'There was just no snow': climate change puts Iditarod future in doubt

After record high winter temperatures reduced parts of the course to a bone-jarring, sled-wrecking obstacle course, is the great mushing race on its way out?

A little before midnight on a moonlit night, the solitary beam of a dog musher's head lamp danced across the dark snow and ice of the Bering Sea coast and landed on a barking, trotting, tail-wagging mass of canine excitement: a team of 11 Alaskan huskies straining towards the finish of the legendary Iditarod dog sled race.

The nearly 1,000-mile endurance race across the wilderness officially concluded with the dogs sprawled out on a snow ramp in the centre of Nome, an old gold rush town just below the Arctic Circle. Musher Marie Helwig, who finished in 71st place, posed with the red lantern given to last-place finishers as a salute to their perseverance.