25 Years on the Iditarod Trail — Iditarod Trail Invitational

Before the race, the trail

A Path Older Than the Race

The ITI is twenty-five years old. The trail beneath it has been carrying people through Interior Alaska for well over a century — and for far longer than that as a network of Alaska Native winter routes.

1908 – 1911 · Gold

A mail trail to the goldfields

Gold was struck on Otter Creek, near the Iditarod River, on Christmas Day 1908. The Alaska Road Commission sent Colonel Walter Goodwin to chart a winter mail-and-supply route from Seward to Nome — roughly a thousand miles of main trail, built along routes Alaska Native travelers had used for generations. Within a few years thousands of stampeders, mail carriers, and freight mushers were moving along it, village to roadhouse to village. Mail took about a month, moved by relays of dog teams.

1925 · Serum

The race that saved Nome

When diphtheria broke out in Nome in the winter of 1925, the antitoxin could get no closer than the railhead at Nenana — 674 miles away. Twenty mushers and more than 150 dogs relayed it across the trail corridor in 127.5 hours through blizzards and −50° cold. Leonhard Seppala and Togo covered the longest, most dangerous stretch; Gunnar Kaasen and Balto ran the serum down Front Street at 5:30 in the morning. It remains the most famous journey ever made on this trail.

1978 · Heritage

A National Historic Trail

Congress designated the Iditarod a National Historic Trail in 1978 — the only one in Alaska — to commemorate the last great American gold rush. The dog race, first run in 1973, made the trail a legend. The ITI belongs to the same lineage: its racers travel the historic corridor each February the way the mail carriers did — under their own power, checkpoint to checkpoint, in whatever conditions the trail decides to offer.

1987 – 2027

From Iditabike to the Invitational

Twenty-five years of the ITI — and the fifteen years of wild experimentation that came before it.

1983

Skis first

Joe Redington Sr. — "Father of the Iditarod" — backs a long-distance ski race, the Iditaski, in part to keep the historic trail in use and maintained. Human-powered racing on the Iditarod Trail is born. A 100-mile snowshoe race, the Iditashoe, soon follows.

1987

Iditabike

Challenged by Redington to bring bikes to the trail, the Mountain Bikers of Alaska expect ten locals for a 200-mile out-and-back from Big Lake. Twenty-six racers from six states show up. Soft snow forces the leaders to push their bikes some 60 of the first 100 miles; Dave Zink wins in 33 hours 50 minutes, Martha Kennedy is first woman, and half the field never finishes. Navy SEAL Laddie Shaw supplies the era's motto — "Cowards won't show and the weak will die" — then becomes its most celebrated early dropout, immortalized in a tongue-in-cheek award for humility.

1989

Proof of concept: Nome

A small group of cyclists including Dan Bull rides the full trail to Nome in about three weeks — the first human-powered push the whole way, and the seed of everything that followed.

1991

Iditasport

Ski, snowshoe, and bike races merge into one multi-discipline event under Dan Bull. At its peak, Iditasport draws more than 200 competitors and five-figure prize purses.

1997

The Extreme — and the Impossible

Iditasport Extreme sends racers roughly 320 miles from Knik over the Alaska Range to McGrath, billed as "a wilderness race held in the spirit of the Klondike": unmarked trail, almost no rules. In 2000, the Iditasport Impossible extends the race the full thousand miles to Nome. These two events are the direct ancestors of today's ITI 350 and ITI 1000.

2001

Collapse

After its biggest year yet — Red Bull backing, cash primes on the trail — Iditasport implodes amid its founder's financial and personal troubles. For a moment, human-powered racing on the Iditarod Trail has no future at all.

2002

The Invitational

Veteran racers Bill Merchant and Pat Irwin form Alaska Ultra Sport and restage the race as the Iditarod Trail Invitational — in Bill's words, a no-frills race put on by racers, for racers. No marked course, no required gear list, no prize money; winners get free entry the next year. Bill and, soon, Kathi Merchant will carry the race for nearly two decades, Bill breaking trail to Rohn by snowmachine each February.

2008

The Merchants reach Nome

Kathi Merchant becomes the first woman in race history to complete the full 1,000 miles to Nome; Bill finishes the thousand the same year. The founders' own names go into the book they keep.

2014

The year the records fell

A nearly snowless trail turns the race into a time trial: Jeff Oatley reaches Nome in 10 days flat — a record untouched since — while the 350 bike and foot marks fall the same week. The trail gives; two years later Tim Hewitt (19 days on foot, at 61) and Jill Homer (women's bike record to Nome) close out the era of benchmarks.

2018

A new era

Kyle Durand — veteran, attorney, ultra-athlete — completes the full thousand to Nome to, in his words, qualify himself to lead the event, and begins directing the race, taking the helm outright the following year. The field roughly doubles over the years that follow, while the core rules move not an inch.

2020

The Unalakleet Eight

As COVID shuts down the world mid-race, organizers stop the eight 1,000-mile racers who have not yet crossed Norton Sound and fly them out of Unalakleet — recorded forever as "finished in Unalakleet," not scratched. The same year, the race begins operating as a nonprofit. In 2021 the ITI keeps its unbroken streak alive with an out-and-back route that never touches the villages.

2026

The 25th running

One hundred seventeen athletes and 125+ volunteers mark a quarter century of consecutive races in one of the hardest years on record — weeks of −35°, thigh-deep snow, and a four-rider bike finish in Nome that took nearly 28 days. The race also launches its first athlete-led fundraising campaign for the villages along the trail.

2027

Twenty-five years

On February 28, 2027, at 2:00 p.m., the field leaves Knik Lake for the 25th-anniversary season — a southern-route year, forty years after the first Iditabike. Three distances now form a deliberate ladder: the ITI 150 to Rainy Pass Lodge, the 350 to McGrath, and the 1000 to Nome. The start line looks the way it always has: no marked trail, no rescue plan, and everything you need on your bike, sled, or back.

Twenty-five years of racers

Legends of the Trail

Some of the people who defined the first quarter century. Rookies arriving today may never have heard these names. They should.

Founders · 2002 – 2020

Bill & Kathi Merchant

When Iditasport collapsed, Bill Merchant refused to let human-powered racing on the trail die with it, and built the Invitational around a simple conviction: too much support cheats the adventurer out of the reason they came. Each February he broke trail by snowmachine to Rohn. Kathi co-directed the race for eighteen years — and in 2008 became the first woman in race history to complete the full thousand miles to Nome. Bill's summary of a lifetime out there: "In all that time the trail has never been the same twice."

Foot · 10 journeys to Nome

Tim & Loreen Hewitt

A Pennsylvania trial lawyer who has walked to Nome more times than anyone alive, Tim Hewitt set the men's 1,000-mile foot record — 19 days, 9 hours — in 2016, at age 61. In 2013 he did the full distance unsupported, hauling a 105-pound sled and never stepping indoors. Found asleep in the middle of the trail during the brutal 2015 bike attempt, his verdict afterward was pure Hewitt: "I hate to let the bike beat me." Loreen Hewitt's 2014 women's foot record to Nome — 26 days, 6 hours — still stands.

Bike · The purist

Mike Curiak

Set the Knik–Nome record in 2000 on an early prototype fat bike, then came back in 2010 to do something no one had done: ride the entire trail to Nome fully self-supported — three weeks of food and fuel from the start line, accepting nothing along the way. Fifteen days, one hour. It is still regarded as the benchmark for self-supported winter travel on the Iditarod Trail.

Bike · Ten days to Nome

Jeff Oatley

In the freakishly fast conditions of 2014, the Fairbanks cyclist rode to Nome in 10 days, 2 hours, 53 minutes — beating the previous record by nearly a week, and outpacing every Iditarod dog-race champion prior to 1995 over the same ground. More than a decade later, nobody has touched it.

Bike · The power couple

Jay & Tracey Petervary

Three 1,000-mile wins for Jay, including the 2011 Nome record that stood until Oatley's ride. In 2010 Jay and Tracey rode the thousand miles to Nome together — on a tandem fat bike. Tracey went on to set the women's Nome benchmark of her era, and the two remain shorthand for the race's golden age of husband-and-wife suffering.

Foot · 350 record

Dave Johnston

The waist-length ponytail, the cheap plastic sled, the checkpoint beer — and the fastest 350 ever run on foot: 4 days, 1 hour, 38 minutes in 2014. A multiple champion and one of the most beloved characters ever to knock on the door in McGrath.

Foot · Through the ice

Peter Ripmaster

In 2016 he broke through an ice bridge on the Tatina River and went completely under, still harnessed to his sled. He hauled himself out, dried off, and kept going. Two years later he won the 1,000-mile foot division to Nome — 26 days and change — on his third attempt at the distance.

Foot · The metronome

Beat Jegerlehner

Seven 1,000-mile foot finishes and counting — year after year, storm after storm, one of the most consistent long-distance travelers in race history. In 2023 he and France's Thierry Corbarieu walked into Nome side by side as co-champions after 25 days on the trail.

Bike · The chronicler

Jill Homer

Seven starts, five finishes, and the race's most important storyteller — her blog and books carried the ITI to the world long before trackers and social media. Her 2016 ride to Nome, 17 days and 3 hours, is still the women's bike record. On reaching Front Street: "No one could ever take this away from me."

Foot · The new standard

Faye Norby

Women's foot champion to Nome in the brutal whiteout year of 2024 — the only woman to finish the thousand on foot that season, roughly 26 days of unbroken trail and storm. Part of the generation now writing the race's second quarter century.

All three disciplines

The Triple Threat Club

A handful of athletes — Josh Brown, Petr Ineman, Erick Basset among them — have finished the ITI by bike, on foot, and on skis. In 2026 Basset became just the third person ever to complete the full thousand miles to Nome in all three disciplines.

And hundreds more

Every name in the book

Record-setters and back-of-packers, eight-time veterans and one-and-done rookies — every finisher's name lives in the race's Hall of Records. The trail treats them all exactly the same.

Never the same twice

Years That Made the Race

2014

The year without snow

A freak mild winter left the trail beyond the Alaska Range as frozen dirt and glare ice — the same conditions that wrecked a dozen dog teams in the Dalzell Gorge handed human-powered racers a superhighway. The 350 bike and foot records and Oatley's ten-day ride to Nome all fell in a single season.

2015

The counterpunch

The trail answered with −40° cold and unbroken, crotch-deep snow north of the Range. Tim Hewitt, out of food between Ophir and Ruby, was found by a snowmachiner asleep in the middle of the trail; Loreen was hauled to Ruby with frostbite on the same rescue sled. On the fast front section, the 350 bike records set that year still stand.

2020

Racing the pandemic

As the world shut down mid-race, three 1,000-mile racers — Jill Martindale, Petr Ineman, and Casey Fagerquist — rolled down Front Street together at 11 p.m. after 22 days, into a Nome that had cancelled its Iditarod festivities and was bracing for COVID instead. That same year, the race began operating as a nonprofit.

2022

The tie and the moguls

Frozen snowmachine ruts turned the trail out of Rohn into three-foot moguls with vertical faces — "the worst I've ever seen," said Tyson Flaharty. He and Ryan Atkins chose to finish the 350 in a dead tie, only the second in race history, after 2 days, 7 hours, 57 minutes of shared work.

2024

The whiteout epic

Five of six days in whiteout snowstorms — winner Miron Golfman called it about as much adversity as the trail can offer. No speed records that year, but the long way earned its legends: Faye Norby's solo women's foot finish, and the ski records to Nome falling simply because everyone was out there so long.

2026

The Fab Four

Weeks of −35°, high winds, and thigh-deep snow. The only 1,000-mile bikers to make Nome — veterans Ryan Wanless and Erick Basset, and rookies Mayella Krause and Kendall Park, who rode together from the start — took 27 days, 23 hours: slower than most foot records, which says everything about the year.

Rohn · Mile 200

Rob's Roadhouse

The wall tent pitched each February beside the 1930s Rohn safety cabin is named for Rob Kehrer — the always-smiling volunteer who helped Bill Merchant pioneer the trail to Rohn by snowmachine, kept the tent warm, made beds for exhausted racers, and stuffed everyone with food. Rob died in 2014 in the Alaska Mountain Wilderness Classic. The checkpoint still carries his name, and most rookies passing through have no idea who he was. They should.

Nikolai · Mile 300

The first village

Nikolai — Edzeno' in Upper Kuskokwim Athabascan, population well under a hundred — is the first Alaska Native village on the trail, and it has welcomed racers for as long as there has been a race. For years that meant the home of Nick, Olene, and Stephanie Petruska; today it's the community hall, warm food, and familiar faces. A village that hosted a roadhouse on this same route during the gold rush is still taking in frozen travelers a century later.

McGrath · Mile 350

A finish line with a doorbell

The ITI 350 may be the only major race on earth that ends at a family's front door. Racers finish by knocking at Peter and Tracy Schneiderheinze's house in McGrath, then step into a living room famous for its nearly endless flow of food and its floor full of sleeping finishers. It has been that way for decades.

The lodges

Winterlake & Rainy Pass

Finger Lake's checkpoint is Winterlake Lodge, a 1930s hunting lodge turned wilderness retreat; Puntilla Lake's is Rainy Pass Lodge, Alaska's oldest wilderness lodge, established 1937 at the foot of the Range. For one week each winter, two of Alaska's most storied lodges open their doors to people dragging sleds.

The coast

Trail angels to the sea

Beyond McGrath the checkpoints end and the villages take over: school gyms opened in Galena, reindeer stir fry from a local family, cookies handed over near the sea ice, and Joanna Wassillie of White Mountain, who has hosted 1,000-mile racers in her home for more than a decade of race years. Racers call them trail angels. The race calls them the reason it exists at all.

125+ strong

The volunteer backbone

Trail-breakers on snowmachines, checkpoint cooks, med support, trackers watched at 3 a.m. from every timezone on earth — more than 125 volunteers carried the 2026 race, most of them veterans and family who keep coming back. The race sets the table; they keep the fire lit.

What the ITI is built on

The Values

Twenty-five years in, the race has never needed a mission statement to know what it is. These are the values the stewardship board has put into words — the ones that explain every decision from who gets an invitation to why there is still no marked course.

Self-Reliance

You carry everything you need and solve your own problems. No outside support, no exceptions.

Real Consequences

The organization does not buffer poor decisions. There is no race-organized rescue — by design.

Earned Entry

The start line is a privilege earned through qualification, competence, and conduct. It cannot be bought.

Uncertainty

No marked trail, no guarantees, no promise of comfort. Predictability would make this just another race.

Integrity

Race honestly where no one is watching. The unwritten rules bind because each racer chooses to honor them.

Stewardship

Leave the trail, the cabins, and the villages better than you found them. Give back more than you take.

Respect

We are guests of Alaska — its communities, cultures, and land as they are, not as we would want them to be.

Community

A rising tide, not an elite club. Veterans mentor rookies; racers think beyond themselves.

Humility

Check the ego at Knik. The trail decides.

More than a race

Giving Back to the Trail

For twenty-five years the villages of the Iditarod Trail have taken care of this race. The race's next chapter is making sure that street runs both ways.

The ITI has operated as a nonprofit since 2020, and its organizers established the Intrepid Path Association, a 501(c)(3), as the race's charitable arm — a way to turn the community that gathers around the race each February into year-round support for the Alaska Native villages along the trail.

The spark came from a racer. Matt Garretson — a Park City ultra-cyclist who worked his way up from the 130 to the full thousand miles to Nome — watched the villages that had fed and sheltered him get hammered by Typhoon Halong in the fall of 2025, and came to the race with an idea: athlete-led, grassroots fundraising, directed entirely by what the communities themselves say they need. He lined up at the 2026 start with a fundraising goal riding along with him, and, in his words, a debt to the people who had shown him "so much kindness" along the trail.

It worked. In its first year the program raised over $34,000 in grassroots donations, and the money moved fast and close to the ground: critical repairs to keep village community buildings running through the deepest cold, heating fuel, winter clothing for kids, supplies for rural schools, and typhoon recovery on the coast. In Nikolai — the first village on the trail — that meant concrete, unglamorous, essential things, from new bathroom facilities to heating-oil deliveries and a repaired heater, with workers flown in to do the building.

Beyond the fundraising, the race itself now puts more than $350,000 a year into rural Alaska — lodging, meals, fuel, freight, aviation, and local supplies across the villages that make the event possible. For the 25th anniversary season, Matt Garretson is spearheading the program's second year, with one goal: that the ITI is never just passing through.

Give Back Donate via GivenGain

First-year impact · 2026

$34,000+
raised in grassroots donations through the Intrepid Path Association
Community buildings kept warm — critical infrastructure repairs so village gathering places stay operational in extreme cold
Nikolai — new bathroom facilities, heating-oil deliveries, heater repairs, builders flown in
Kids & schools — winter clothing and cold-weather gear for children; educational materials for rural schools
Typhoon Halong recovery — targeted support for western Alaska villages hit in October 2025
$350,000+
annual direct economic impact across rural Alaska from race operations

Record	Athlete	Time	Year
1000 · Bike · Men	Jeff Oatley	10d 2h 53m	2014
1000 · Bike · Women	Jill Homer	17d 3h 46m	2016
1000 · Foot · Men	Tim Hewitt	19d 9h 38m	2016
1000 · Foot · Women	Loreen Hewitt	26d 6h 59m	2014
1000 · Ski · Men	Asbjørn Bruun	24d 0h 53m	2024
1000 · Ski · Women	Sunny Stroeer	29d 23h 6m	2024
1000 · Self-supported	Mike Curiak	15d 1h 15m	2010
350 · Bike · Men	John Lackey	1d 18h 32m	2015
350 · Bike · Women	Heather Best	2d 8h 9m	2015
350 · Foot · Men	Dave Johnston	4d 1h 38m	2014
350 · Foot · Women	Anne Ver Hoef	6d 12h 20m	2013
350 · Ski · Men	Jim Jager	4d 8h 0m	2002
350 · Ski · Women	Tracie Currie	5d 22h 8m	2025