Jake Berkowitz: Choices to make for Iditarod leader Petit and those trying to catch him

As the race reaches the Bering Sea coast, Nicolas Petit is in full control of the 2019 Iditarod. Petit led the race out of Kaltag on Saturday night, followed 2 hours later by defending champion Joar Leifseth Ulsom and top contender Jessie Royer, and then by four-time Kuskokwim 300 champion Pete Kaiser an hour after that. When leaving Kaltag last night, Petit said he was excited for the bacon in Unalakleet, leaving little doubt in anyone’s mind that Petit was making the big push straight to the coast. After 11 hours of running, Petit was greeted in Unalakleet by a large and hospitable crowd and was awarded the First to the Coast award for the second year in a row.

Petit’s chase pack was not as keen on making the 11-plus-hour run straight. One after another, Leifseth Ulsom, Royer, Kaiser and eventually Mitch Seavey (who was 3.5 hours behind Leifseth Ulsom) all pulled off and rested 20 miles shy of Unalakleet, setting themselves up for two even runs from Kaltag to Shaktoolik. Of Leifseth Ulsom, Royer and Kaiser — who are traveling within about 0.5 mph of one another, the fastest being Kaiser and slowest being Royer — Kaiser was the first to reach Unalakleet, almost 2 hours after Petit left.

The Iditarod is won and lost on the coast every year, as we were reminded last year, when Leifseth Ulsom passed a lost Petit en route to Koyuk and went on to win the race. Or back in 2014, when four-time Iditarod champion Jeff King left White Mountain and was hit by an intense storm in the infamous Solomon’s Blow Hole just 40 miles from the finish. The storm stopped him in his tracks, and Dallas Seavey plowed ahead to win the 2014 race. While the 2-hour lead Petit has built himself is surely nothing insurmountable, strategically Petit is in the best position of the top 4 to get to Nome the quickest.

The big curveball this year, however, is the Bering Sea ice. Reports from the Iditarod Trail are coming in, and this year the sea ice in Norton Sound, which mushers will hit from Shaktoolik to Koyuk, is disappearing at a rapid rate, forcing the already difficult run to become an even more treacherous and longer stretch with 10 miles of trail added on. This is a major change at this point in the race and will most likely eliminate the chance of anyone getting from Unalakleet to White Mountain, the site of the last mandatory 8-hour rest, in two very long monster runs — something we have seen only a few times before.

It appears likely that the winner will cross the finish line in Nome around 1 a.m. Wednesday. Now, there are only so many moves left for the mushers.

Petit’s most likely course for Nome

Option A: Look for Petit to make the run from Unalakleet up and over the Blueberry Hills and into Shaktoolik. Chances are, as he did last year, he will blow through Shaktoolik and head to the Shelter Cabin roughly 2 hours past the village. This will allow him to continue to play a cat-and-mouse game with his competitors, not allowing them to truly gauge his team’s capabilities. This move will also allow Petit to run two similar-length runs between Unalakleet and Koyuk and reduce the influence the extra 10 miles of trail could have on him if he made the run from Shaktoolik to Koyuk straight, something his competitors will most likely have to do.

Petit, after a likely rest in Koyuk, will then have choices: 1) Run to White Mountain, or 2) Make the run over to Elim (teams will be using the overland trail, which typically adds an additional hour to the run time) and either shut it down for a rest or make the final push to White Mountain and the 8-hour rest. Petit’s decision in Elim will come down to two factors, his dogs and his competitors. If Petit can build on his 2-hour lead and grow that to 4 between Unalakleet and Elim, I expect him to rest. If it’s anything less than 4 hours, I’d watch for Petit to make the long 14-plus-hour run from Koyuk to White Mountain in a single shot, something he has done before.

Option B: Since Petit is the only musher in the top five in a position to blow through Shaktoolik, he could try to make the run from Unalakleet to White Mountain in three more even runs than the options outlined in Option A. Petit could run from the Shelter Cabin past Shaktoolik and then blow through Koyuk and rest 2-3 hours farther down the trail, which will most likely put him resting in the heat of the day and in a position for a more doable 11-plus-hour run into White Mountain.

No matter what option Petit goes for, he will have one eye in front of him on his dogs and the other behind him, ready to make a move at a moment’s notice depending on his competitors.

The chasing trio’s most likely course for Nome

With Leifseth Ulsom, Royer and Kaiser resting 2.5 hours prior to Unalakleet, we can only assume that all three will blow through the checkpoint of Unalakleet and make the run to Shaktoolik, settling in there for a rest. Last year everyone thought that Leifseth Ulsom would do this move as well, but much to everyone’s surprise, he pulled into Unalakleet and rested for nearly 2 hours, giving Petit a 90-minute lead. However, Leifseth Ulsom is not in a position this year to be giving Petit any more of a lead than he currently has if he wants a second consecutive win.

With the added 10 miles of trail between Shaktoolik and Koyuk, look for these three teams to all rest in Koyuk after what could be a 9-hour run across Norton Sound. From Koyuk they have the same options that Petit does, one or two runs to White Mountain.

With Petit’s 2-hour lead and Petit’s team still traveling as fast as any of his nearest competitors, the only option for the chasing trio to win (short of a repeat of the “Wandering Petit,” which we saw last year on Norton Sound) will be to cut substantial rest over Petit, not an easy task.

The race for the top 10 is heating up as well with names like Matt Hall, Jessie Holmes, Aliy Zirkle, Matt Failor and Paige Drobny in the mix. But the only mushers with a real chance at winning the 2019 Iditarod are sitting in the top four right now.