Musher Details

2009 Iditarod » Mushers » Lou Packer

Lou Packer

Bib Number: 43
Hometown: Wasilla, Alaska


Biography

Lou Packer, 55, says he's an all around wonderful guy, devoted husband and father." He is dedicated to his family of one wife, three kids and lots of dogs. He was born in California and grew up in L.A. He studied at UCLA and UC Berkeley and received his medical degree in 1981, and now runs Urgent care at Lake Lucille. He says he got sick and tired of the Lower 48 and moved to Alaska as soon as it was possible. He's been here for the last 22 years. "I watched the 7th Iditarod start when the Pope came to visit. I realized it was a sign from the heavens above that I should run the Iditarod, after all, dog backwards is GOD. Being immediately hooked, I ran a couple of other people's dogs a few times and each time my craving for dogs got worse and worse. Finally, after completely filling my head with rocks, dodging macho-pause and throwing all sanity and reason aside, I moved my family to Wasilla, built Urgent Care at Lake Lucille, and began running dogs with zeal in 2006. Ellen Varosi, Linwood Fiedler, Wayne Curtis, Lynda Plettner, Rick Casillo, Scott Smith, Sven Haltmann and many others have helped me tremendously along the way to Nome." Lou and wife, Ellen, have three children, Avalon, 10, Cirrus, 7, and Gazelle, 5. He says his hobbies are his family, kids, flying, hunting, fishing and gardening.

Sponsors

Urgent Care @ Lake Lucille


2009 Standings

Checkpoint Time In Dogs In Time Out Dogs Out Rest Time Previous Layover Status Distance
Enroute Time Speed (mph) 8hr 24hr
Anchorage 3/07 11:32:00 12
Willow 3/08 15:22:00 16
Yentna 3/08 19:26:00 16 3/08 19:38:00 16 0h 12m 4h 4m 16.23 66
Skwentna 3/09 01:17:00 16 3/09 09:03:00 16 7h 46m 5h 39m 6.02 34
Finger Lake 3/09 16:15:00 16 3/10 00:25:00 16 8h 10m 7h 12m 6.25 45
Rainy Pass 3/10 09:19:00 16 16 8h 54m 3.37 30
Rohn 3/10 20:31:00 16 3/11 06:30:00 16 9h 59m 48
Nikolai 3/11 22:32:00 16 3/12 11:03:00 16 12h 31m 16h 2m 4.68 75
McGrath 3/12 18:18:00 16 3/13 19:36:00 16 25h 18m 7h 15m 7.45 ✔ 54
Takotna 3/13 22:10:00 16 3/13 22:27:00 16 0h 17m 2h 34m 7.01 ✔ 18
Ophir 3/14 01:30:00 16 3/14 12:42:00 16 11h 12m 3h 3m 8.20 ✔ 25
Iditarod 3/15 04:58:00 16 3/15 14:10:00 15 9h 12m 16h 16m 5.53 ✔ Scratched 90