02/26/2026
Here’s the recap of our race generally we post everyday along the trail. This year we were busy and didn’t get to it so here’s the short long version. Enjoy the read and if you get to the end kudos! Thank you all for following along and supporting everyday.
If you have photos from us along the trail, please put them in the comments!!
Iron dog 26
Day One
Was a nice day. Early start times made for a good day of light. We got to hang out in the paddock with friends and family, take pictures, get our last hugs and kisses from them for the week. Then it was time to lock into race mode! Came out of the gate 7th with snow coming down pretty steadily and flat light conditions leaving Big Lake. We knew it was gonna be a tough race from the jump.
As we made our way onto the river, Kris was leading and at a great pace. We caught and passed a few teams before we saw the #10 bib of Olds and Sottosanti, which meant we were in good company. We battled back and forth with them up the river for a good stretch, trading leads with them at least 4–5 times. Eventually the crafty vets took some quick lines and led us by about a minute into Skwentna. Leaving Skwentna and on up to Shell Lake, we decided to stop and make a suspension adjustment to keep the sleds in one piece and take less of a toll on ourselves, which was a great move. Throughout the day the sun came out and we were into Tatina and on toward Nikolai.
Tyler had a couple get-offs between Nikolai and McGrath. We made it into McGrath unscathed, sleds in one piece, inside the top 10!
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Day 2
As we get ready to leave McGrath we discuss a few things we need to address on the sleds before we start our ride for the day. We get fuel and wrench on the sleds for about 10 minutes or so and head off toward Ophir. Nothing out of the ordinary, McGrath to Ophir, get fuel and take off to Poorman. There was one set of tracks on the fresh snow running down the Innoko, so we decide to hop on and follow whoever was crazy enough to brave the deep snow. About 1/2 way on the Innoko River we change leaders from Tyler to Kris to save fuel and ensure one wasn’t going to run out. Shortly after that Tyler blew a belt, and while changing it teams 14 and 17 came rollin’ by.
We get things back together and catch their taillights and had plans of hanging onto those two teams all the way to Poorman… at least Tyler had other plans 😂 A couple stucks and trail deviations changed our pace for the day and we fell back a bit. We eventually get through Ruby and onto Galena where we see all the boys having a party at the town hall, so we stop for some spaghetti and rice moose meat casserole along with every water we could drink. Had a good run from Galena to Kaltag, holding off Team 5 for 80 miles of wide open river running on the mighty Yukon. Made it to Unalakleet in the dark to have a warm bed and a hot meal.
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Day 3
Now this is where our run gets interesting, to say the least… Tyler is leading out of Unalakleet and makes a navigational error heading the wrong way out of town. Thankfully Kris was able to stop and correct us before we were too far out of the way.
We get about 20–25 miles out of town, just ahead of the nasty storm, and Tyler’s skid comes apart and leaves us with a choice to make… push on to Koyuk, 65 miles on a questionable repair, or back to Unk to find suitable parts. We get back to Unk driving right into bad weather and layover for a total of 3 hours and find all the parts to make a decent repair. Get the sled back together and head out into the night in possibly the worst weather either of us have seen in this race.
We make it about 12 miles out of town. After a good discussion on the trail, we make a safety call to head back, knowing full well we need to be out of Unk by 12 that night or we would be scratched out of the race. Back to town, we make phone calls and are informed the race is on weather hold… what a relief.
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Day 4
We start the day out knowing we’re going to have a battle on our hands. The weather is still nasty, reports of lots of snow up north on the Kotz loop… so we buy the first shovel we could find. It was little and red, which fits our history of purchasing little red items to keep us moving forward, and man did we use it that day. We might still be digging some of the stucks out had we not had the “Little Red Shovel.”
We make our way to Koyuk and have a decision to make with the weather bearing down on us… go to Nome and go home, or push on to Kotz. We were determined to go, although it wasn’t off the table to just go to Nome. We pushed on north and every checkpoint we got to was an accomplishment that day. We rode almost bumper to bumper for most of the day as visibility was at an all-time low, flat light, cold temps, snowing and blowing snow.
We make our way to Selawik and take a layover. Tyler’s right boot was frozen solid, so we put out an APB with the locals of Sekawik for a set of bunny boots. They of course pulled through. Thank you Lorraine Ballot!!! We sat at Joe McCoy’s place and had pizza, water, and other foods to replenish what the day had taken from us.
We push through the night and followed every one of the reflective markers we could see through the night from Selawik all the way to Kotz, getting in at 1:30 in the morning!
$100 shovel, caffeine, and a dream of a Kotz run.
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Day 5
Kotz to Nome… start the morning with some minor wrenching, not knowing what was gonna happen with Nome wrench day at our friend Tom Dublin’s shop, which was awesome! Take off from Kotz, hit a huge water skip that just kinda sneaks up on you heading around the point of the island… longer than we would have liked to skip for sure. Kris skipped the whole length, Tyler saw an opportunity and cut out early.
Good visibility and conditions made for a nice run up to Koyuk where we saw lots of teams laid over, so we joined the party. Had one of the local boys get us some food and we caught up with some friends who were shocked to see us. Thank you to Jacob Hannon and his family for housing and making food for all of us racers taking up your house!!
As the trail breaking up ahead was creating an interesting twist to the race, we took off. It seems just as they broke through to the other side of the mail trail. We rode through to Nome with one blown belt and no other issues.
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Wrench Day
See our Facebook Live video 😎😎
Busy day replenishing our bodies with liquids and calories and some extra sleep. Huge shout out to our travel coordinators Kris and Katie for making the bookings and transportation a breeze!!!
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Day 6
Our time is corrected from 20th place to 14th after the whole Unalakleet fiasco, so we leave at 9:26 and start making up time running a decent pace. We pass 6 teams, some in time and some just physically, by the time we get to Unalakleet which put us way up on the leaderboard until some of those teams cleared checkpoints.
The day was going awesome for us — smooth ride, fast paced, good weather!! Crossing the Norton Sound was amazing as it was sunny and clear. You could see all the tree markers without having to squint and second guess. We took a one-hour layover in Unalakleet to refresh, eat, and dry out face masks.
Off to Kaltag and 30 miles out Tyler starts to notice his steering is getting stiff, blows a corner and gets stuck AGAIN… 😅 We make our way to Kaltag and quickly start working on fixing the steering in his sled with a torch and axe, a spring puller as a chisel, and some duct tape. An hour of messing around with that, we leave and head for Galena in the -30 temps on the river… long stretches of wide open throttle at speeds from 70–90 mph make for a cold frigid ride.
Kris’ sled shuts itself off 15 miles outside of Galena but does restart, which had us worried. We motor on into Galena and decide to take the layover we had planned there.
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Day 7
Our start time is 7:17 am. We’re dressed with all the layers we had in our bags as it was going to be brutally cold, -30 and colder all the way allegedly. We put on all the face tape and make our way to the checkpoint. Go on the clock and start getting things on the machines and start the buggies. Tyler’s starts after a couple easy rolls and 2 quick pulls.
Kris’ sled on the other hand was not happy. Wouldn’t start, so we go into a slight panic mode, or at least Tyler did 😅 We’ve never seen an E-TEC not start. So we try a handful of obvious things to change and check and it still won’t start. Declare a layover, make a few phone calls, and get back on the clock to do some more testing. Numbers for what we were able to test seemed to be within spec and had us stumped. With no shop to work in, doing this outside at -20° was making it hard to do more testing and determine the problem.
It was at this point, with 1 of our 4 team members (2 people, 2 sleds) not being able to compete, was becoming inevitably apparent. Determination was present in every decision we made on and off the trail. We’re thankful for the experience, the safety to walk away, and the people who make it possible for us to chase something this demanding.
