Bend musher Rafael Nelson set to race in Wyoming with the help of former Iditarod racer Rachael Scdoris

Published 4:30 am Friday, January 29, 2021

In the sport of sled-dog racing, it really is all about the dogs.

Most mushers would agree with that.

“The biggest thing is the dogs,” said Bend’s Rafael Nelson, who is racing in the seven-day Stage Stop Race across western Wyoming starting Friday. “These dogs are just incredible. They’re so friendly, and they’re always so excited about running and meeting people. They’re very well trained and intelligent. They make the best co-workers for sure.”

Nelson works for the Oregon Trail of Dreams sled dog tours at Mt. Bachelor ski area, founded by renowned dog musher, Rachael Scdoris, and her father, Jerry Scdoris, both of Bend. Rachael Scdoris, 35, was the first legally blind musher to attempt the Iditarod, and she competed in the annual 1,000-mile race across Alaska four times, the last time in 2009.

Nelson, 30, is taking the Scdoris’ dog team to the Wyoming race for the second straight year, and Jerry Scdoris is going along as support. Starting in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, the Stage Stop race is a sprint stage race of about 30 miles per day on the Bridger-Teton, Shoshone and Caribou-Targhee national forests. Mushers will compete for $165,000 in prize money.

Nelson finished 10th at the race last year in his first ever sled-dog race, but this time the dog team is more experienced.

“The dogs are stronger, and I’m really excited to see what they can do,” Rachael Scdoris said. “Now that Rafael knows what to expect, and knows what these dogs are capable of — we’ll see.”

At Oregon Trail of Dreams, Nelson, Rachael and her husband, Nick Salerno, take customers on hourlong sled dog rides along groomed trails near Mount Bachelor.

The race in Wyoming will be much more intense than his day job, but Nelson said he plans to just focus on his dog team and not worry about the other competitors.

“I don’t plan to look at the standings, maybe until the last day,” he said. “The forecast is for it to be pretty stormy and cold. That’s fine. But coming from Central Oregon, most of our dogs have been in warmish weather, relatively speaking. If it’s really cold, that might not work in our favor. But either way, we’ll make it happen.”

Nelson compared the Stage Stop Race’s format to that of the Tour de France, in which racers travel to a new course each day and are able to sleep in hotels each night. The much longer Iditarod is more of a nonstop slog across Alaska, with occasional breaks for sleeping.

“It’s a great tour of western Wyoming,” Nelson said of the Stage Stop Race. “Each stage is in a different place, with beautiful mountain scenery on every single stage.”

When not working the tours at Bachelor, Nelson has been training the dog team with Rachael and Jerry at their sprawling ranch in Alfalfa, just east of Bend. The dogs are mostly Alaskan husky mixes.

Rachael Scdoris has continued racing over the years, but for the shorter, faster sprint races, like the Stage Stop, she figured Nelson was the better choice for a musher.

“We just realized that for this level of sprint racing, there is no margin for error,” Rachael said. “I’m a musher who makes errors — that’s just the way it is. So it’s better for Rafael to go.”

Scdoris was born with achromatopsia, a rare vision disorder that limits her to seeing only blurry shapes of objects more than a few feet away and makes her acutely sensitive to bright light. Despite her disability, Scdoris, a graduate of Redmond High School, has been mushing since she was 3, starting with the encouragement of her father.

Scdoris made worldwide headlines as the first legally blind musher to attempt the Iditarod in 2005. In 2006 she completed the race, placing 57th among 72 finishing teams. She skipped the Iditarod in 2007, and in 2008 she pulled out of the race 941 miles into the route. In her last Iditarod, in 2009, Scdoris finished 45th.

Each time she raced the Iditarod, she had a fellow musher along with her as her “visual interpreter.”

Scdoris, who with Salerno has a 6-year-old son, Julien, raced in the Canadian Championship Dog Derby in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, three straight years from 2016 to 2018. Last year, she competed in the local Bachelor Butte Dog Derby near Bend. Both those races were canceled this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Stage Stop and the Iditarod, which starts in early March, are two of the few sled dog races that are still scheduled for 2021.

Scdoris’ last Iditarod was nearly 12 years ago, but she has not ruled out a potential return to the world’s most famous sled dog race. For now, though, she is content running the sled-dog tours at Bachelor and helping Nelson to train the dogs.

“Next year is the 50th running of the Iditarod, so that would be an interesting time to come back for sure,” Scdoris said. “I miss the Iditarod, and it would be fun to go back. But training for these stage races is SO much easier. But it’s still hard, and we’ve worked incredibly hard to build up this stage team.”

The Oregon Trail of Dreams offers sled dogs tours at Mt. Bachelor ski area west of Bend.

For more information or to book a tour, visit otdsleddogs.com or call 1-800-829-2442.