This weekend marks the 47th running of the Kuskokwim 300 Sled Dog Race (K300). On Friday, Jan. 23 at 8 p.m., 23 mushers and their teams will set out from the Bethel riverfront for the race to Aniak and back.
The field of mushers is a mix of newcomers and veterans, each with their own place in the history of the unique race.
In his first appearance in a decade, Rohn Buser – son of mushing legend Martin Buser – will be vying for his third K300 victory. To do that, Buser will need to beat out hometown hero Pete Kaiser, who stands to become the winningest musher in K300 history if he can pull off his 10th first-place finish this year.
Five mushers will be running the race for the first time. Just one – 17-year-old Charlie Chingliak – is considered a true rookie, having never run a 300-mile race before. The teenager from Akiachak has become a name to watch in local sprint races, and he took 13th in the past two runnings of the Bogus Creek 150. Last year’s Rookie of the Year – 18-year-old Emily Robinson of Nenana – will also be racing after placing sixth in the 2025 race.
Bitter cold snaps locally and across the state in recent weeks have not made training easy for mushers. But race conditions for this year’s K300 should be milder, with daytime highs between 21 and 27 degrees Fahrenheit and nighttime lows of between 12 and 24 degrees Fahrenheit. Mushers could see a brief patch of freezing rain turn into snow in the early morning hours of Sunday, Jan. 25. Northeast winds aren’t forecast to exceed 20 miles per hour over the weekend.
Mushers are required to take six hours of rest throughout the race, split as they see fit between the outgoing Kalskag checkpoint, Aniak checkpoint, and the incoming checkpoint in Kalskag. All mushers must also take a four-hour rest in Tuluksak before the final 50-mile push to Bethel.
The mushers are competing for a cut of a $200,000 purse, the largest in the world for this race distance. The winner will take home at least $30,000.
Mushers will start from the Kuskokwim River in front of Bethel. Fireworks will blast off from the riverfront 15 minutes after the last teams have left the chute.
Keep up with the race action by tuning in to KYUK 640AM. We’ll have reporters doing commentary, interviews at the start and finish, and a reporter covering the race from Aniak. The K300 Race Committee will be live streaming the start and finish, and KYUK will be posting updates regularly to our website, Facebook, and Instagram pages. You can follow teams on the race’s online GPS tracker, which will also be pinned to the top of KYUK’s web page.
