Iditarod Day Five

[dropcap]W[/dropcap]e have found a few trail photos in reference to yesterday's trail advisory we thought you would appreciate. Although these experienced mushers can make this race look easy, don't be fooled. Its a wet, cold, dangerous, jungle out there! Currently the top mushers are as follows: 1) Aliy Zirkle(#27) Grayling, 13 Dogs Aliy is smart, VERY smart. Her team is at peak performance and right on her schedule. She is not concerning herself with the other teams around her, she is hungry for that win. Aliy still needs to log her 8-hour layover. Stop in Grayling?? 11:00 still there. 2) Aaron Burmesister (#24) Anvik, 15 dogs I see very little change from Aaron. Team is strong and also needs to take an 8-hour break. 3) Jake Berowitz (#44) 16 dogs Same with Jake, I can’t find much to report besides he is 16 dogs strong and seems to be in good shape but needs to take his 8-hour break. 4) Martin Buser (#2) 14 dogs Martin has taken his 8-hour rest. At 4th place currently, he will likely pass up the leaders while they rest, if all goes according to plan. Martin will have roughly  5-6 hours in the lead if he passes through Grayling and pushes on to Eagle Island, as I predict he will (or maybe even further). Travel times are key now. Even with a team with a lot of speed may not have enough miles to chip away at the lead he has amassed.  Currently Martin is a couple of hours ahead of John Bakers record setting pace in 2011. 5) Nicholas Petit (#16) 14 dogs Unable to find much about him but from the looks of the GPS insiders we can see his speed is slowing down, he needs to take his 8-hours also. 6) Joar Leifseth Ulsom (#32) 14 dogs Rookie! Still needs his 8-hour rest. 7) Lance Mackey (#5) 12 dogs I am a huge Lance Mackey fan, as you can see Lance is already down to 12 dogs. I predicted before that he would go all the way to Anvik, when he was in Iditarod it was reported that his dogs got sick from consuming bad water. This is why he took his 24-hour in Iditarod and stayed an extra 2 hours and 4 min there. Lance made it to Anvik this morning and has declared another 8-hour rest here. Martin Buser is currently 7.5 hours ahead of Lance but, Martin still needs to record an 8-hour rest. Let the Leap Frogging begin! Michael DeMarco is quoted HERE saying: "Anvik to Graying is a very good section to compare team speed. It's short enough that there is little stopping yet long enough to gauge each team"