Arriving under the burled arch at 7:39am, Mitch Seavey was the third musher to officially finish Iditarod 42, greeted by his son Dallas. Dallas explained the surprise of his recent win, which was news to Mitch as well, but not a shock: “On second thought, it’s not a huge surprise, things like that happen. Sometimes the reserve tank doesn’t have quite as much left in it as you thought. It’s not a big shock, but boy, I’m sure happy.”
Greeted by a small crowd, Mitch was officially checked in and chatted a bit about the trials of the end of this year’s race. “It’s not only the wind, it’s the glare ice and the gravel and the rocks. Any one of those you can do. All three together is borderline…difficult.” Led into town by his new young leader Wally, Mitch was happy to be officially checked in, joining tonight’s leaders in beating John Baker’s previous record for this race, finishing with 11 dogs in 8 days 16 hours 39 minutes 40 seconds.
