The Iditarod sled dog race is coming up soon. Just 24 days to the Anchorage ceremonial start and then it’s onto the trail for my 10-day trip to Nome. WooHoo! This will be my 33rd year photographing this magnificent event. Of course I don’t look at it as the “race” it is billed as… but what an adventurous EVENT it certainly is. I am privileged and blessed to be able to be a part of it and to be able to experience and travel the entire trail every year. The wonderful people in the villages and the volunteers who travel the trail or are stationed in various checkpoints, make it “Old Home Week” for me. Like a reunion each year. I’m looking forward to it once again.
Like last year, I plan to post images daily to Facebook and also to this new photoblog. Expect to start seeing posts of photos this week as the volunteers begin to prepare by bagging straw for the dogs’ beds and next week getting the musher’s food sorted out to haul to checkpoints. It’s a monumental task to get it all together.
New this year, is this photoblog which will have more photos and text than my Facebook postings. If you like to see more photos and a bit more of an in-depth view of my travels along the Iditarod as well as some “behind-the-scenes” of the Iditarod, I think you’ll enjoy this blog. If you’d like to get other regular updates, please “Like” Facebook page here.
And speaking of behind the scenes… if you like Iditarod and enjoy reading about happenings others don’t get to, pickup or find a copy of the March, 2013 issue of Alaska Magazine. There are 3 different articles about the Iditarod and what it takes to make it happen. One of the 3 is a story by a man, Bob Jones, who snowmachined the Iditarod some 20 times. In 2010 he snowmachined with my guide and I over Rainy Pass and spent the night in a cabin with us. The article he wrote is about me and my 30 years as the official photographer and includes some behind the scenes of that trip I did over the pass to get some pretty cool photos. The March issue of Alaska Magazine should be on the newsstands in Mid to-late February. You can view or subscribe to Alaska magazine at: http://www.alaskamagazine.com/
This photo was shot of me, by Bob Jones for his article for Alaska Magazine about our snowmachine trip over Rainy Pass. This was taken on the second day after travelling from the Pass by sno-go and spending most of the day in the Dalzell Gorge photographing various teams. My traveling companions thought they saw white patches on my face (frostbite) and put duct tape on them to prevent further frostbite in case that’s what it was.
