Jesse Royer comes into the village of Koyuk past piled sea ice near the shoreline on March 13. (Bob Hallinen / ADN) - Anchorage, Alaska 
69 mushers have signed up for the 2018 Iditarod
Sixty-nine mushers have signed up to compete in the 2018 Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, including four returning race champions and 16 rookies.
The deadline to register for the 2018 Iditarod was Friday. Mushers can still sign up to compete in the race until Feb. 15, but now they must pay double — a $4,000 late fee in addition to the $4,000 entry fee, according to race rules.
For now, the size of the 2018 Iditarod field is about average. Seventy-two mushers competed in the 2017 Iditarod. The year before that, 85 mushers started the race, the third-largest field ever. The last time the Iditarod had 69 total teams was in 2014.
So far, the 2018 Iditarod mushers include 17 women and 52 men. Eleven mushers listed their hometown as somewhere outside the United States — eight are from Canada, two from Norway and one is from Sweden. A total of 49 mushers said they were from Alaska.
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