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The Road Less Traveled

The Iditarod trail is 1,150 miles long. We made it to the 194th mile.
. Illustration by Red Nose Studio.

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Lance Mackey is making the rounds. His team of 16 dogs, including the leaders ("Larry, the brains of the outfit, and Hobo, the speed behind the team"), dive into the food and bowls of water he sets before them. "They're very aggressive eaters," says Mackey. After inhaling the meal, some return to rolling in the snow to cool off from their run, while others work the hay under their paws into a comfortable spot to rest. Like human athletes, each has his own postrun routine.

For Mackey, the pack of mostly related look-alikes has more in common with a top-ranked high school soccer team than with pro players. The spirited black-and-beige dogs are "basically a bunch of adolescents ... a bunch of high school kids with minimum discipline." But he's not complaining - he breeds his dogs to have strong appetites and even stronger can-do (and rather chipper) attitudes. "Without either one, you're not going very far," he says.

It's 6:30 a.m., but the sky is still blue-black with night. Even the snow, piled high on and around the foot-thick lake ice, looks inky blue. The moon does little to help Mackey with his tasks, but there's enough of a glow from headlamps and TV cameras. Besides, Mackey, 36, has been mushing all his life and has twice won the 1,150-mile Yukon Quest. He could do all of this even without a sliver of light. As he works his way down the line of dogs, he checks each one with his eyes and his hands, finishing with a kind word or a good head scratch.

They deserve the attention. After all, they're already 194 miles into the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.