As mushers and their dogs prepare for the Iditarod sled dog race, the fabled sledding trek through Alaska’s wilderness, a warm winter has once again robbed the starting line of a key race ingredient: snow.
To make sure racers are greeted with snow at the start of their roughly 1,000-mile journey, organizers decided to ask the Alaska Railroad to trundle in about 350 cubic yards of it from snowier locales. It is the first time the railroad has had to ship snow from Fairbanks to Anchorage. The shipping service was donated, according to a railroad official.
“Moving snow out of the way, we don’t usually bring it to somewhere else,” Tim Sullivan, a spokesman for the railroad, told The Associated Press.