Person of the Week: Rachael Scdoris

March 11, 2005 — -- Rachael Scdoris, 20, says there is nothing in life she likes better than racing her dog team. This week, Scdoris and almost 70 other mushers are racing across 1,100 miles of Alaskan terrain in the annual dog sled competition called the Iditarod.

The race commemorates a medical mission in 1925 when Alaska had an outbreak of diphtheria, and it was only by dog sled that medicine could reach the outlying towns.

Scdoris and the others have been on the trail since Sunday. Driving sled dogs all the way from Anchorage to Nome is demanding and dangerous, and Scdoris happens to be legally blind.

"There are times when I'm out there and I think, 'Man I wish I could see what's going out around here,' " said Scdoris. "But, you know, I don't know anything different, and this is what I have, so I'm going to use it."

Scdoris was born with impaired vision. She can get around on her own, but she sees shapes only vaguely, has no sense of color or depth, and she struggles to see the trail beyond her lead dog when racing.

"I'm not really that brave," she said. "I'm actually kind of a chicken, but this is something that I've grown up doing."

Scdoris depends on communicating with a partner -- Iditarod veteran Paul Ellering -- who drives a sled ahead of her. And she also depends on her dogs.

"The main sense that I use besides my vision would be just the feel of things," said Scdoris. "If we suddenly speed up, I've got a pretty good idea that we're going downhill. If there is a certain tension in the sled, I know that someone's not doing their job."

It has been a tough week for Scdoris. The radios that she and her partner use to stay in touch have broken, and she has taken some spills.

"I had a nice little encounter with a tree," she said, showing a bruise. "The tree won."

Scdoris is not going to win, but she is determined to finish.

"Just in the last four days, I've had some amazing ups and downs, and I've tackled trails that I've never seen anything like before," she said.