The Iditarod is evaluating a race re-route because of poor winter conditions

The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race may not be able to run along its usual route this year, owing to poor snow and trail conditions amid an exceptionally warm and low-snow winter across much of Alaska.

Earlier in the week, the Iditarod Trail Committee’s communications director, Shannon Noonan, sent out an email noting the organization is closely “monitoring current and forecasted conditions along the race course.”

“Our team is working diligently to gather data points, with trail flyovers, input from checkpoint communities and engaging weather experts to assess any potential impacts,” Noonan wrote. “We are doing everything in our power to run the traditional Southern route but if adjustments to the race course or schedule become necessary, we are prepared to act swiftly to ensure a safe and fair competition for everyone involved.”

Noonan did not respond to an interview request or questions on conditions along specific parts of the route that are causing concern.

The race alternates between a northern and southern route from year to year, splitting off in the historic Iditarod Mining District and sending mushers down different stretches of the Yukon River on the way toward the Bering Sea Coast. The race follows the southern route in odd-numbered years.

Much of Alaska is seeing low snow pack, and warm weather systems have kept river ice from firming up in many places.

Over the weekend, the 50-mile Holiday Classic race from Bethel up the Kuskokwim had to be postponed because of deteriorating ice conditions along the river, as public radio station KYUK reported. The Copper Basin 300, held over the weekend, saw above-freezing temperatures for much of the course, which regularly sees some of the coldest conditions of any mid-distance race in Alaska.

All of which is raising questions about whether Alaska’s most high-profile sled dog race, the thousand-mile marathon from Willow to Nome, will be able to proceed as usual.

Since its inception in 1973, low snow conditions have prompted organizers to switch the start of the Iditarod to Fairbanks on three occasions, sending teams westward until it hits the traditional route at the Yukon community of Ruby. The most recent switch to the Fairbanks route was in 2017. No Iditarod race has ever been canceled or postponed, not even during the depths of the pandemic when the event followed an out-and-back loop designed to minimize participants’ contact with rural communities.

Mushers in Southcentral Alaska have been hunting for better snow conditions to put miles on their teams. Matt Failor, an Iditarod veteran training for this year’s race, lives in Willow but has been traveling north up the road to train.

“I think a lot of the neighbors around here are trucking and going to other places,” Failor said.

Like many others in recent years, Failor has been going to the Denali Highway, a 135-mile stretch of mostly flat road the state stops maintaining during winter. The stretch has grown increasingly popular for recreational winter travel on both dog sleds and snowmachines.

While conditions in Willow and the nearby towns are decent enough to run dogs, Failor said, they are far from ideal. The recent warm spell caused an ice bridge over a creek near his dog lot to collapse, cutting off easy access to the surrounding winter trails.

“We did a 100-mile run on the Denali Highway yesterday, and there’s excellent snow cover for mushing,” said four-time Iditarod winner Jeff King, whose home is about two-dozen miles north.

Conditions elsewhere, though, give him pause.

“I’m not sure I want to go to Bethel,” said King, who is currently signed up to run the Kuskokwim 300 next weekend. Though he’s won the race nine times, he thinks it could be even more grueling than usual if organizers have to shift portions of the course off the river and onto bumpy tundra along overland trails.

King said a friend of his from the region had recently been through the community of Aniak, up-river from Bethel, and said that if he was planning on going through it with his dog team he ought to pack “football pads and a helmet.”

“Some of our races are having trouble with the weather,” King said. “It sure seems like the Delta and Southcentral (are) struggling.”

Conditions along the Iditarod route are not uniformly bleak. In a social media post on Tuesday, the Rainy Pass Lodge, which sits near the saddle mushers cross at the top of the Alaska Range, said it had received two feet of new snow, “and it’s not showing any signs of stopping!!”

The Iditarod Trail Committee plans to make a final determination on routing by Feb. 3, according to Noonan, “in order for teams to be able to sort their supply drops in time for fly outs.”