Between the Musher Banquet in Anchorage where start order is determined and the Finisher’s Banquet in Nome where stories are shared and mushers are honored, many miles have passed under the sled runners. While the line on the map is the same for every musher, the journey is entirely unique. Iditarod welcomes Jessie Holmes to the elite group of just 26 champions and celebrates with seven rookies who’ve become members of the elite Official Iditarod Finisher’s Club.
The field of 33 mushers was tied for the smallest number in race history with 2023. The inaugural run in 1973 had 34 contestants. Twenty-two hardy mushers finished the 2025 Ultra-Iditarod. This number ties with the 1973 inaugural Iditarod run for the smallest number of finishers.
The Ceremonial Start seems like a very long time ago. But to refresh your memory, there wasn’t enough snow to cover the streets of Anchorage nor was there any snow on the Anchorage trail system so the Ceremonial Start began at 4th and “D” Street like always but then ended just a mile and a half later at Sullivan Arena. It was the shortest Ceremonial route in race history, second only to the 3 mile run in 2016.
For the 4th time since 2003 the race start was moved to Fairbanks. The distance, 1128 miles, was the longest of any race route in Iditarod history. The route starting in Fairbanks on the Chena River, met up with the Tanana River which then brought the mushers to the mighty Yukon. Staying on the Yukon River teams went all the way down to Anvik, the first Yukon River checkpoint of the southern route. Mushers took a short land loop to Shageluk and back to Grayling before returning to Kaltag and heading to the Bering Sea Coast. Of the 1128 miles two-thirds were flat river miles but don’t confuse flat with easy because those flat river miles were anything but easy…