'It’s crazy, and then it’s just peaceful’: Iditarod mushers set out for Nome from Willow

Update, 9 a.m. Monday: The first mushers arrived Monday morning at the Finger Lake checkpoint. Richie Diehl was the first in at 6:50 a.m. and decided to stay, and was soon passed by several mushers who continued on, including defending champion Pete Kaiser. From there, mushers head into the Alaska Range, with the next checkpoint at Rainy Pass.

Original story:

WILLOW — As this year’s Iditarod mushers took off toward Nome on Sunday afternoon, the snow in Willow was falling continuously.

The race restarted Sunday afternoon, with mushers leaving the starting line in two-minute intervals, officially beginning their trek to Nome after the race’s ceremonial start in Anchorage on Saturday.

Sunday morning, the nearly knee-deep snow in the parking lot where mushers were doing last-minute preparations was a harbinger of what’s likely ahead on the trail. The race’s roughly 1,000-mile route is expected to be much snowier than usual during the 2020 race.

As musher Meredith Mapes was putting tie-dyed balaclavas into Ziplock bags, she said the snow was a top concern. Mapes said that she had previously struggled with getting stuck during her first Iditarod race.

“This is round two, so I know what I’m facing,” Mapes said. “It’s kind of more terrifying this time.”

Reigning champion Pete Kaiser of Bethel said that the snow brought several unknowns to the race.

“Is there going to be much of a trail? Is there not going to be much of a trail? How fast or slow are we going to be going?” Kaiser said.

[More photos from the Iditarod restart]

And Karin Hendrickson said that the snow had made it difficult to pull into the parking lot that morning. She said she had to floor her truck into the lot when they arrived.

“It’s not easy to drive in, it’s definitely not going to be easy to drive a team in," Hendrickson said. "But I guess we’re all driving the same trail, so we’ll see where we go.”

Chief Iditarod veterinarian Stu Nelson said the snow could mean that the dogs will be working harder, especially in the warmer weather on Sunday, with temperatures sitting in the 20s.

In an unexpected twist Sunday, former Yukon Quest champion John Schandelmeier, who also writes outdoors columns for the Anchorage Daily News, took over his wife Zoya DeNure’s dog team and shot out in her place on Sunday. A statement from race officials Sunday night said DeNure, an Iditarod veteran, withdrew for unspecified “personal health reasons.”

Schandelmeier’s name was added to the list of racing mushers by Sunday afternoon. Race Marshal Mark Nordman “made the decision to allow the substitution in the best interest of the members of her race team, who have been training all year for this opportunity,” the statement said. Schandelmeier won the Yukon Quest in 1992 and 1996, and ran in the Iditarod in 1993 (he scratched).

After months of packing, preparing and training, many of the mushers said they were excited about heading into a period of relative quiet with their dogs.

Tim Pappas, who’s running famed Iditarod champion Martin Buser’s top dogs this year, said that after a nerve-wracking drive to and from Anchorage the day before, he’d been looking forward to the quiet of the trail.

“It’s crazy, and then it’s just peaceful," Pappas said. “That’s why we all do it I think."

Musher Magnus Kaltenborn said that the week leading up to the race was full of last-minute details.

“It will be good to stop packing and start mushing,” Kaltenborn said.

Kaiser said he too was looking forward to getting out on the trail.

“It’s good to get to this point finally, and it will be even better to get out of the starting line,” he said on Sunday before the restart.

Fans lined the race chute and trail that extended across the lake. Bundled and snow-covered onlookers cheered as each musher whooshed past in the first few minutes of their multi-day race.

Trudging through the snow on Willow Lake, Bridget Sidwell, 19, and Peter Jonas, 20, were carrying firewood toward a fire pit that their friends had built farther down the lake.

The two students were in town from North Carolina and Washington state respectively, visiting Jonas’s sister on their spring break.

They were a little late, driving “a dinky rental car” from Anchorage which, amid traffic, made things slower on the way to Willow, Jonas said.

The two, both originally from Denver, Colorado, said they’d planned on going to the race’s restart before arriving in Alaska.

“It was either this or Mexico,” Sidwell said of her potential spring break plans. “So, easy choice.”