Cate Alexander
Yukon Quest Alaska 2025 Race Manager
Happy new year one and all! We are under a month to the start of the Yukon Quest Alaska, and things are really coming together.
First and foremost, yes, the race is really happening, and it’s really happening as we planned: Fairbanks to Circle, up the Yukon river past Slaven’s Cabin to Eagle, down the Taylor highway through Chicken, and finishing in the Fast Eddy’s parking lot in Tok. We’ll be able to put in a trail on the river, but whether or not it’ll have jumble ice, overflow, be drifted in, or or totally wind-swept is all dependent on the weather in the last days leading up to the race. As we like to say: every year is different, and this year is no different. The trail crew is motivated to make sure the race happens, and they are heading out in the next week or two to start putting in the trail on the Taylor highway and on the Yukon.
The second piece of big news is that we now have a couple start managers who have been hard at work getting things planned for the start on February 1st behind the Morris Thompson Cultural and Visitors Center. If you’d like to help them out with getting things set up the day before, or want to work at the start, please reach out, we will take all the help we can get, whether you have experience or not.
Josh Spice is set up to run Slavin’s Cabin again this year, and the National Park Service is so thrilled to see sled dogs back on the Yukon River they have half a dozen volunteers who are champing at the bit to get out to help run the dog drop.
I’m working on finalizing flights with the airlines to make sure we can get all the food drops, vets, and officials to the checkpoints when they need to be there, and dropped dogs back to Tok on the way out of the race.
The last big thing we still need is a place to host vet-checks. If anyone just so happens to know of a large warehouse who would be interested in sponsoring the race with some space – either during the day or in the evening – please reach out to me at racemanager@yukonquestalaska.com
Thanks for reading! We’re really excited to see this race come to fruition, and don’t forget, the last day to sign up is this Friday, January 10th.
Thanks for listening to the Race Manager Report and if you have any questions at all please reach out to racemanager@yukonquestalaska.com or director@yukonquestalaska.com.