Warm weather has postponed the start to the famous sled dog race known as the Iditarod in Alaska.

Although the eastern United States has been buried in snow lately, that’s not been the case for Alaska, which has experienced warm temperatures and not much snow, according to a Associated Press report.

The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race was scheduled to start on Saturday with a ceremonial run through the city of Anchorage, but officials have moved it 225 miles to the north to Fairbanks in order to avoid a situation where Iditarod competitors are going over barren gravel. It was a problem that caused mushers to be bruised and bloodied up last year, and officials don’t want a repeat this time around.

Last year featured similarly awful conditions, and a musher had to be taken off by rescue helicopter after going through the Dalzell Gorge and falling and hitting his head on a tree stump. He spent an hour unconscious before finally coming to. The musher returned tot eht rail, only to break his ankle while walking on the ice and trying to get control of one of his dogs.

A total of 78 mushers will compete in this year’s Iditarod. Six of them are former champions, and 20 of them are racing for the first time. They will race to the town of Nome in a competition that is expected to last about 10 days.

The jet stream is to blame for the warm temperatures as it brings warm weather from the Pacific into the state. It has been fairly stagnant, which has allowed cold air to flow out of the Arctic and into the Midwest and East Coast.

To get an idea of just how warm it is has been int he region, Anchorage typically gets about 5 feet of snowfall each year, but so far it has gotten only a little more than a foot and a half.