This is Mickey, Aliy's Mom, reporting from the Iditarod Trail. It is Tuesday at 9:30 am and I just arrived in McGrath. The trip from Anchorage was spectacular. We took off over the Cook Inlet heading west in a 30 seater turbo-prop. The tidal plains gave way to the foothills which quickly transformed into the spectacular Alaska Mountain Range. What a complex, vast and rugged swath of land! Amazing that our mushers have made it through this wilderness to these interior lands which are drained the Kuskokwim River. The Kuskokwim winds southwest past Bethel to the sea. McGrath is a village of 350 souls cradled in a frozen U turn of the river.
My plane was full of Iditarod volunteers and spectators. The Iditarod Race Marshall and several members of the Board of Directors were aboard. The McGrath checkpoint Is just about ready for the first mushers to arrive, probably this afternoon or evening.
I'm off to catch the air taxi to Nikolai. Hoping to see both Aliy and Allen there. Stay tuned for news from the trail.
Mark Nordman, Iditarod Race Marshall, and Stan Hooley, Iditarod Board of Directors, depart Anchorage for McGrath
Labels: Iditarod
