Some serve as aircraft dispatchers for a cadre of pilots who ferry supplies as well as mushers and dogs that drop out. This is where volunteers and race contractors monitor the dog teams through sleds equipped with GPS trackers that allow fans to follow them online in real time and organizers to ensure no one is missing.
'This is a really low-tech event when you look at it from that perspective, but high-tech research has always been a huge part of the race,' he said Wednesday during a tour of the Iditarod's hotel command post. George, acting CEO of the Iditarod Trail Committee, the race's governing board. Technology has increasingly made the 47-year-old race more immediate to fans and safer for competitors, said Chas St. Their progress is monitored from several hotel rooms whose 24/7 occupants are the Iditarod's electronic eyes and ears. But they're not competing in a vacuum on the 1,000-mile (1,600-kilometer) trail that spans two mountain ranges and the frozen Yukon River before it heads up the wind-scrubbed Bering Sea Coast to the finish line in the Gold Rush town of Nome. As of Friday, 51 mushers are traveling long stretches between remote village checkpoints with no other company but the dogs pulling their sleds.
