Washington musher will compete in upcoming Iditarod

N.S. NOKKENTVED, THE OLYMPIAN

Originally published Tuesday, February 12, 2002

OLYMPIA -- This year, dog sled fans from Washington will be watching with interest as one of their own will be competing in the grueling, 1,150-mile Iditarod sled dog race from Anchorage to Nome, Alaska.

Perry Solmonson, 43, of Plain, near Leavenworth in north-central Washington, is among the entrants in the race that starts March 2.

And some Washington mushers will be on hand, including John Conrad of Redmond, who is making the trip to Alaska as a volunteer helper with the race.

Though he races his own dogs in Washington and Oregon, he is not racing in Alaska.

"It takes too much money," he said. Just to get to the starting line takes about $50,000, he said.

But he will be helping Solmonson get started. "Perry should do pretty well," Conrad said.

In 1925, 20 mushers formed a 674-mile dog-sled relay to carry a load of diphtheria serum from Anchorage to Nome. The race now commemorates that 1925 serum run. The race started with two short races in 1967 and 1969. Since 1973, it has run all the way to Nome along the old Iditarod Trail.

This year, 68 mushers were signed up as of Feb. 5 -- another 14 had signed up and withdrawn.

Solmonson started designing dog sleds and researching the Iditarod in 1994. For the past six years, he has been working, training and breeding his dogs, hoping to run the Iditarod.

This year, those years of work and dreams may finally pay off. Solmonson mustered the resources to enter the legendary race. After training in the Cascades through Christmas, he went back to Alaska to train at Flat Horn Lake.

"I look forward to seeing Alaska's beauty from the back of a dog sled," he said.

The Olympian Copyright 2002

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