Iditarod

Fifty-four mushers are already signed up for the 2013 Iditarod. Registration began Saturday. So far, the field includes nine rookies and plenty of familiar faces.

Registration for the 2013 Iditarod closes tonight. Sixty-eight mushers are on the docket so far. Mark Nordman, the Iditarod race director and race marshal, says the lineup likely won't change much before tonight's deadline.

Rick Swenson won't make the trip to Nome this year. Race officaials say Swenson withdrew from the Iditarod on Thursday. Swenson, the only five-time champion in the history of the race, cited personal reasons.

Ever wonder what all those Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race volunteer checkers eat? Well, APRN’s Ellen Lockyer found out during a visit to an Anchorage warehouse where supplies were getting packed up for flights to Skwentna, Nome and other checkpoints along the thousand mile trail.

It started modestly enough with Joe Redington and a few others wanting the old mail trail to the gold mines retraced. Now the whole world watches the Iditarod. It’s Iditarod time again on the next Talk of Alaska. KSKA - Tuesday, 2/26 at 10:00am

Noah Pereira from New York state won the Junior Iditarod yesterday. The 16-year-old is a dog handler for Iditarod champ Dallas Seavey. Coming in second four minutes behind was Conway Seavey.

The first six cyclists in this year’s Iditarod Trail Invitational have checked in at the Winterlake Lodge along the Iditarod trail. It’s the third checkpoint in an ultra-distance human powered race that started north of Anchorage yesterday.

Three days into the Iditarod, the race is still anyone’s game. And the mushers are keeping it interesting this year. Martin Buser completed his 24 hour layover early in the race. Lance Mackey and Sonny Linder appear to be embracing the opposite strategy... making their way down the trail to the Iditarod Checkpoint, which is also the official half way marker in the race. But many of the veteran mushers decided to stick to a plan they know, resting in the popular 24 layover village of Takotna.

Lance Mackey was the first musher to reach the race's namesake checkpoint of Iditarod. He checked in at 8:36 p.m. Wednesday. Sonny Lindner arrived at the checkpoint shortly after 10:00 p.m. Wednesday.

Iditarod, the namesake of the dogsled race to Nome, doesn't get a lot of visitors, and there is very little left standing that alludes to the gold rush-era importance the town once had, but it was once a bustling hub on the Historic Iditarod Trail that many prospectors journeyed through as they searched for the riches Alaska had to offer, In the summer of 2011, APRN's Josh Edge and KSKA's Kristin Spack had a chance to go out to the ghost towns of Iditarod and Flat, located about 10 miles apart, with Kevin Keeler, from the Bureau of Land Management. Here's a sneak peak inside Iditarod and once of it's focal points, the N.C. Store.

Aliy Zirkle has taken the lead in the 2013 Iditarod. She checked into the Grayling checkpoint at 9:54 a.m. Friday. Aaron Burmeister and Jake Berkowitz arrived in Grayling about 30 minutes apart, at 11:06 a.m. and 11:37 a.m., respectively.

Martin Buser has again regained the Iditarod lead, departing Grayling at 12:52 p.m., staying at the checkpoint for only 10 minutes. Aliy Zirkle, Aaron Burmeister, Jake Berkowitz and Sonny Lindner round out the top-5. Buser is the only competitor in the top-5 that has used both the mandatory 8-hour and 24-hour layovers.

Iditarod mushers running outside of this year’s top-20 are just as competitive as the front of the pack, but they have different reasons for travelling the trail.

About three hours separate Martin Buser from Aliy Zirkle and the rest of the pack. Buser checked out of Eagle Island at 2:41 a.m. Saturday morning for his 60-mile run to Kaltag. Seven other mushers have departed Eagle Island, including Zirkle, Mitch Seavey, Jessie Royer and Aaron Burmeister.