Mike Williams Jr. was the first musher to Aniak, the 2025 Kuskokwim 300 Sled Dog Race (K300)'s halfway point. This year, with a modified course taking mushers through Aniak Slough instead of the traditional post-Aniak Whitefish Lake loop, the checkpoint actually marks a bit more than halfway through the race.
Williams Jr. arrived with 10 dogs on the line at 5:06 a.m. on Feb. 8. He told race volunteers he planned to spend his remaining four hours of required rest time in Aniak before pushing through back down to Kalskag and Tuluksak.
Williams Jr. told KYUK’s trail reporter in Aniak that it was great to be back in Aniak after six years off from running the K300. He said that the new route through Aniak Slough worked out well, and that his time on the trail had been relatively uneventful. His lead dog Queenie had presented with some hopping in her gait, but had been looked at by vets and seemed to be doing well.
Williams Jr. fed his dogs ground beef and fat, and then had a bit of trouble getting into the community center, where the door had jammed closed.
Williams Jr. had rested for two hours in Kalskag before he headed out as the first musher on the trail to Aniak just after midnight on Saturday, Feb. 8.
Behind Williams Jr., mushers Cim Smyth, Riley Dyche, Pete Kaiser, and Hunter Keefe were within a few miles of each other as they closed in on Aniak.
Dyche, of Big Lake, was the first to both the Tuluksak and Kalskag outbound checkpoints, and had set off for the Aniak checkpoint just before 1 a.m. on Feb. 8 after resting three hours in Kalskag.
Mushers are required to take a total of 10 hours of rest during the K300: six of the hours split at their discretion between the outbound Kalskag, Aniak, and inbound Kalskag checkpoints, as well as four hours in Tuluksak before the final 50 miles of the race.
