Iditarod restart moved to Fairbanks

The Iditarod is headed north.

The Iditarod Trail Committee is moving the 2025 Iditarod restart to Fairbanks, ITC officials announced Monday afternoon, following weeks of speculation of where teams will actually take off this year for the Last Great Race, thanks the less than ideal conditions in Southcentral Alaska.

“After careful consultation with our dedicated Trail Breakers and thorough review of current trail conditions, the Iditarod Trail Committee has made the difficult but necessary decision to move the Official Restart of the 2025 Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race to Fairbanks,” race officials said in a press release.

The ITC announced in late January that the race will try to use the Southern Route, which runs 998 miles and mushers travel through Iditarod, Shageluk, Anvik, Grayling and Eagle Island before converging at the junction of Kaltag, where the mushers then run the same route to the finish line in Nome. But the first stretch of the race, which typically includes a restart at Willow Lake, and the Yentna and Skwentna checkpoints, was still questionable at best at that time. But after continuing to assess the conditions following that decision, race officials were forced to scrap that plan altogether.

“Previous flyovers and information collected at the end of January proved for a safe, very passable trail on the Southern Route for all areas except this stretch which was still questionable. Unfortunately, due to the absence of snowfall since the January 31st decision to take the Southern Route, the on-the-ground data that our Trail Breakers provided today after their assessment has deemed this portion of trail unpassable,” race officials said.

Moving the restart in Fairbanks became the priority, according to the ITC.

“Our Trail Breaker crew has just spent over a week prepping the trail from Skwentna through to Rohn, historically the most challenging terrain of the race. After a heavy discussion with our lead Trail Breaker and other friends of the race including local knowledge, and with no new snow on the horizon, there is simply no way we can allow the teams to progress through that 20-mile stretch just before the Salmon River, 20 miles from Nikolai. It is a shame because the remainder of the trail is in great shape all the way to Nome,” Race Marshal Warren Palfrey said in the release.

The race restart is now scheduled for Monday, March 3 at 11 a.m. in Fairbanks. The 2025 route will run as follows: Fairbanks, Nenana, Manley, Tanana, Ruby, Galena, Nulato, Kaltag 1, Eagle Island 1, Grayling 1, Anvik, Shageluk, then looping back up river to Grayling 2, Eagle Island 2, Kaltag 2, then to Unalakleet then continuing onto Nome using the traditional checkpoints between Unalakleet and Nome.

This is a developing story. Continue to see frontiersman.com for more.

Contact Frontiersman managing editor Jeremiah Bartz at editor@frontiersman.com.