Legendary Entertainer and 3X Tour Guide Winner of the Year, Dawson Dolly’s 8-Day Iditarod and Fur Rondy Adventure Tour is a HOOT!!  Dolly is a charismatic, colorful character who favors bold dresses circa 1800’s and proudly jokes ‘her husband is a gold miner and I’m a gold digger!” She is a popular travel host and motivational speaker.  A reformed ‘Madam’ who found the Lord, Dolly shares her passion and love for the Great Land of ALASKA in her fun ‘Dolly’s Iditarod and Fur Rondy Adventures tour.”

From Anchorage to Kobuk Valley, Turnigan and back to Anchorage Dolly will host you around the famous Fur Rondy Festival and the World Championship Sled Dog Race.  A celebration of when the miners and trappers would come into Anchorage to trade their winter yield (gold & fur), it has evolved into a huge festival including reindeer races, sled dog pull, snow shoe softball, the Miners & Trappers Ball, outhouse races, Jim Beam Jam, poker tournaments and much, much more.

You’ll attend the Iditarod Mushers Banquet and cheer the mushers on two days later at the start of the toughest race on earth, as they begin their 1,150 mile journey to Nome.

In between, you’ll have the opportunity to go shopping, skiing, snow shoeing, snowmobiling, ice skating and take a tram ride up a mountain.

Dolly likes to say “live your life with passion, expect great things to happen and remember the gold is within!” Entertaining the whole way, Dolly will warm your hearts.

For more information: http://www.dollysalaskatours.com & www.dawsondolly.com

Imagine eating the equivalent of 24 McDonald’s Big Macs everyday and then running an average of 122 miles everyday  for 9.5 days in a row.  Now picture running this distance in -50F temperatures, deep snow and blizzard conditions while crossing barren tundra, frozen rivers, serrated mountain ranges and dense forests.  Oh…. and you are pulling a sled weighing 300-400 lbs.  Could you do it?

The Husky- mix dogs who run the 1,150 mile Iditarod Sled Dog Race in Alaska are the world’s greatest athletes.  According to Australian veterinary physiologist, Ken Hinchliff, “there is no other animal, including humans, who comes close to competing.”  Their oxygen uptake (VO2) is 3X as high as our greatest endurance athletes, like Lance Armstrong.

They don’t sweat like humans.  They ‘dissipate’ heat through their tongues, nose and paws.  This makes them more efficient in colder environments.   Their muscles have 70% more energy producing cells than humans.  Where human bodies begin to breakdown over the course of a race, Iditarod dogs’ bodies actually begin to REPAIR themselves.  It has been scientifically proven they are stronger when they reach the finish line then in the first few days of the race.

Their diet would kill a normal household dog.  In race season, Iditarod dogs will consume 12,000 calories a day with 60% of those calories coming from fat.  That is the equivalent of eating 24 Big Mac sandwiches!

As I learn more about these amazing athletes, I have to say they are truly FREAKS of nature.  I don’t say that despairingly at all.  I’m just jealous!:-)

In less than 6 weeks I am heading to Anchorage, Alaska to cover the 39^th Annual Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.  Not many people in the lower 48 states know much about this amazing race other than it being a dog sled race.  Well, I’m hoping to change that!

Leading up to my latest adventure, I’ll be posting several informative blogs about one of the toughest endurance races on earth.  We’ll cover the history behind the race, who are the mushers behind the sled, what kind of training, supplies, clothes and gear planning is involved and of course, the dogs.