The amazing race: Catching up with Iditarod musher Joe Gans

When it comes to bragging rights, James and Pat Gans have most parents beat. That’s because their son Joe was one of just 78 mushers to complete the 2008 Iditarod.

The 1,049-mile dog-sled race kicked off in early March, and after 12 days on the trail, the 23-year-old rookie was the 57th musher to cross the finish line in Nome, Alaska.

Though he has spent much of his time since catching up on his sleep, the 2003 CHS grad is already looking toward his next race. “They say dog mushing is a very addicting thing and I know exactly what they mean now,” he said in an e-mail.

Joe’s parents made the trip from Chaska to Anchorage to see him off and get a taste for what their son would be experiencing.

“There was so much hoopla,” said his mom Pat, of the festivities surrounding the start of the race. But despite the excitement, Pat said she could see that her son was busy thinking about what lie ahead.

“He was nervous,” she said. “I could tell.”

Joe wasn’t the only one. “I was a nervous wreck,” Pat confessed.

Before he took off, Joe gave each of his 16 dogs a kiss. Pat followed with a warning. “I told them, ‘You guys have to get him to Nome,’” she recalled.

Warm ride

On the trail, Joe experienced warmer than usual conditions for the race.

“Never had to worry about frostbite,” he said. “The coldest it got was probably about zero and that was the last two days. I carried my big parka more than I wore it.”

But Joe’s trip was not without incident. He admits that in one instance he set his jacket on fire when he was using a cooker to melt snow for the dogs to drink.

“And with me being tired, I did not notice that my jacket had caught fire until I went to water my dogs and saw that it was melted from the wrist to my elbow,” he said.

Joe also ran into an open stream on the trail which he had to cross, much against the wishes of his dogs.

“The dogs didn’t like it,” said Pat. “Three slipped out of their harnesses and refused to cross. Joe had to carry them to the other side.”

For the most part, Joe can say that his first Iditarod went smoothly and yielded a lot of learning experiences.

“One thing I did learn is that when you see the next checkpoint’s lights off in the distance, don’t get excited. It may still be six hours away,” he said. “I learned this heading towards Takotna. They have a light on top of a mountain that you can see forever. You start to think you must be close, but turns out you are still 50 miles away. It is hard to judge distances in the open country.”

Joe had to drop three of his dogs at checkpoints along the way, but was very impressed with his team during the race.

“In 12 days we ran over 1,000 miles with the same team, and at the end my team was still ready to go,” he said. “They were all standing up wagging tails, rolling in the snow – in simple terms they were still having fun. That was one of the best feelings of the trip – to see how good my dogs looked at the end.”

“Dogs are an amazing animal, and way tougher than you can imagine,” he added.

Now Joe has his sights set on racing another Iditarod. It probably won’t be next year as “it’s not a cheap habit,” Joe admits, but he would like to run the next big race with dogs that he has bred and raised on his own.

Until then, Joe will have to rely on the memories from this amazing race.

“It feels good to be home again,” he said. “But at the same time it would be nice to be on the trail.”