Still the Same Old Coat

Some Iditarod mushers get new fancy new coats each year decorated with numerous sponsor patches. Zack Steer states that the only patches on his well worn coat are the ones covering up the holes. When he crossed the Iditarod finish line last year in 3rd place, he proudly proclaimed, "I like to be able to compete with the big boys, score one for the dirty jackets this year," said Steer. "Lance and I seemed to do pretty well. We like to beat those clean-coat guys."

Although this will be Steer's 5th Iditarod race, he doesn't consider himself a professional musher. His main source of income is from the Sheep Mountain Lodge that he and his wife Anjanette manage located 2 hours northeast of Anchorage Alaska. He says he shares a kennel there with about 30 dogs "if you count the three-legged ones" with fellow Iditarod musher Robert Bundtzen. It was Bundtzen that introduced Steer to mushing back in 1996 when Steer volunteered to work in Bundtzen's Anchorage kennel as a dog handler. Steer must have impressed the boss since he found himself running Bundtzen's team in the 1998 Iditarod finishing an impressive 22nd as a rookie.

Steer was managing a guiding business at the time for sailing and sea kayaking trips in the Prince William Sound during the summer and the rest of the year he would substitute teach and help Bundtzen with the kennel. Bundtzen, a long time family friend, once again raced the kennel's team in 1999, but Steer got a chance to run the team again in 2000 finishing 14th. Steer would take a hiatus from competitive mushing after the 2000 race when he and his new wife moved away from Anchorage to live at and manage the Steer Mountain Lodge which they had just purchased.

It didn't take too long for Steer to figure out that the area around Sheep Mountain was ideal territory for mushing dogs, and soon he would start developing his own modest kennel there. He developed an extensive trail system and by 2004 he had created the Sheep Mountain 150 dogsled race which utilized those trails. He also utilized the trail himself as he began the task of grooming some dogs to hopefully enable him to race in the Iditarod again.

Steer still has his day job and the summers at Sheep Mountain Lodge are a very busy time, but he has found that he has some spare time in the off season to train dogs. He decided once again to try the Iditarod in 2005. He would scratch in that race, but in the process he figured out that he was very capable of fielding a competitive team. He was back at the Iditarod in 2007 shocking everybody except himself by finishing 3rd. He credits his success to putting together a plan and sticking with it while maintaining enough flexibility to deal with changes to weather, trail and the team. He will not adjust his plan based on what other teams are doing. He says this philosophy works best when racing under adverse conditions like those encountered in the 2007 race. If the conditions are adverse in the race this year, look for Steer to be contending for the lead. He'll be the one with the dirty coat.