Montana Musher Leads

Doug Swingley and his team of 14 dogs blew through this abandoned gold-mining community, putting some distance between himself and the other frontrunners in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.

Swingley, from Simms, Mont., arrived in Ophir at 9:39 a.m. Alaska time and took off 15 minutes later on the 90-mile run to Iditarod, another Gold Rush-era ghost town that gives the race its name.

Iditarod, about 600 miles from the finish line in Nome, is the race’s official halfway point.