Musher Gebhardt takes wrong turn

TAKOTNA, Alaska – DeeDee Jonrowe was flabbergasted to learn she had beaten front-runner Paul Gebhardt to Cripple in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.

“No, no, isn’t Paul here?” the popular veteran musher from Willow asked race volunteers as she arrived at the tent checkpoint at 6:22 a.m. Thursday, followed 8 minutes later by Gebhardt, last year’s runner-up.

The 54-year-old Jonrowe had passed a musher going the wrong way. But she never expected it to be the 50-year-old Gebhardt, who was lost for at least six hours, wasting crucial time in the 1,100-mile race.

By late afternoon, 11 teams were parked at Cripple, the official halfway point and 609 miles from the finish line in Nome, on Alaska’s western coast. They included four-time winner Jeff King and four-time champion Martin Buser and his 18-year-old son, rookie Rohn Buser.

Earlier in the day, defending champion Lance Mackey left Takotna, two checkpoints back, where he had taken his mandatory 24-hour layover to rest his ailing dogs. The 37-year-old musher said his team is used to running in much colder temperatures than the unusually warm weather that has marked the trail so far.

The long rest obviously revived the team. Mackey, who last year became the first to record back-to-back wins in the 1,100-mile Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race and the Iditarod, left Takotna at 5 a.m. for the 25-mile stretch to Ophir. His team arrived there at 7:16, bounding out 4 minutes later for the 59-mile run to Cripple.

Back at Takotna on Wednesday, Karen Ramstead was taking her 24-hour rest with all 16 of her Siberian huskies.

The 42-year-old veteran musher scratched in last year’s race because she was devastated after a female leader on her team, Snickers, died of a bleeding ulcer.

Ramstead is dedicating this race to Snickers and carrying the dog’s ashes to Nome.