Editor’s note: Richland Source is posting daily updates on Mansfield native Matthew Failor’s efforts at the 2024 Iditarod Sled Dog Race. Updates post daily at 8 a.m. and may be updated during the day.
ON THE IDITAROD TRAIL, Alaska — Matthew Failor was on a gold rush run in the early morning Alaskan darkness on Friday.
The 41-year-old Mansfield native was on his way to the town of Ruby on Friday, the first Iditarod checkpoint on the famous Yukon River.
Ruby also marks the “halfway” point in the 2024 Iditarod, coming 495 miles into the race with about 480 still to go.
Failor and his 15 dogs were running 12th at 7 a.m. among 38 mushers in a tightly-bunched field.
Just 32 miles separated him and leader Nic Petit, who began his own 24-hour mandatory break late Thursday night.
The Yukon is the longest river in Alaska, stretching 1,875 miles from its headwaters in the Yukon Territory of Canada to the Bering Sea.
With a population of 187, gold was first discovered in Ruby in 1907. A town was established there in 1911 when additional gold deposits were discovered on Long Creek, causing a rush of prospectors to the area.
(Below is a snapshot of Matthew Failor’s 2024 Iditarod performance thus far, courtesy of Iditarod.com Insider.)
Failor, who finished 8th at the 2023 Iditarod, ended his own 24-hour mandatory rest period on Thursday at 9:51 a.m. AKST and began the trek north.
He made the 73-mile journey to the Cripple checkpoint with just one rest stop along the way, arriving at 11:39 p.m.
Failor hurried through Cripple during the check-in process and was back on the trail at 11:53 p.m., beginning the 70-mile run to Ruby.
His 17th-Dog team, part of his Alaskan Husky Adventures business, continues to be among the fastest groups on the trail, consistently mushing between eight and nine miles per hour while running, according to analytics provided by Iditarod.com Insider.
When teams begin their western turn toward Nome, the 30-degree high daily temperatures they have experienced will be ending.
Mushers always maintain they expect any kind of weather during the nearly 1,000-mile run between Anchorage and Nome. Their huskies, they say, prefer to run in colder weather.
Mother Nature is about to provide.
The National Weather Service office in Fairbanks issued a special weather statement late Thursday afternoon, warning of bitter cold and strong winds in western Alaska in the next few days.
Low temps well below zero are expected by Saturday morning and will remain that way through Wednesday. Highs will be near zero to 10-below.
Winds of 10 to 30 miles per hour will drop wind chills to 40/50 below.
The winds would again provide a challenge for the mushers, especially once they reach the trail checkpoint at Unalakleet.
Situated on the coast of Norton Sound, just north of the Unalakleet River, this village is the largest community on the Iditarod Trail between Wasilla and Nome.
At that point, about 714 miles into the race, the trail enters the gateway to the Bering Sea. That’s when sudden storms and strong winds are most likely, often providing a dicey situation for mushers, especially traveling at night.
News nuggets from the trail
5-time Iditarod champ says time penalty right call
Five-time Iditarod champion Dallas Seavey said Thursday race officials made the right call when assessing him a two-hour time penalty for not properly gutting a moose he killed on the trail after it attacked his team.
The 36-year-old, third-generation musher admitted being a state of shock after killing a moose that attacked his team on a winding part of the trail on Monday, just about 12 hours into the race.
“I feel terrible. I had 20 minutes of being in absolute, or maybe more than that, I don’t know, an hour, I don’t know, of being in shock in complete fricking tunnel vision, whereas there’s like two choices and nothing else, right?
“(I) just made terrible shock decisions, I guess, one after the next. So no, I think they made the right call. The moose was not properly gutted. I can guarantee that. I feel like when I was there, I had reasons that made sense to me at the time. And now, I’m thinking, ‘Why didn’t I do this? Well, that’s stupid obvious.”
If a musher kills a big game animal like a moose, caribou or buffalo in defense of life or property during the race, rules require they gut the animal and report it to officials at the next checkpoint.
A statement from the Iditarod said it had “been determined that the animal was not sufficiently gutted by the musher.” By definition, gutting includes taking out the intestines and other internal organs, officials said.
Seavey was interviewed by Iditarod.com Insider during his mandatory 24-hour rest period at the checkpoint in Cripple. The penalty was assesses at the end of that period and Seavey was back on the trail late Thursday night.
Seavey said he was trying to care for a badly injured dog after the moose attack and simply wasn’t thinking straight. He said he gained no competitive advantage from his efforts.
“But that’s on us, I guess. We think we get to come out here to run sled dogs, but it’s oftentimes something else that ends up derailing you.
“I know maybe other people are able to do that more calmly. I’ve had a lot of crazy situations. I’ve never had something like that though, where your brain just shuts down, you know? So it is what it is.
“I think we’re gonna keep doing what we’ve been doing, which is take care of the dog team, mush down the trail. Try to do that well. As long as I have the ability to think, I think we’ll do all right,” Seavey said.
Seavey, who had been near the lead of the race, was running in 10th-place early Friday morning.
Nic Petit continues mushing to his own tune
Nic Petit continued to mush to the sound of his own drum in the 2024 Iditarod.
While other mushers chose to take their mandatory 24-hour break periods at earlier checkpoints in McGrath (311 miles into the race), Takotna (329), Ophir (352) and Cripple (425), the 42-year-old Petit raced all the way to Ruby — 495 miles from Sunday’s starting point.
Petit arrived in Ruby on Thursday night at 10:08 AKST. When his race resumes late Friday night, he will have just 480 miles left to traverse on the trail to Nome.
During a brief stop at the Cripple checkpoint, a tired Petit made it clear his strategy is not for everyone — or perhaps even him.
“Sleepy. (Almost) fell off the sled. Well, we’ve been there. (The dogs) were just doing their thing. They don’t know I’m falling asleep,” said Petit, who was born in France and raised in New Mexico before moving to Alaska.
He began sled dog racing in 2011.
Petit had placed his extra food at the Ruby checkpoint. If it had been in Cripple, he may have opted to take his break there.
He admitted race strategy is always changing.
“Yep. That’s why when people ask me if I got a plan, they should ask someone else.
“Wouldn’t be against (taking his 24 in Cripple). But there’s not the dog food to do it. I didn’t send out a 24 to every checkpoint on the Yukon,” he said.
