s been dubbed “The Last Great Race.”
Failor had traveled about 216 miles with 759 miles in front of him, still racing with all 16 of the dogs that he began the race with Sunday afternoon near his adopted home in Willow, Alaska.
Like all the teams, Failor and his 17th-Dog team representing his Alaskan Husky Adventures business alternates between running and resting along the trail. Some mushers choose to break and rest at checkpoints.
Failor, now an Iditarod veteran, usually chooses to break and rest his team at other locations along the trail where it’s quieter.
Positioning is still difficult to determine. The Iditarod features a staggered start with teams leaving every two minutes to reduce congestion on the trail and mushers decide where and when to take breaks.
“Mushers are running on a rest / run schedule that suits their team. Whether they are in first or 6th place doesn’t matter to most mushers. They have a plan to be in good position at White Mountain,” an Iditarod “insider” said Tuesday morning.
High temperatures in the area, which has a four-hour time difference from Ohio, could reach as high as 30 today.
Just before 8 a.m. in Mansfield (4 a.m. in Alaska), Failor stopped to rest his team 219 miles into the race, with the Nikolai checkpoint still ahead.
As of Tuesday morning, nearly all the teams were in the 75-mile stretch between Rohn and Nikolai.
Failor drew bib No. 31 and his race didn’t “start” Sunday until 58 minutes after the first team of Anna Bennington had departed. The times will be evened out during the 24-hour mandatory break each team must take during the race. Those breaks must be taken at a designated checkpoint.
The trail from Rohn to Nokolai is among the most challenging on the course with lengthy areas where there is no snow. Other areas are icy and windy over frozen riverbeds.
Insiders have said the eventual winner usually comes from among the first 12 teams into Nikolai, so it appears Failor was in good shape as of Tuesday morning.
He is surrounded by heavyweights, however, with past champions like Pete Kaiser, Dallas Seavey and Ryan Redington all still in the mix near the top.
According to one story about this section of the race:
“Once you reach Nikolai, you’re through a lot of the bad trail on the race (although anything can happen on down the line, and often does). Your team will be bedded down in the area surrounding the school and village public works building.
“Cold water is available in the village public works building, and maybe in the school or in the washateria in the municipal building. In some years hot water may also be available, but don’t count on it.
“A snack bar is sometimes set up in the school gym and there’s a small restaurant upstairs in the game room of the municipal building. You can catch a nap upstairs in the village public works building and dry your soaked gear in the boiler room.
“As a rule, if you’ve made it to Nikolai, you’re through the toughest trail and you — and more importantly your dogs — have managed to make the mental transition to the long-haul trail mode. Many veterans say if you can get to Nikolai with your team and your wits intact, you’ve got a good chance to finish the race.”
Scary moment involving a moose and a five-time Iditarod champion
Veteran musher Dallas Seavey, a five-time Iditarod champion, had a scary moment on the trail Monday between the Skwentna and Finger Lake checkpoints.
Seavey was on a winding, hilly portion of the trail when a moose came crashing down onto his team of 16 dogs.
A bit earlier, musher Jessie Holmes, a cast member of the National Geographic reality TV show about life in rural Alaska called “Life Below Zero,” had an encounter between those two checkpoints. But it’s not clear if it was the same moose.
“I had to punch a moose in the nose out there,” he told a camera crew, but didn’t offer other details.
Holmes was leading the race Tuesday morning. Seavey was 8th.
In the latter incident, Seavey told race officials he was forced to shoot the moose with a handgun in self-defense.
This came “after the moose became entangled with the dogs and the musher,” a statement from the race said.
“It fell on my sled, it was sprawled on the trail,” Seavey told an Iditarod Insider television crew. “I gutted it the best I could, but it was ugly.”
Gutting a big game animal quickly helps to preserve the meat, which will be given to communities in the area near where the incident took place.
Seavey encountered the moose Monday just before 2 a.m., 14 miles outside the race checkpoint in Skwentna, enroute to the next checkpoint 50 miles away in Finger Lake.
Seavey arrived in Finger Lake later, where he dropped a dog that was injured in the moose encounter. The dog was flown to Anchorage, where it was being evaluated by a veterinarian.
Alaska State troopers were informed of the dead moose. Race officials said every effort was being made to salvage the meat.
The incident slowed Seavey, but he recovered and was racing among the leaders in the 38-team field by early Tuesday morning between the checkpoints of Rohn and Nikolai.
