01 November 2006

Rachael Scdoris, Competitive Musher

Rachael Scdoris and her dogsled team compete in a preliminary race in 2004. (© AP Images)

By Chandley McDonald

Chandley McDonald is a writer for the U.S. Department of State in the Bureau of International Information Programs.

It is really hard to imagine. Think about bracing yourself against the cold of minus 52 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 46.7 Celsius), enduring 12 days of unrelenting wind, and racing across more than 1,110 miles (1,776 km) of difficult Alaskan wilderness. Competitive “mushing,” piloting a sled and 12 to 17 sled dogs in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, is the realization of Rachael Scdoris’s lifetime dream, even though she has been legally blind since birth. The 20-year-old woman from Oregon is the first blind musher to compete in the Iditarod. Scdoris and her visual interpreter, Tim Osmar, finished in 56th and 57th places in the Alaskan race in March 2006. An Iditarod veteran, Osmar drove his dog team in front of Scdoris, operating as her “eyes,” alerting her to trail conditions during the race. They communicated by two-way radio.

The Iditarod is sometimes called “the last great race on earth.” Every year since the competition began in 1973, the race has begun in Anchorage, Alaska, during the first weekend in March. Each team of dogs and their mushers cover the distance across Alaska to Nome in approximately nine to 17 days. Scdoris and Osmar finished the race in 12 days, 11 hours, and 42 minutes. Finishing and placing in 2006 was particularly gratifying for Rachael. In 2005, she had to drop out after completing more than half of the race, because some of her dogs became ill.

Scdoris’s condition is called congenital achromatopsia, a rare vision disorder. She is colorblind, and her condition makes her extremely sensitive to light. Congenital achromatopsia is a hereditary disorder that affects one person in 33,000 in the United States; the condition generally is stable over the course of a person’s life. The incidence of congenital achromatopsia varies in different parts of the world. Many achromats can function normally with the aid of darkened glasses, while others use guide dogs or canes and are considered legally blind.

Even though she is visually impaired, Scdoris has not let this stand in the way of challenges. “It has been my plan to race the Iditarod since I was eight years old, as it is the biggest and most prestigious sled dog race in the world,” says Scdoris, who started mushing when she was three years old. As a student in Oregon, she was captain of her high school track and cross-country teams. Voted one of the top women athletes in America by the Women’s Sports Foundation in New York City, she had the honor of carrying the Olympic Torch to the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics in 2002. Now, Scdoris divides her time between competitions and working as a sled dog tour operator.