Jeff King knows what it takes to lead a winning team of sled dogs. The four-time Iditarod champion is a 23-time veteran of The Last Great Race. "I love dogs, I have a way with dogs," King says. "It's very clear I have some of their chemistry. And it is a never-ending joy for me to be with the dogs."
King's way with dogs has lead him to dozens of victories in an array of races across Alaska and the Lower 48.
"The training is fun, the lifestyle is fun, and friends you make getting there are fun," says King, 58. "The dogs become one with you, that's the fun part. Personally, I'm a very goal-oriented person so I love preparing for something. I enjoy the race, too, but I'm glad it's only 1,000 miles and not 5,000 miles. I like the preparation and then watching them (the dogs) perform.
"I take tremendous pride in the preparation of the dogs, and the equipment that we're using. That's the addictive part for me."
Perhaps no one has done it better over such a long career. Since his rookie Iditarod run, 18 of King's 22 completed races -- he scratched in 2012 -- across Alaska ended with the Denali Park musher among the top-10 finishers, including third place last year. He's earned nearly $853,000 in Iditarod prize money. Still, King says it's difficult to wrap your head around running a 1,000-mile race. "I think of it as 10 days on a dog sled, each day I go 100 miles.
"I've been on the trail 22 times, I know all of the sections. If you drive cross-country you don't think about the whole trip, you think about how far you are going today. How are we going to get to Reno before we go to Salt Lake, before we go on to Omaha? I'm thinking of the trail split up into segments."
The road trip analogy is accurate. Depending on how each segment goes, King makes adjustments. "You run until you run out of gas, and then you stop and fill the gas tank," which for mushers means feeding and resting the dogs. Then it's off to the next section.
Watch all of the videos from our musher profile series Voices from The Last Great Race, see slideshows from the trail and more on our Iditarod page. See this video on Vimeo or YouTube, and be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel for more great voices from the Last Frontier. Contact Alaska Dispatch videographer Tara Young at tara(at)alaskadispatch.com.