Alaska’s sparse-snow winter that complicated training for mushers in the Iditarod Sled Dog Race may ironically have created a fast track to Nome. The early trail running some 150 miles from the Winterlake Lodge at Finger Lake up and over the Alaska Range to the village of Nikolai appears to be in the best shape of modern Iditarod history.The notorious Happy River steps down the perilously steep creek banks on the south side of that stream were so innocuous earlier this week that an Iditarod rookie arriving for the first time might not have noticed much except the last step. Nobody could miss that steep drop of about 15 feet to a tiny patch of spruce forest just before the frozen and snow-covered river. Even that step shouldn’t be much of a problem for mushers who just hang on and let the dogs run, unless Iditarod trail breakers decide to fix it.Read more here: http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/20130303/hows-alaskas-iditarod-trail-year-call-it-snowy-superhighway-nikolai
