Anchorage, Alaska –
The last man reached Nome, finishing the 50th race of the Iditarod Trail Trans-Alaska.
Musher Apayauq Reitan of Kaktovik, Alaska, finished Saturday night, winning the Red Lantern and $1,000 for being the last team of sled dogs to reach the Bering Sea coastal community on Alaska’s west coast.
Reitan also extinguished the widow’s lamp on the ledge arch across the finish line, a tradition that meant there were no other people on the trail.
The world’s most famous sled dog race kicks off March 6 in north Anchorage by 49 people. The nearly 1,000-mile (1,609 km) trail took them across two mountain ranges, along the frozen Yukon River and then along the Bering Sea ice on Alaska’s west coast.
Twelve of them were scratched, half of them on Friday in a fierce storm that hit the gathered soldiers with high winds as they attempted the final 77 miles (124 km) to Nome. .
Brent Sass, a Minnesota native who now lives in Eureka, Alaska, won Tuesday’s race.
