Editor’s note: Richland Source is posting daily updates on Mansfield native Matthew Failor’s efforts at the 2025 Iditarod Sled Dog Race, which began March 3. Stories post daily at 7 a.m. and are updated during the day on the Richland Source Facebook page. This exclusive coverage is made possible through the support of St. Peter’s School and is done with the cooperation of Iditarod.com Insider.
ON THE IDITAROD TRAIL, Alaska — Forgive Matthew Failor if he wishes to never again mush along the Yukon River in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.
Never is perhaps too strong a word.
Then again, maybe not. At least not anytime soon.
The Mansfield native as of early Wednesday morning was nearing the end of a 329-mile out-and-back, looping trail in the 2025 version of “The Last Great Race,” approaching the Kaltag 2 checkpoint.
At 6:45 a.m. ET, Failor was 13 miles from the checkpoint, moving at nearly nine miles per hour. He was 22 miles behind current 10th-place musher Nicolas Petit, who was resting his team nine miles past Kaltag.
Failor, a St. Peter’s High School graduate, continued to run in 12th place on a course that has seen seven of the 33 teams leave the race. He still had 10 of the 16 dogs in harness from his Alaskan Husky Adventures 17th-Dog Team he began the race with in Fairbanks more than eight days ago.
A year ago, nine of the 38 teams that began the race scratched before the finish.
Kaltag, population 158, is the same small village on the west bank of the river that Failor left late Saturday to begin the journey south to Eagle Island, Grayling, Anvik and Shageluk before turning north to repeat the same journey north.
From a musher’s standpoint, it’s been a few days of deja vu all over again.
The looping route was created by the Iditarod Trail Committee when it made the decision to revised the race map this year due to a lack of snow in southeast Alaska. It moved the restart on March 3 to Fairbanks and created the longest race in the event’s history at 1,128 miles to Nome.
Iditarod.com Insider commentator Bruce Lee, an Iditarod finisher who has been involved in the race for more than two decades, said running hundreds of miles on the river makes the race seem longer than usual.
Lee said a traditional route, either north or south, is broken into ecosystems and cultural changes. The river is flat and doesn’t offer the elevation changes found on the traditional routes.
Making it tougher still is the trail from Kaltag to Shageluk and back has been difficult to navigate.
At Eagle Island, veteran musher Paige Drobny, who was mushing in third place Wednesday morning, said the trail from Kaltag to Eagle Island was easily one of the 10 worst trails she’s ever traveled, according to Iditarod.com Insider.
The section was slushy with overflow when the trail breakers went through on snow machine. They churned up the trail and then it froze into an icy rough runway. Then Mother Nature added her special touch with heavy snow and winds creating drifting and whiteout conditions, making for very slow trail, Iditarod.com Insider reported.
Failor will be thrilled to see the trail head west from Kaltag toward Nome, a 343-mile journey that his team covered in about three days in 2024.
The first stop after Kaltag will be Unalakleet, the site Iditarod officials and mushers consider the “gateway to the Bering Sea.”
It’s also the checkpoint mushers have traditionally enjoyed pizza from the Peace on Earth pizza shop/restaurant in the village of 882 people, orders placed by team fans from around the world.
The pizzas come with well wishes from family and friends following their favorite mushers on the trail.
Failor usually takes one of his pizzas in his sled for workers at the next checkpoint in Shaktoolik, 40 miles further down the trail.
Leading mushers headed to Shaktoolik
It seems clear the Iditarod will have a first-time winner in 2025.
None of top three mushers as of Wednesday morning — Jesse Holmes, Matt Hall and Page Drobney — have ever won the event. But all have come close.
Holmes has finished third, fifth and third the last three years. Hall was second last year and was fourth in 2023. Drobney was fifth a year ago and was seventh in 2020 and 2019.
All three veteran mushers were within 16 miles of one another as of Wednesday morning. The three have been jockeying for first place and leapfrogging each other on the trail.
Holmes and his 11-dog team pulled in first Tuesday night to the Unalakleet checkpoint, with less than a quarter of the trail left in the Iditarod, according to Alaska Public Media.
“Enjoying myself,” Holmes said during a quick stop before moving on. “May as well be caught up in the moment, not what’s two days down the line.”
Alaskan Husky Adventures teammate in 20th place
Rookie musher Dane Baker, a handler who works for Failor’s kennel in Willow, Alaska, was mushing along in 19th place on Wednesday morning.
Baker, racing a “puppy team” of younger dogs from the kennel, had 11 dogs in harness as he rested his team south of Eagle Island, 676 miles into the race.
Holmes wins the Ryan Air Gold Coast Award
Holmes, a native of Odenville, Ala., was the first musher to reach the Unalakleet checkpoint Tuesday at 7:03 p.m. (AKDT) with 11 dogs, making him the recipient of the Ryan Air Gold Coast Award.
This award was first presented in 1987 and will be presented this year by Wade Ryan of Ryan Air. Sponsored by Ryan Air since 2019, the award consists of one ounce of gold nuggets (valued over $1,500) from the Bering Straits region, as well as a beautiful wood-carved loon
The company was founded in Unalakleet and its core business is serving the people who live along the Bering Sea coast and throughout western Alaska. Mushing has long been a way of life for the Ryan family.
The company’s founder drove mail by dog team between Unalakleet and Kaltag in the early 1900s and other Ryan family members also mushed dogs in the territorial guard with Muktuk Marston.
The Ryan Air Gold Coast Award will be presented again to Holmes on March 17 at the finisher’s banquet in Nome.
Our exclusive local coverage of Matthew Failor in the 2025 Iditarod is made possible with the cooperation of the Iditarod Trail Committee. To learn more about the non-profit organization, visit www.iditarod.com. You can also learn how to become an Iditarod Insider and access all of the live streams, GPS tracking system and video interviews with Failor and other mushers.
