As first-time Yukon Quest winner Jeff Deeter pulls into the finish line in Tok on Thursday afternoon, he immediately hops off his sled, greets the crowd, and grabs big handfuls of treats from a nearby bucket to feed his dog team. He finished with nine, having dropped five dogs for various orthopedic injuries.
He says time spent travelling over the technical route was as rewarding as it was visually stunning. But he’s not yearning to mush through more hills anytime soon.
"I've run a lot of other races, but I've never been into river ice that has frozen in big pieces that are all configured in all sorts of ways, so it's all jumbled together. And that was a really interesting and challenging experience, but quite, quite positive in the end."
Deeter has mushed competitively for decades, but this was his first time racing in the Yukon Quest, and his first encounter with jumble ice. He says he hopes to keep up his team’s momentum as they prepare for the next adventure, running in the 2025 Iditarod. And that mostly comes down to one thing: diet.
I think they really exceeded my expectations in terms of their appetite. They came into the race eating at 100%, and so I think that gives my wife and I some insight into how we should kind of prep our teams. What we did for the team, we'll try and replicate in some of our future races," Deeter said.
Deeter said he planned to celebrate his victory with a family meal at Fast Eddie’s restaurant just steps from the finish line in Tok, followed by a beer and a foot massage.
Josi Shelley finished five hours and 10 minutes behind Deeter at 7:41 p.m.
“There was a lot of challenges as far as like the river, some of the wind and, um, jumble ice and stuff. So obviously that's tough, but at the same time, it's a highlight to me as a measure because of the dogs, I mean, just them learning and just, um, my leader, Ferdinand, he barks going up Eagle Summit, just encouraging the team when we get into wind or any tough situation, same thing. He just starts barking and getting jazzed. So, so that's a highlight,” Shelley said.
And then about four hours later Lauro Eklund and Jonah Bacon, who had been traveling together since leaving the Chicken checkpoint, both came in to Tok at 11:34, although Eklund was first.
The last two teams in the race are likely to finish late Friday.
They are Keaton Loebrich and Joey Sabin, who traveled much of the distance from Eagle to Chicken within sight of each other. They pulled in to the Chicken checkpoint Thursday night at 9:25 and 9:29 respectively.
For both of them, the run from Eagle was rough, so Joey Sabin said he planned to take longer than the required rest time.
“I'm not leaving in six hours, I'm going to take probably an eight, give my dogs a little extra rest, that was a pretty long, long, brutal run, so we're going to get a little extra rest, and I plan on splitting this run up in half, um, you know, my goal is just to finish with waggy tails at the end,” Sabin said.
Sabin says he might even camp halfway and make it two runs. He and Loebrich will miss tonight’s awards banquet in Fairbanks.
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The last trail leg from Eagle to Tok is new. It has never been part of the Yukon Quest.
Ever since the pandemic broke up the 1,000-mile international race, Alaska Quest officials have tried to regain the robustness of the original trail. In 2023, a planned 550-mile route included this section, but ice on the Yukon River was found to be too dangerous, and that year’s race was re-routed.
So in 2025, the Quest tried again. And already, this section of trail is getting a reputation.
“Every musher that's come in has said it's It was pretty difficult run.”
That’s Justine Schmidt. She and her partner Josh Paul are staffing the first-time ever Chicken checkpoint. It is small, with a couple of connex containers that were brought in on the Taylor Highway before the winter. And there are only six volunteers, who flew in after the highway was closed.
“Then the, the real MVPs are the, the people that live here in Chicken. They have been so helpful. Helping us with everything. Not knowing they were going to be volunteers, but very gung ho and very excited," Schmidt said.
Schmidt, Paul and other volunteers will do a trail sweep with snowmachines, to make sure there’s nothing left behind. Then the outside volunteers will fly out.
“This has been, uh, mostly aviation supported, which is cool. Um, the two air services in Tok have been super helpful getting us out here,” she said.
While checkpoint volunteers are packing up today, Loebrich and Sabin will be heading down the trail. Sabin says he’s hear the last section is not that bad, with a lot of downhill.
“It's been a lot of fun though. I mean, I, I, I don't mind being miserable for a week, I'm pretty good at it," he said.
