Two Iditarod mushers — one a rookie, the other a four-time champion — recounted strange occurrences out on the trail when they arrived at the Unalakleet checkpoint.

"When you go many days without any kind of real or consistent sleep, you start to lose it," said Richie Beattie, a musher who runs his team out Two Rivers.

For days, Beattie has seen flashes of a tall slender lady with a red and black checkered bathrobe.

"She came out of the tree and disappeared," he said, "And now I keep seeing her every night."

Four-time Iditarod champion Lance Mackey had a much more mundane vision. In the middle of the night, Mackey was running dogs without a headlight, "like I usually do," when he started dozing off.

He rested his head on his handlabrs, when he sat up to see his dogs standing motionless.

"I go, 'What are you guys doing?' And I go to step off, and whoops! Needless to say, I did a faceplant. And a barrel roll," Mackey said before looking to the dogs.

"I think they were laughing," he said.