Willow 300 starts Thursday

WASILLA — Teams leaving Willow in local mid-distance races typically head east. But the most recent addition to the mushing calendar has teams covering a different area of the Susitna Valley.

Amber Lake, the Trapper Creek Trading Post and the finish at the Sheep Creek Lodge are among the scheduled stops during the second-annual Willow 300 Sled Dog Race, slated to start Thursday afternoon on Willow Lake.

“The trail conditions are looking really great,” Marshall Cogdill, a member of the race committee, said Monday afternoon. “Trail crews are still out there.”

Cogdill said about 3,000 survey markers have been staked for the race, which begins with a 65-mile jaunt to Deshka Landing. From Deshka, it’s 49 miles to Amber Lake. There, teams head 31 miles to the Trapper Creek Trading Post before taking 62 miles worth of trail back to Amber Lake. The final leg, Amber Lake to the finish at the Sheep Creek Lodge, is 72 miles. Iditarod musher Wade Marrs was a founder of the race, Cogdill said, but Mat-Su Borough Mayor Vern Halter, an Iditarod veteran and longtime staple in the Valley mushing community, has stepped in to help out as race marshal this year.

The race will also feature a mass start. Mushers interested in the mass start will depart the starting chute Thursday at 1 p.m. Mushers also have the choice to leave after the initial pack of mushers depart. Teams must take a total of 18 mandatory hours of rest during the race, which is expected to conclude sometime Sunday. Rest can be taken at any checkpoint, according to race rules listed on the race Facebook page, but each break must be a minimum of two hours.

There is a total race purse of $15,000, with first place drawing $5,000. As of Monday night, a total of 37 mushers were in the field. The list includes Girdwood’s Nicolas Petit, who has already captured titles in three different mid-distance races this month. Petit has finished first in the Knik 200 Joe Redington Sr Memorial, the Copper Basin 300 and the Tustumena 200. The 2018 field also includes Iditarod veterans Ramey Smyth, Jim Lanier, Ray Redington Jr and DeeDee Jonrowe.

Contact Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman sports editor Jeremiah Bartz at sports@frontiersman.com.