After conquering 700 miles while leading the pack most of the way, reigning Iditarod champion Jessie Holmes and company reached the west coast of Alaska Sunday morning behind a sherbet-inspired sunrise.

Holmes collected his fifth award along the trail, earning the Ryan Air Gold Coast Award as the first musher into Unalakleet.

“I’ll tell you what, I ain’t cold no more. My heart is warm with joy,” Holmes said after receiving an original piece of artwork (a carved loon) and $2,500 in gold nuggets.

Holmes continues take charge and gain ground on the competition as if he has more to prove following his 2025 championship run.

″I’m just really focused on the goal, I want to follow this win up just so I can enjoy it more and know that I was consistent and that there was like no fluke about it,“ Holmes said at the Unalakleet checkpoint. ”I know there wasn’t, and I don’t look at it negatively, but like I’m just so focused on being able to give myself that validation that we can be that consistent and stay hungry and stay focused and not just be like, ‘Yay, we did this,’ to be able to follow it up is a huge statement.”

After winning his first Iditarod one year ago, Holmes continues to be motivated by greatness and putting his name alongside legends in the sport.

″If I do it [win the Iditarod again], I think I’m going to come back and try to do it a third time, because then I could get the river route, the northern route and the southern route all in three years,” Holmes added. “And then I could also join more of history with only Lance and Susan, I believe, that were three times in a row. And then I might just have to chase my buddy Lance’s greatness and go for four in a row, because I’m having a pretty good time.

“But I’m also starting to feel pretty old and beat up, so this might be all I got left in me, you know, for this race. As long as you’re having fun, you know,” Holmes said.

Trailing Holmes’ tail throughout the race has been Denali Highway neighbor Paige Drobny, who arrived in Unalakleet shortly after noon.

“I’m running out of miles, so it has to be soon,” Drobny said of making a move on the leader.

Drobny has finished in the top three each of the last two Iditarod’s and is in position this year to potentially make history as the first woman to win the Iditarod since Susan Butcher’s last win in 1990.

“It would be amazing if we won, obviously,” Drobny said. “There’s a certain amount of ego involved in that too, and if the opportunity doesn’t present itself perfectly to me, then I just won’t take it because it doesn’t matter that much to me. But I think to have a woman, any of us women out there win this race again would be amazing.”

Drobny has taken on the Iditarod trail 10 times without scratch, but couldn’t imagine doing it without her four-legged athletes leading the way.

“I mean, the dogs are so motivating. If they weren’t in front of me, there’s no way,” Drobny added. “One of my friends asked recently if I ever thought about doing [Iditarod Trail Invitational] and I was like, ‘Man, I could probably do it, if I didn’t have dogs anymore, I wouldn’t do it.’ And then I’ve been out there and I’m like, no way. No way would I do it on my own. Like if dogs in front of me, that’s great, but not just my own willpower. I wouldn’t be able to do it.”

Teams continued to check in and out of Unalakleet through Sunday as the leaders make their way up the coast to Shaktoolik.