Pete Kaiser won his third consecutive Kuskokwim 300 on January 22 in Bethel, Alaska, earning $25,000 and testing his team’s resolve in challenging conditions they’ll likely face in the Iditarod a little more than a month from now.
Kaiser is one of three mushers in the race’s 38-year history to win the race three times. Mitch Seavey won it in 2005, 2008 and 2009. Jeff King won it nine times, the last time in 2013.
Kaiser’s only the second musher to win the race three times in a row; King has accomplished that feat twice, in 1991-93 and 2001-03.
After crossing the finish line and setting his snow hook, Kaiser hugged and kissed his wife, Bethany, and their 4-year-old son, Ari.
The Kuskokwim 300, also known as the Kusko 300 or K-300, is one of the more highly regarded mid-distance sled dog races in Alaska. The race starts and ends in Bethel, and the course follows the Kuskokwim River. The race is known for its often difficult weather and trail conditions.
This year was no different.
“It was cold,” Kaiser, a 29-year-old Yup’ik musher from Bethel, told KYUK’s Katie Basile at the finish line. Temperatures dropped to as low as 40 below zero. “But it was nice to have a cold race with snow. It actually felt like winter here,” he said, referring to recent warmer winters that have led to cancellation of some races and forced rural mushers like Kaiser to travel farther from home to train.
There was a snow storm two days before the race start that left 5-6 inches of fresh snow, creating ideal trail conditions, said third-place finisher Richie Diehl, Dena’ina Athabascan. “It was really nice to have that instead of ice.”
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Diehl’s team, led by Willie, Vandal and Merlin, performed well in those conditions. As for the cold, “I just kept pouring the calories into them,” he said.
The field of 20 mushers was formidable, and many will compete in the 1,000-mile Iditarod that begins on March 4.
Kaiser and his team finished the K-300 in 1 day 16 hours 14 minutes. Brent Sass, a past Yukon Quest champ, finished second in 1:16:53. Diehl, who placed 12th in the 2016 Iditarod, finished third with a time of 1:17:14.
Iditarod veteran Mike Williams Jr., Yup’ik, finished ninth in 1:20:32, crossing the finish line five minutes after Jeff King, the nine-time K-300 champ and four-time Iditarod champ. Williams, who finished a career-best eighth in the Iditarod in 2012, is skipping this year’s big race and is instead training for the 2018 race.
In his nine years as a competitive musher, Kaiser has built an impressive resume: in addition to three K-300 titles, he’s won the Kobuk 440 once, the Denali Doubles once, the Norton Sound 450 twice, and has three top 10 finishes in the Iditarod, two of them fifth place.
He and his team will put that experience to work on March 4, in the ultimate test of physical conditioning, discipline, strategy and sheer determination on the most challenging yet breathtakingly beautiful route in mushing.
Diehl, the 2014 Iditarod’s Most Improved Musher, is confident in his team’s fitness and drive in the upcoming Iditarod. What impressed him most about his team in the K-300? “The fact they can go that distance with so little rest.”
NOTEBOOK:
Kaiser trained for the K-300 in Fairbanks, some 517 miles from his home in Bethel; the snow was better there, he told Indian Country Media Network on January 10. Advised that another K-300 win might yield such headlines as “Re-Pete,” Kaiser responded, “I’m hoping for ‘3-Pete.’”
After the race, Kaiser was photographed with supporters, holding a sign that read, “3-PETE.”
An Alaska Dispatch News headline declared him “King of the Kusko.”
KFXF-TV Channel 7 in Fairbankscalls it a “historic gold-silver-bronze sweep for a new trio of mushing’s leading ladies.” Ryne Olson, 25, passed her mushing mentor, Allen Moore, in the final 50-mile leg of the Copper Basin 300 to win that Interior wilderness race’s title January 17. Olson and team finished the race in 2 days 8 hours and 56 minutes. Finishing second was Paige Drobny of Fairbanks. Michelle Phillips of Whitehorse finished third.
Moore, who has won multiple CB-300s and Yukon Quests, finished fourth. His wife, three-time Iditarod runner-up Aliy Zirkle, finished sixth.
Olson who finished 31st in the 2012 Iditarod and 59th in 2016, is not registered for this year’s big race; Moore, Phillips and Zirkle are on the musher list.
Other upcoming pre-Iditarod challenges: The Tustamena 200 begins January 28 in Kasilof on the Kenai Peninsula. The field of 32 competitors includes two-time Iditarod champ Mitch Seavey (father of four-time champ Dallas Seavey); and Knik 200 champion Nick Petit. The Yukon Quest – a 1,000 miler between Fairbanks and Whitehorse – begins on February 4 in Fairbanks. Seven 2017 Iditarod mushers are among the field of 23 Yukon Quest competitors, among them past Yukon Quest champs Allen Moore, Hugh Neff and Brent Sass (Neff beat Moore by 26 seconds in the 2012 race).
ONLINE: KYUK’s Katie Basile interviews Pete Kaiser at the finish line:
