Iditarod 2009

Okay, today was the start of the last real race, the Iditarod! It was pretty cool and I am so glad that I braved the frigid temps to go watch the start.

They cleared the roads and then made a path out of snow for the dog mushers. This is on 4th Avenue in downtown Anchorage.

And the race begins! This was actually a really long process. They start each dog team one at a time with two-minute increments in between each team. The start took over two hours since there are over 60 teams competing this year!

Team 2! I don't know who most of the teams are...

However, I knew about this girl, Rachael, with the purple hat, because she is almost blind. She has a lot of vision problems, yet she has not let that stop her. The musher in the picture below is her "teammate". They each have their own teams, but he is helping her through parts of the trail. You are not allowed to have assistance on the Iditarod, but fellow Iditarod mushers can help each other. So these two teams stay with each other so Tim (guy below) can tell Rachael if she needs to watch out for anything. I read about her story in a magazine on my flight back from Portland. I waited to see Rachael go by for over 2 hours today!

This is Tim...the fellow musher that is helping Rachael getting through the race! :) Someone on the sidelines told me that last year, Rachael and Tim weren't with each other on the race, so they waited and both went last so they could be with each other.

This is Lance Mackey, the winner of the Iditarod for the past couple of years! The crowd went crazy when he went through.

Yummmmm, a reindeer hot dog! :)

NC State in da house! (notice the red booties!)

Notice their booties! Freedom could definitely be a dog sled dog! I always thought these race dogs were big huskies...I don't think I saw any big big dogs on this race. My dream of Freedom, Bracken, and I being dog sled mushers is getting closer now!

This is how some of the dogs were transported to Anchorage.

I liked the dog mascot. I guess it was the "cheerleader" for the dogs. I wonder if the dogs knew that or if they really just wanted to chew on him since he was a big stuffed animal!

Some of the dogs chillin' before their run.

A team getting ready to move up to the start line.

These dogs are so strong and ready to run, that people have to hold the sleds and the dogs down until the start. All of these teams also only have half of their dogs right now. When they do the real start in Willow, AK tomorrow, they will have all of their gear and dogs loaded and ready for the real start of the race. You'll notice in some of these pics that a lot of teams have a couple of sleds and a few people that the dogs are pulling. This is to help slow the dogs down! Crazy! I think the start in Anchorage is like the Hollywood Red Carpet for the Iditarod mushers! :)

Only in Alaska...

And this is the back of Wolfman

These were the smart people...they all found places in the parking deck and were able to see everything from a bird's point of view! But I bet it was COLD in the parking garage!

The photos below are just some other pics I took at the beginning of the race...before I realized that there were over 60 teams!