03/11/2025
Another great update on the front pack 🐾❄️
Iditarod Update March 11 at 7:15 am Alaska Time
The race is heating up! 🔥🐾
Matt Hall and Jessie Holmes are both through Kaltag. Matt, though currently in the lead, will need to rest soon. He’ll stop likely at tripod or old woman cabin and Jessie will resume the lead. Right now is when both strategy and dogmanship really start to matter.
If I had to pick the winner today, I’d favor Matt. Even though Holmes has the advantage at the moment of being ahead by 3-4 hours (one rest), I think Hall has a few things going in his favor. The first is Matt Hall has broken up his runs a bit more consistently throughout the race vs. Holmes. The second is experience. Matt Hall has been running dogs his entire life and he’s been in positions like this before. Jessie, historically, has often had to “recharge” his team at some point along the trail with a long rest and then been able to push hard at the end. All his top finishes are almost exclusively executed like this. A long continuous push like this? That’s new territory. (And no, I don’t consider the 8 hour mandatory part of that recharge.)
Still, it’s a dog race and it will certainly have to play out. Hall will have to put pressure on Holmes and Holmes will have to falter…. But that seems like something like Matt will almost certainly do. The biggest factors really are how much gas is left in the tank for both teams. Hall has run on consistently less rest than his competition the entire race. Is it going to catch up to him at some point?
I still favor Matt…but this could go either way.
Paige Drobny is currently in Kaltag. She’ll either split the run to Unalakleet in half and stop there, or rest short of UNK and go straight to Shaktoolik. What she does will say a lot about the state of her team.
Basically the decision for Drobny (or for any team that stops in Kaltag later on) is to decide whether to get to Shaktoolik in 2 runs or in 3 runs. It’s 124 miles of trail so 2 equal runs are about 62 miles each vs. 3 runs is closer to 41 miles.
The trail to Unalakleet, specifically right out of Kaltag, is incredibly bumpy (tussocks) but, honestly, I have a hard time believing it’s worse than the frozen ice trench that defined the trail from Eagle Island to Kaltag. This question will play out time and time again (only if you rest in Kaltag, if you stop before and blow Kaltag, you’ve decided on different strategy).
Long runs, long rest. Short runs, short rest. Executing the longer runs allows you to make up time by essentially cutting out 1 hour of rest but you have to have the team and the trail for it. The run from Unalakleet to Shaktoolik can be….unpleasant. It’s a long run up over the blueberry hills outside of Unalakleet before dropping down onto the sea ice where there is no hiding from the wind. Windstorms frequent the area and so does poor visibility. You need good leaders and a strong team if Mother Nature kicks up.
There’s a pretty wide gap between Drobny and the chase pack. She could conceivably rest more than both Hall/Holmes and pick up the pieces in the event a storm moves in and somehow takes them both out of contention. Or she could keep chasing. If will be interesting to see what she decides to do.
Behind Drobny things have been shaking up too. I haven’t gotten to nerd out enough about how long other teams have rested / ran on the trail to get a good reading on how I think things will shake out — but I do think a lot of teams overplayed their hands on the trail from Shageluk through Eagle Island. That won’t be seen today but will be seen tomorrow and along the coast.
The good news for these teams is that (supposedly) there should be some reprieve in better trail. That is, assuming, weather does not run afoul.
Travis is currently sitting at the back of the chase pack in 9th position. He stopped in the sunshine on the way to Eagle Island yesterday and took a leisurely 6 hours and 45 minutes of rest, made his way to Eagle Island, and took another 4 hours. His dogs are reportedly “on fire” and he’s in a good mood. He is consistently fast — and now he’s well rested. Travis and team are primed to make a big push along the coast and pick off some of the teams with less rest ahead of him. It’s a lot more fun racing up the coast with a well rested team, picking off the teams ahead of you than racing with one eye of your shoulder wondering who is going to come up from behind…
📸 of Travis Beals near Grayling by Iditarod photographer David Poyzer https://iditarod.com/photo/march-9th-2025-grayling-dave-poyzer/?nggpage=2
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