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The Trail For All Seasons

Traversing from Seward to Nome, explore the history of the route and the adventure it provides to this day throughout Alaska.

A wooden trail tripod stands on snow against a low winter sun.
A trail tripod at sunset between Kaltag and UnalakleetPhoto: Bob Wick, BLM, CC BY 2.0

Mile 0 · Seward

This is the INHT

The Iditarod National Historic Trail was designated by Congress as a National Historic Trail in 1978 to commemorate the last great American gold rush. It is a part of the National Trails System, which includes National Historic and National Scenic Trails across America.

The INHT is a system of trails. Some of those trails first connected Alaska Native villages. Others opened up Alaska for the gold rush. Together they celebrate Alaska's history and dog mushing legacy. They also continue to be vital for travel and recreation across Alaska today.

Designated by Congress
November 10, 1978
Winter trails, Seward to Nome
Nearly 2,400 miles
The first mile
Mile 0, Seward

Start at Mile 0 in Seward

A bronze statue of a trail traveler with a walking stick and his dog on a boulder, with trees and mountains behind.
The Trail Blazers statue in Seward
The Mile 0 sign and a tripod on the Seward shoreline, with Resurrection Bay behind.
Mile 0 in Seward, on Resurrection Bay

Seward to Nome in three regions

Locations and Landscapes

  1. A braided river runs through a green valley below jagged peaks. Seward to Knik Southcentral

    From the ice-free port at Seward over the Kenai and Chugach Mountains to the old outfitting town of Knik, the stretch of the trail you can reach by road, rail and bike path.

  2. Pink alpenglow lights snowy hills above a line of dark spruce. Skwentna to Kaltag Interior/Rivers

    Over the Alaska Range at Rainy Pass to McGrath, the goldfields around Iditarod and Flat, and the Yukon River at Kaltag: winter country beyond the road system, reached by plane and, in winter, by trail.

  3. A packed winter trail runs across open snow toward low mountains. Unalakleet to Nome Bering Sea Coast

    Down the Kaltag Portage to Norton Sound and along the coast, village to village, to the beaches at Nome that were once filled with gold.

Multiple uses of the INHT

How Will You Travel?

The Iditarod Trail is primarily a winter trail and many sections of the Trail are barely usable in the summer. Locals rely on rivers for inter-village transportation instead.

  1. Seward
  2. Moose Pass
  3. Girdwood
  4. Eagle River
  5. Eklutna
  6. Wasilla
  7. Knik
  8. Skwentna
  9. Rainy Pass
  10. McGrath
  11. Takotna
  12. Iditarod
  13. Kaltag
  14. Unalakleet
  15. Golovin
  16. Solomon
  17. Nome

Pick a way to travel, and the places along the trail that suit it stay lit.

No matter what the time of year, be prepared. Check local conditions before you venture out.

Iditarod, 1910

History

The Iditarod Trail, a symbol of frontier travel and once main artery of Alaska’s winter commerce, served a string of mining camps, trading posts, and other settlements founded between 1880 and 1920, during Alaska’s Gold Rush Era.

Most travelers on the Iditarod Trail did not go from trailhead to trailhead—Seward to Nome—as they did on the other trails of settlement in the American West. Instead, they mushed from the ice-free harbor of Seward to the various mining districts or used the Trail segments while traveling between mining camps and trade centers.

“… tripods… consisted of three sticks of timber each, two of which were eight feet long and the third ten or eleven feet long. They are so fastened together that the longest of the three sticks projects two or three feet over the others and directly above the trail.”

How Colonel Goodwin’s Alaska Road Commission crew built the trail’s tripods, from “Trail Making in Alaska,” Alaska Yukon Magazine, 1912. The same design is still used today.
Dog teams and loaded sleds lined up in front of log buildings at Knik in winter
Three-quarters of a million dollars in gold from Iditarod, arriving at Knik on January 12, 1912
A boomtown of frame buildings and canvas tents on flat ground, July 1910.
Iditarod, Alaska, July 21st, 1910

Communities in trail order

Cities, Villages, and Towns along the historic Iditarod Trail

Southcentral Seward to Knik

  1. SewardMile 0
  2. Moose PassRailroad community
  3. GirdwoodTrail town
  4. Eagle RiverTrail valley
  5. AnchorageConnecting trail · Ceremonial Start
  6. EklutnaDena’ina village
  7. WasillaRace headquarters
  8. KnikGold-rush outfitting town

Interior/Rivers Skwentna to Kaltag

  1. SkwentnaRiver crossing
  2. Rainy PassAlaska Range crossing
  3. McGrathInterior hub
  4. TakotnaRiver town
  5. IditarodGhost town
  6. KaltagYukon River village
  7. GalenaConnecting trail · Yukon River town
  8. Tolovana RoadhouseConnecting trail · Serum Run roadhouse

Bering Sea Coast Unalakleet to Nome

  1. UnalakleetNorton Sound village
  2. GolovinCoast village
  3. SolomonGold camp
  4. NomeEnd of the trail

Places on connecting trails are listed beside the stop they connect to. All places, with what to see in each

Kaltag Portage · Old Woman Cabin

Stewardship

The Iditarod Historic Trail Alliance promotes public awareness and protection of the Iditarod National Historic Trail and its gold-rush and Alaska Native heritage.

How do we do this? By encouraging education programs and historical research to tell the story of the Trail. By assisting in the protection, improvement, maintenance and marking of the trail. And, by developing partnerships that foster stewardship commitments and support from land owners, local communities, organizations and others.

“Then, volunteers stepped up and hauled the materials to the cabin on a rainy day in mid-April. The Alliance covered equipment costs and fuel.”

Unalakleet volunteers and the lumber for Tripod Flats Cabin, in The Tripod, Fall 2026
A helicopter lowers a load of supplies by sling onto a green hillside.
Helicopter delivers supplies to Old Woman Cabin
A young man in a cap measures a timber for a trail tripod beside a pickup truck.
Nathan prepares tripod for assembly in the field.
About twenty teachers in rain jackets stand in front of the Mile 0 sign and tripod in Seward.
iTREC! 2019-2020 class in Seward, AK

New on the trail

Announcements

  • A National Parks passport page stamped with the Iditarod National Historic Trail cancellation.

    Passport Stamp Program

    Museums, visitor centers and the Alaska Railroad carry an Iditarod National Historic Trail stamp for your Passport to Your National Parks.

  • Two children in knit hats sit in the snow reading the Junior Trailblazer booklet.

    Become a Junior Trailblazer

    A booklet of trail activities for kids, from the Bureau of Land Management Alaska and the Chugach National Forest.

A long gravel beach curves along the sea toward a headland.
The beach at Cape Nome

Nome · End of the trail

Help Keep the Trail Open

Contact Us

Iditarod Historic Trail Alliance
3705 Arctic Blvd #272, Anchorage, AK 99503-5774
iditarodhta@gmail.com