As a former resident of Anchorage, AK, one of my obsessions this time of year is the running of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.
This year, the big news is that there is so little snow, they had to restart the race in Fairbanks this year. That's a good thing, since it freshens up the race format a little bit and forces contestants to follow a trail that is closer to the one used during the historic diptheria-serum trek to Nome from Nenana that inspired the race. It also makes the more accessible to sprint mushers who usually crash and burn going in and out of the Alaska Range, within which stands Mount McKinley. (No, they don't mush anywhere near Mount McKinley. Yes, you can see it from parts of the trail.)
Still, trailbreakers riding on snowmachines are having trouble because the warm weather is causing the frozen rivers to unthaw around the edges a bit.
A little more than 220 miles into the 1,100-mile race, the leader is Norwegian musher and full-time firefighter Robert Sorlie.