Iditarod: Riley Dyche Takes the Lead

 

At 5:16 am this morning (Alaska time), Riley Dyche arrived at Ophir, 352 miles from the starting line, the first and only musher so far to reach the checkpoint. Ophir, a former gold-rush town, has been abandoned since the 1950s and was destroyed in a fire started by a camper in the 1970s. The original Iditarod Trail ran down the valley of the nearby Innoko valley, although the current trail goes through the old town site. 

Matt Hall and Lauro Eklund trail Dyche and are currently between Ophir and Takotna, the previous checkpoint. Eleven other teams, including Jessie Holmes, Paige Drobny, Ryan Redington, Mille Porsild, Travis Beals, and Michelle Phillips, are currently resting in Takotna.

After Ophir, the race will finally turn to the official northern route. The next checkpoint, Cripple, is 100 miles past Ophir at mile 425. Cripple is the middlemost checkpoint on the Iditarod trail, although the unofficial halfway point is somewhere between Cripple and the next checkpoint, Ruby, situated on the Yukon River.  

Billionaire Kjell Rokke is back in 16th place between McGrath (mile 311) and Takotna (mile 329), and fellow "Expedition class" racer Steve Curtis is still dead last between Rainy Pass (mile 153) and Nikolai (mile 263), nearly 100 miles back from the lead. 

No one has yet completed their mandatory 24-hour rest but as the teams approach the halfway mark, we should start to see some do so starting today.  Jessie Holmes has been in Takotna for some 10 hours now, and is probably on his mandatory 24. Ditto Drobney (9 hours and counting), Reddington and Porsild (8 hours), and Beals and Phillips (7 hours). Although it's not unusual to see teams take voluntary four-hour rests, longer rests, especially at checkpoints, are usually part of the mandatory 8- and 24-hour breaks.   

Jessie Holmes has led most of the race, and in 14 hours or so when his rest is complete and he's back on the trail, we will probably see him pass Dyche and return to the lead as Riley takes his 24.