Twenty-year-old Kwethluk musher Jason Pavila is the first 2024 Kuskokwim 300 (K300) competitor to make it to the race’s halfway checkpoint in Aniak.
As he arrived in Aniak, Pavila told KYUK’s trail reporter that the run up to the halfway point was “really cold.”
Pavila arrived with 12 dogs on the line at 9:45 a.m. and told race volunteers that he planned to spend five hours in Aniak, which would complete the six total hours of rest mushers have to divide between Kalskag outbound, Aniak, and Kalskag inbound. Pavila rested one hour in Kalskag on the way up.
Behind Pavila, Fr. Alexander Larson, Pete Kaiser, and Ryan Redington were running within a few miles of one another as they closed in on Aniak.
Redington was the first musher to reach Kalskag early on Jan. 27 and logged three hours of rest before moving up the trail towards Aniak.
After Aniak, the race trail loops out towards Whitefish Lake before returning to the Kuskokwim River above Kalskag.
The front teams are setting a blistering pace on the icy trail and could threaten the traditional race course record of 36 hours and 32 minutes set by Matthew Failor in 2019. Richie Diehl’s 2021 win on a modified course was even faster at 36 hours and 8 minutes.
