For the second time in three years, Alaska's Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race will move its official start from Willow to Fairbanks due to poor trail conditions that race officials determined unsafe.
The Iditarod Trail Committee board of directors made the decision to relocate the race to Interior Alaska in a quick, unanimous vote Friday after a two-hour-long executive session.
The ceremonial start for the 45th annual race will remain in Anchorage on March 4 when mushers and their sled dog teams snake 11 miles through the city. They will then travel about 350 miles north to Fairbanks for the official race start two days later, at 10 a.m. March 6. The race will cover about 980 miles to Nome.
"It's a different event, but it's still the Iditarod," said Race Marshal Mark Nordman at a news conference after the vote. "It's still a world-class dog race with the best mushers in the world."
Two Northland mushers are slated to take part in the race this year: three-time and 2017 John Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon champion Ryan Anderson of Ray will be running his first Iditarod, and four-time Beargrease champion Nathan Schroeder of Warba will be returning for the fourth year in a row. Another 2017 Beargrease musher, Ryan Redington of Wasilla, Alaska, also is in the Iditarod field this year.
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Nordman said that while feet of snow dumped on Anchorage this winter, stretches of the Iditarod trail in the Alaska Range didn't fare as well, and were marked by sparse snow and dense brush.
"We're just not feeling that it's safe enough to run a competitive dog race over," he said.
The Iditarod Trail Committee had warned in a statement earlier this month that the perilous Dalzell Gorge portion of the trail had received inadequate snow, and Nordman said Friday that the notorious stretch also included too many spots of open water and unsafe snow-and-ice bridges.
While Nordman said he could possibly get a sled dog team through an alternate route, he said the mountainous weather conditions change quickly, and the board did not want to take chances.
The Iditarod restart has taken place twice before in Fairbanks, in 2003 and 2015. The change delivers a flatter trail to Nome, though the last time mushers started in Fairbanks, the weather turned brutally cold.
