Downtown Anchorage, Alaska, was turned into a giant dog lot on Saturday when the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race held its annual ceremonial start in Alaska’s largest city. This is the 53rd running of the Iditarod, and it will look nothing like the races run before it. Little snow in Anchorage forced organizers to shorten the ceremonial start to under 2 miles from its normal 11-mile trek through Anchorage on city streets and trails. That’s not the only change. A lack of snow north of the Alaska Range has forced a route change for the sled dog race across Alaska, forcing the competitive start of the race to Fairbanks for the fourth time this century. The route change is also adding miles to the world’s most famous sled dog race. The route has usually been about 1,000 miles across Alaska, but this year it will be 1,128 miles. The winner is expected in the old Gold Rush town of Nome on the Bering Sea coast about 10 days after the start. There are 33 mushers in the race, tied for the smallest field ever with the 2023 Iditarod. There are two former champions in the field, three-time champion Mitch Seavey and Ryan Redington. Missing from the field, however, is defending champion Dallas Seavey, Mitch’s son. Dallas’ victory last year gave him his sixth title, the most ever by a musher. Gabe Dunham of Willow is in her third Iditarod race. She finished 18th last year, and her sled was decorated with a sign that said, “Nome All the Way.” “I had a bunch of 2-year-olds on the team, and they came into Nome barking and wagging their tails, so we're going to try to repeat it on a little bit more of a schedule this year and hopefully be a little bit quicker and a little more competitive,” she said. Warm weather rewarded the many fans who lined Fourth Avenue in downtown Anchorage to cheer on the mushers in Alaska’s most famous sporting event. Among them was Lisa Nakfoor of Naples, Florida, making her first trip to Anchorage. She said a friend always had the Iditarod on her bucket list, and Nakfoor’s mother recently reminded her that she once did a project on the Iditarod when she was in the 8th grade. “I’ve just have always been fascinated by the endurance of the mushers and the dogs, so it’s fantastic to be here,” she said. Nakfoor went a step further than just cheering from the sidewalk. She won an auction to be an Iditarider, meaning she got to ride in the sled of a musher as dogs drove the team on downtown streets and waved enthusiastically at fans during the trip.