Josi Shelley and 10 sled dogs cruised across the finish line at Pike’s Landing in Fairbanks at 8:12 p.m. Monday to claim the crown in the first ever Yukon Quest Alaska 750. The new Quest champion’s performance was so dominant that she took a long rest in Nenana, the last checkpoint, before covering the final 50 miles.
She completed the race with a time of 9 days, 9 hours and 11 minutes.
Shelley’s team of bootied canine champions powered up from the Chena River and across the finish line to a chorus of whoops and glove-muffled applause. Whatever exhaustion Shelley built up during the race seemed to melt away. She got off her sled, pet each member of her frosty team, and hugged loved ones.
“We knew this was gonna be a tough race. And all the training and the miles paid off,” she said. “I feel like it’s celebrating the dogs, and mushing, and how tough these dogs are.”
Shelley operates a kennel in Fairbanks called There and Back Again Sleddogs with her husband, JJ Shelley. She was the 2024 Iditarod Rookie of the Year and came in second in last year’s Quest 550. She’s won 200- and 300-mile races in the Lower 48, but this is her first win in Alaska.
"With the trail conditions and things, it will definitely be something that is a highlight, for sure,” she said.
Shelley led the historically small field of six mushers for most of the race, with little pressure from other teams during the last few hundred miles.
Fairbanks musher Keaton Loebrich jumped out to the lead this year, but he dropped after about 100 miles after repeated struggles on the windy, 3,700-foot Eagle Summit.
Shelley’s closest challenger after that, reigning champ Jeff Deeter, scratched at the Yukon River Bridge checkpoint Friday, about 450 miles into the race. By the time Shelley finished, the three other mushers on the trail were running one-to-two days behind her.
Energy to spare
Winning this year’s race meant conquering grueling conditions that slowed, frightened, frustrated and foiled other experienced Fairbanks mushers.
Jason Mackey described the snow-sparse descent of Rosebud Summit on day 2 of the race as the worst conditions he’s ever seen on the mountain. Jonah Bacon snowshoed his team into the Rampart checkpoint, trudging through deep snow for miles on a frostbitten toe sustained days earlier when temperatures dipped to 60-below zero.
Scarce trail markers across hundreds of Yukon River miles delayed mushers and contributed to Deeter’s decision to scratch.
But Shelley said her team had energy to spare.
“My problem on this race is that they’d pull my snow hook out when I was ready to stop,” she said. “It was kind of annoying, but that’s a good problem to have – because they just want to go.”
Dangerous weather and river conditions forced race officials into a last-minute reroute that bypassed the Tanana checkpoint, slicing off dozens of miles by directly connecting Rampart to Manley. Shelley said she wanted to go to Tanana, and that deep snow on the overland detour made that run a slog. But it wasn’t all bad.
“It’s fun to run those narrow trails,” she said. “It’s just like, ‘What’s around the bend?’”
Three mushers remain on the trail. Jonah Bacon is in second place, with the father-son duo of Jason and Patrick Mackey running together behind him.
Shelley said her focus now shifts to next month’s Iditarod. And she said she hopes she can inspire anyone interested in the sport to put in the hard work it takes to succeed.
“The nice thing about mushing: It’s one of those sports where gender doesn’t matter. It’s really just how you manage your dogs – you know, obviously having that kind of fortitude and grit to get through,” she said.