Aliy Zirkle and all 12 puppies made it to Circle just minutes after her husband, Allen Moore, pulled out. Allen left at 4:54AM and Aliy arrived at 4:57AM.

[My mistake – I forgot that they have a mandatory six-hour stop at Circle, and then head back to actually finish at Central and make the full 300 miles. Too much going on simultaneously, and the last time they ran this route was in 2012.]

Aliy crossed the real finish line at 10:32PM (7:32PM AKST).

Standings at 10:45PM CST (7:45PM AKST):

Finish At Central
1 Aliy Zirkle
Beyond Circle
2 Chase Tingle
3 Heidi Sutter
4 Sebastian Schnuelle
5 Laura Allaway
6 Jimmy Lebling
At Circle
7 Amanda Gecas
8 Andrew Pace
9 Ryne Olson
Beyond Central
10 Simon McLoughlin

Deke Naaktgeboren and Jesse Brattrud scratched at Mile 101.

They are leaving the road network behind today as the leaders head out from Circle on the Yukon River. In the winter transport is confined to sleds and aircraft. Normand Casavant made the decision to scratch at Central out of concern for his dogs. Some teams are fine but a good number are dropping dogs. The icy trail causes foot and leg injuries as the puppies want to run.

Mike Ellis and his Siberians have scratched at Circle. If you aren’t sure of your team, you have to stop at Circle, because after Slaven’s Roadhouse your team has to make it to Dawson. Eagle can’t take dogs due to a lack of transport.

Standings at 10:30PM CST (7:30PM AKST):

Beyond Slaven’s Roadhouse
1 Brent Sass (2)
2 Hugh Neff (14)
3 Allen Moore (8)
At Slaven’s Roadhouse
4 Cody Strathe (10)
5 Dave Dalton (5)
Beyond Circle
6 John Schandelmeier (17)
7 Matt Hall (3)^R
8 Ken Anderson (6)
9 Curt Perano (16)^R
10 Torsten Kohnert (13)^R
At Circle
11 Mandy Nauman (11)^R
12 Jerry Joinson (4)
13 Hank DeBruin (18)
14 Brian Wilmshurst (9)
Beyond Central
15 Tony Angelo (12)^R

These are the official standings. That means they are official, not that they are correct. Things jump around a lot as people decide to update the standings. This problem is especially bad in the back of the pack, as no one bothers to update those standings when the lead is changing.

The Mushers in bold are former winners of the Yukon Quest, the numbers in parentheses are their Bib numbers, and the small “R” indicates a rookie.

Note: This post will be updated during the day, and the map changed on all posts to reflect the current situation.

All posts on the Yukon Quest can be seen by selecting “Yukon Quest” from the Category box on the right sidebar.