Becca Moore on her 24-hour rest in McGrath

Becca Moore has an adventurous spirit.  In high school she loved to kayak, backpack and back country ski.  In college she spent her free time racing bikes, telemarking and snowboarding.  Now at the age of 44 she’s traversing the great state of Alaska by dog team.  

Becca holds a degree from Colorado State University in Resource Management.  Currently she’s self-employed.  She’s held jobs with the Army Corp of Engineers, the Sitka Ranger District and NOAA.  She began mushing in the year Y2K.  Just three years later she began thinking about long distance racing, specifically Iditarod.  In 2009 she tackled and conquered the Yukon Quest.  Becca and husband, Ramey Smith have had a team in Iditarod since 2005.

Becca says her spirit of adventure and love for the out-of-doors has become a lifestyle.  Becca, Ramey and their two children live off grid on a homestead parcel in a solar powered home.  Residents of their homestead include 49 sled dogs.  The kennel is family oriented with the children being completely involved.  They help with puppy training, they hop in the sled for long runs with their parents and they race their own small teams.  They children often pick the themes for naming puppies.  Soon enough, Becca will be running a team of Ninjas.  

Becca is an advocate for healthy activities for children.  She feels it’s of the utmost importance for children to develop healthy eating and exercise habits.  Her children have bought in to her beliefs.  On the morning of the Ceremonial Start in Anchorage, both children were sitting on kick sleds enjoying a fruit parfait for breakfast.  Undoubtedly musher mom, Becca, had a million things to attend to before heading down 4th Avenue.  When the kids said they were hungry and would like something with fruit, off Becca went in search of their healthy choice.    

Becca’s team is a mix of younger dogs and veteran dogs.  She’s very excited to be on the trail with her amazing athletes.  In the warm afternoon sun, Becca was getting her team settled for their 24-hour layover.  Booties were off, straw was down, dinner was cooking and Becca was removing harnesses.  She accomplished the task with gentleness that reminded me of getting a sleeping toddler ready for bed without waking the child.  She’s MOM for her dogs and they were really enjoying her TLC.

Becca completed her rookie Iditarod in 2015.  Due to low snow, the race went out of Fairbanks.  The route didn’t include the Happy River Steps, the Dalzel Gorge, the Buffalo Tunnels or the Farewell Burn.  Becca described the technical portions of the trail as intense.  While the Burn doesn’t require the same technical driving skills as the Gorge, it was a very rough-tough ride.  She pointed to a series of monster piles of snow and said, take your sled over that!  Being her first trip through the infamous areas she breathed a big sigh of relief when she arrived in Nicolai.

Trent Herbst’s parking spot with a view of the Kuskokwim River

The “More” in McGrath includes rookies Kristin Bacon, Patrick Beall, Elliot Anderson, Mirian Osredkar, Noah Pereira, Kristin Knight Pace and Sarah Stokey.  “More” Veterans include Robert Bundtzen, Trent Herbst, Melissa Owens Stewart, Jim Lanier, Rob Cooke, Al Eischens, Matt Failor, Mike Williams Jr. and Charley Bejna.  

The run from Nikolai to McGrath was a test run for Matt Failor to see how his sutured knee would hold up.  After the injury in Nicolai he wisely took his 24-hour rest there.  He came into McGrath in good spirits.

In my opinion Trent Herbst has a high rent parking spot.  He’s on the bank of the river with an incredible view.  I asked Trent if her was paying extra rent for the view.  He replied, it’s nice but he’d rather be parked behind the check point with no view as it’s just a little warmer back there and completely sheltered from the breeze.  His dogs?  They were snoozing and outwardly didn’t seem to care one way or the other.