ID: Monday Night in Koyuk and Unalakleet

It's midnight Monday night.

RED TEAM UPDATE

At 8.43pm this evening, Aliy and the Red Team pulled in to Koyuk checkpoint in eighth position. They will have a good rest here.

There is a whole series of incredible pictures from Jeff Schultz on the Iditarod website showing the Red Team coming in to Koyuk checkpoint just as the sun was setting this evening. Check them out here!

Spark has been promoted to leader now, he is running with his older brother Dutch. The two blue eyed girls: Junior and Amber in swing, Iron and Mismo, Izzy and Driver, Commando and Felix, and Rodney and Schmoe in wheel. You can see she is really mixing the team around to keep it fresh for them.

I don't know about you, but the Insider video of Aliy in Shaktoolik sure made us smile, laugh and then cry. She said she wouldn't trade her team for the world, despite not being where she might have wanted to be in the race. The love that Aliy and Allen feel for their dogs always rises above everything. I know a lot of you have also been touched by that video, it really is special.

BLACK TEAM UPDATE

Just a couple hours later, at 11.15pm, Allen and the Black Team pulled in to Unalakleet. They stopped for about four hours hours at Old Woman cabin with a bunch of other teams and it looks like they will rest a wee while here also.

Just as I was lamenting that we never see pictures of the teams further back, Jeff Schultz has published two great pics of the Black Team leaving Kaltag. Check them out here. We have poured over the photos to see who might be missing but we're not 100% sure so will wait until it is confirmed.

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In the meantime, we have been enjoying a few blue sky days in Nome. During Iditarod week there are many and varied events on in town. Today a few of us went to a National Park Service lecture about musk ox - there are two herds that live just outside Nome so later we went out looking for them. We may have spotted them on the hills below the wind turbines, but then again they may have been rocks. We're not certain.

We visited the craft fair with local artists sharing their work with us. Our first visit was just for reconnisance, we will visit again later on in the week for sure! You can find out what else is on this week here.

Another important event happened today: the assembly of the finishing chute on Front Street.

Here are a few pictures from around the area today.




Searching for musk ox


One of the many gold dredges in the area


I don't think this picture needs a caption


Nome-Teller Highway