Friday March 17 0600A AKDT
Trent and the team checked out of White Mountain this morning at 0334A AKDT for the final 77 meile run to Nome. They stayed in White Mountain exactly 8 hours for their mandatory 8 hour rest there. 11 dogs checked in and 10 dogs will make the final leg to the finish line. They left White Mountain in 52nd place. Trent should hit the Burled Arch finish line in Nome mid-afternoon today. Anxious to see which team members made the 1000 mile journey.
I hope one of them is Ayn. Meet Ayn (named for Ayn Rand), she is the lead dog on the left in the picture below from this years start at Fairbanks.
Ayn is a veteran of 7 Iditarods, several with Trent and she turns 10 later this year. She is retiring after this race to be the Herbst family dog and already is. She lives in their home and on the trail sleeps in sleeping bag with Trent. Whenever they drive to a trailhead to train she rides in the car instead of in dog boxes in trailer. No telling what the rest of team thinks of the "Queen Bee" but they follow her lead and she is a fearsome competitor. Late in her career it seems she is not much interested in training until a month before the race and she goes right back to young ways. Couple of shots of Ayn being Ayn below.
There is a live feed on the Iditarod site from the finish line. Sometime between 1 and 3 AKDT you can see Trent and the team pull in.
Tim