A long night’s Iditarod journey turns into a heated 3-man race

On a long stretch between Yukon River checkpoints, a three-man race is raging on the Iditarod Trail.

According to the race's GPS tracker, Mitch Seavey, Joar Leifseth Ulsom and Nic Petit traded the lead as Friday turned into Saturday during their 122-mile run between Grayling and Kaltag.

Petit, a Girdwood musher with a career-best third-place finish last year, was the outright leader Friday afternoon. He left Grayling at 4:48 p.m. with 14 dogs ahead of him and two mandatory layovers behind him, having taken his required eight-hour rest on the Yukon in Anvik.

Seavey, the defending champion, and Ulsom, fourth last year, stuck around in Grayling long enough to fulfill their required eight-hour Yukon River layovers. Seavey returned to the trail at 9:45 p.m. with 12 dogs and Ulsom followed at 9:58 p.m. with 13 dogs, leaving two behind in Grayling.

Grayling is 530 miles into the 1,000-mile race to Nome. Seavey and Ulsom caught up to Petit before midnight, and the trio remained within a mile or two, or less, of one another early Saturday morning. They traded the lead several times between midnight and 2 a.m., according to the tracker.

Kaltag is at mile 652, the last checkpoint on the Yukon. Typically there is a checkpoint at Eagle Island, halfway between Grayling and Kaltag, but because of poor flying conditions, Iditarod officials weren't able to take supplies there Friday — including food bags for various teams — so Eagle Island was eliminated as a checkpoint. Mushers can still stop there and drop dogs, but they can't take layovers there, nor will they find food bags there.