The Mushers

These are the two dozen starters. The little “I” indicates a Quest Rookie who has completed an Iditarod, while the “R” marks total Rookies in long distance races. The two mushers who are bolded are former winners of the Quest.

Kristy Berington^I
Jake Berkowitz^R
Maren Bradley^R
David Dalton
Paige Drobny^R
Kyla Durham
Mike Ellis
Nikolay Ettyne^R
Marcelle Fressineau^R
Gus Guenther^R
Trent Herbst^I
Yuka Honda^R
Joar Leifseth Ulsom^R
Sonny Lindner
Lance Mackey
Allen Moore
Hugh Neff
Misha Pedersen^R
Kurt Reich^R
Brent Sass
Michael Telpin^R
Jason Weitzel^R
Abbie West
Brian Wilmshurst^R

Kristy Berington should be easy to spot in any room, because she will be one of, if not the tallest person there. She is running Paul Gebhardt’s A-Team as a warm up to the Iditarod, so she is looking to finish with all of the dogs.

Allen Moore is warming up Aliy Zirkle’s A-Team [his wife] for her Iditarod run.

Nikolay Ettyne of Russia and Joar Leifseth Ulsom of Norway are a team from an organization the that uses sled dog races as part of their program.

Michael Telpin, a Chukchi from Russia, is using Chukchi dogs on his team. These are the ancestor breed for sled dogs. The Chukchi live in a traditional area that spans the Bering Strait and are nomadic Arctic hunters.

Trent Herbst is a last minute replacement for Matt Giblin, who had to withdraw for medical reasons. Trent has been an Iditarod regular, and has apparently retired from teaching in Idaho to live in Alaska.

Misha Pedersen is Czech who was drawn to Arctic, and has been working as a dog handler.

Jason Weitzel is using his rookie run to raise money for Wounded Warriors.

Yuka Honda, is a Japanese teacher, and you have to admire her drive. She started the Quest in 2009 and made it from Whitehorse to Mile 101. It took her 32 hours to get over Eagle Summit, and she and the dogs had nothing left for the final 100 miles to Fairbanks. She has been running the Quest 300, and decided to give it another shot, but with the climbs occurring early.

The record time for even years is 23 hours less than the record for odd years. The extra 23 hours are needed to climb Eagle Summit after 900 miles of trail.