Mar. 17—Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race leader Jessie Holmes departed the White Mountain checkpoint after completing his mandatory eight-hour rest, putting him on course to arrive first to Nome on Tuesday evening.
Holmes left the small community on the Fish River, 77 miles from the burled arch, at 11:26 a.m., a few minutes later than required but apparently in no great rush given his position. He reached the checkpoint at 3:10 a.m. Tuesday, roughly four hours ahead of his next closest competitor.
“I know that I’ve done all the right moves, kinda known that for a couple runs,” Holmes said to Iditarod Insider during his stop in White Mountain.
Mushers generally take around 10 hours to make the run from White Mountain to Nome, which would put Holmes on Front Street sometime around 9:30 p.m. Tuesday, depending on his dogs’ speed, weather and trail conditions.
The front of this year’s race pack has shuffled around since mushers began moving north along the Norton Sound coast on Sunday. Several top teams have leapfrogged one another, and the competition for third, fourth and fifth place could be a scramble all the way to the finish line.
Seward’s Travis Beals reached White Mountain after Holmes, at 7:07 a.m. He’ll be free to head out shortly after 3 p.m.
As Holmes prepared to depart, three teams bore down on the White Mountain checkpoint to begin their mandatory rests. Jeff Deeter was the first of the triad, followed in short order by Paige Drobny and Wade Marrs. The three were all running within 4 miles of one another along portions of the route in from Elim and Golovin.
[Previous coverage: Out of the wilderness and facing pressure, Jessie Holmes seeks to repeat as Iditarod champion]
If Holmes is able to maintain his sizable lead, it would be his second Iditarod win in as many years, a feat accomplished by just a handful of other long-distance mushers in the race’s 54-year history.
Farther back on the trail, the field saw its second scratch of this year’s race.
The Iditarod Trail Committee said that rookie musher Jody Potts-Joseph scratched late Tuesday morning, citing the well-being of her team. She was at the Tripod Flats Cabin along the portage trail out of Kaltag when she contacted race officials to end her run.
“ITC personnel are assisting her with the safe transport of her 10-dog team to Unalakleet via snow machine,” the Iditarod Trail Committee wrote in a statement.
Potts-Joseph is only the second musher to scratch so far this year, far fewer than in recent Iditarods. Rookie Jaye Foucher scratched a week earlier at Rainy Pass, and had described experiencing difficult conditions and strong winds along the trail.
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