The Iditarod

Not all the challenges for Iditarod racers are to be found in the Bush. Mushers and their teams must descend this steep hill in Anchorage before leaving the city's streets for its trail system.

The race starts on Fourth Avenue in downtown Anchorage on a Saturday morning in early March (in 2008, it's March 1). Mushers and dog handlers, their teams and equipment, fill Fourth Avenue and adjoining side streets for blocks. Spectators crowd sidewalk barricades, watching as the racers make last-minute adjustments and try to calm dogs that are anxious to get started.

Some of the teams will have to wait for hours before it's their turn. A team leaves the starting area every three minutes.

The first day's race is just for fun. Mushers carry passengers -- some of whom are celebrities -- for this part of the race. But it will be just the mushers and their dogs after the restart on Sunday in Willow, a few miles north of Wasilla. (In 2003, because of poor snow conditions, the start was moved hundreds of miles north to Fairbanks.) Just as spectators line the streets and trails along the race route through Anchorage, there will be a crowd of thousands at the scene of the restart on Sunday. After that, the mushers will see well-wishers only when they pass through the occasional village on their thousand-mile trip to Nome.

The Iditarod attracts visitors in the summer, too, long after the race is over. Wasilla, known as the Home of the Iditarod, houses the Iditarod Museum.

At the start, the typical team has 16 dogs (teams used to be able to have as many as 20). When it arrives in Nome a week-and-a-half or so later, there may be only 10 or 12. Mitch Seavey, the winner in 2004, finished the race with eight dogs. Lance Mackey, who completed the run in 9 days, 5 hours, 8 minutes and 41 seconds in 2007, finished with nine dogs. (Mackey won again in 2008.) Veterinarians periodically check the condition of the dogs along the way, and if they or the musher feels a dog should not continue, it is removed from the team and flown back to Anchorage. If a dog looks like it no longer wants to run while the team is still on the trail, it'll probably get a ride to the next checkpoint bundled up on the dog sled. Then it will fly back to Anchorage on one of the light planes of what's called "the Iditarod Air Force" after it has been checked by a veterinarian. About 1,400 dogs ran in the 2008 race.

High winds, rough trail and the cold took a toll on the mushers, too, in 2007. By March 18 (the race started March 3 that year), 47 teams had finished, 12 were still on the trail, and 23 had dropped out.

Below, a team running on the trail system in Anchorage emerges from a tunnel beneath a four-lane road. The trail system is popular with cross-country skiers in the winter, as the tracks indicate.