Tagish’s Michelle Phillips will be heading into February’s Yukon Quest 300-mile race on a high note.

The Tagish Lake Kennel musher finished a career-best third place at the Copper Basin 300 sled dog race in Glennallen, AK this week.

The race began last Saturday and snowfall late in the race slowed teams down.

Ryne Olson was the winner, finishing the 300-mile race in two days, eight hours and 56 minutes. She pulled into Glennallen just after 7 p.m., Monday night.

In second was Paige Droby, while Phillips rounded out the historic all-female podium in third.

Phillips has previously won the rookie award for the Copper Basin 300.

The Copper Basin 300 first began in 1990 and has run almost every year. In 1996, it was cancelled due to cold weather, while in 2012 it was cancelled due to poor trail conditions and severe weather.

This year the trail ran an altered route, staying west of the Richardson Highway, rather than east due to limited snow cover, the Fairbanks Daily Newsminer reported.

Phillips’ partner Ed Hopkins finished ninth.

Other Yukoners participating included Dawson City’s Brian Wilmshurst and Mount Lorne’s Magnus Kaltenborn.

The Copper Basin was Phillips’ first race this season. She also plans to run the Yukon Quest’s 300-mile race and the Iditarod.

Former Yukon Quest champion Sebastian Schnuelle scratched from the Copper Basin 300.

Last month during training outside Fairbanks, Schnuelle and his team were struck by a vehicle at a road crossing on Chena Hot Springs Road. Two of his dogs died, while the rest remained unscathed.

However, the reprecussions of the accident continued to affect his team.

“Looking at my team I realized that I would be running out of dogs to finish. Too many injuries,” he wrote on his Facebook page Monday evening. “The aftermath of the accident is bigger than I had hoped. With that I made the difficult decision to withdraw from the Iditarod also.”

Schnuelle was runner-up to Allen Moore in the 2007 Copper Basin 300 and won the Yukon Quest in 2009.