Anchorage Daily News

Zack Steer envisioned himself an illusionist as he slipped through last year's Iditarod field on the way to a career-best third-place finish. The Iditarod's version of Harry Houdini played a sneaky game of hide and seek between the 22 checkpoints along the 1,100-mile trail.

When Steer entered checkpoints, he often signed his name on a clipboard to verify his arrival, took his bale of straw, dropped dogs if necessary and kept going. He did his resting along the trail, leaving competitors who stopped in those checkpoints clueless to his race schedule and strategy.

"I was Zack-oo last year, the mystery musher," Steer said.

Like many mushers, Steer's a minimalist who only packs his dog sled with what his team needs to survive the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.

So when the Iditarod Trail Committee asked him and other veteran Iditarod mushers to voluntarily carry a two-pound piece of satellite technology that is supposed to track their progress online along the 1,100-mile trail, the Sheep Mountain musher had two reasons to say no thanks.

"When all the mushers are required to carry it, I'd be happy to carry one," Steer said Thursday. "It's just one less thing for me. I'm a minimalist musher -- I carry only what I need in my sled and nothing more."

Kasilof musher and 11-year Iditarod veteran Paul Gebhardt also declined. But Gebhardt's reasoning was concern over mushers using the tracking device to gain an edge. He could envision racers calling home to check in with someone monitoring the race on the Internet.

A knowledgeable race observer could use data from the Global Positioning System to decipher a team's rest-run schedule, and knowing that information could prove pivotal late in the race.

"Anybody on the Internet can tell where I'm at and what speed I'm going," Gebhardt said. "It takes (away) all the strategy of any moves you can make. I just didn't feel comfortable with that."

Stan Hooley, executive director of the Iditarod Trail Committee, said if a musher was caught getting crucial information passed to them, or scrutinizing computer screens or printouts at checkpoints, it would be considered cheating. He didn't say how offending mushers would be penalized, nor how the Iditarod would police this.

"Other mushers will not have access to that information, race fans will," Hooley said. "It will be incumbent for our race officials at the checkpoints to make sure they don't have mushers leaning over a volunteer's shoulder to see this critical information."

Fifteen veteran mushers have agreed to carry the unit, Hooley said, allowing fans to follow their sleds equipped with high-tech tracking devices. Each of the 15 mushers is a former top 20 finisher; four are former champions.

Race officials teamed up with IonEarth -- a satellite race tracking company in Traverse City, Mich. -- and Iridium Satellite LLC to see if their product would generate more interest in the Last Great Race.

If it is successful, Hooley said, officials would like all mushers to carry a tracking device next year. But this year, only 15 of the 96 mushers will travel with one.

The battery-powered instrument will be tucked inside the musher's sled, giving fans up-to-the-minute data such as speed, location, rest time and temperature.

The musher need only take the box for a wild ride across some of Alaska's most inhospitable terrain. Once mushers reach McGrath -- a holding place for many mushers' backup sleds -- they must transfer the device if they decide to use a new sled, Hooley said.

Steer believes it's a stretch to say that mushers would use the device to track their opponents.

"People who think mushers will get an advantage by using that information give mushers too much credit," he said. "We're not that advanced.

"We're so sleep deprived we can hardly figure out where we are ourselves let alone our competition.

"The best mushers focus on their own teams. If anyone tries to change their game plan based on what they're hearing on another musher's position (or) location, they're only hurting themselves."

Though it's against Iditarod rules to carry hand-held GPS devices, Steer said he wouldn't want to carry one anyway.

"The reality is GPS makes you realize how slow you're going," he said. "That's why I never carry a thermometer on my sled. If I don't know how cold it is, I don't feel cold."

Find Kevin Klott online at adn.com/contact/kklott or call 257-4335.

Mushers with trackers

Lance Mackey

Martin Buser

Jeff King

Ed Iten

Ken Anderson

John Baker

Mitch Seavey

Cim Smyth

Sigrid Ekran

Aaron Burmeister

Jason Barron

Aliy Zirkle

Kjetil Backen

Jessie Royer

DeeDee Jonrowe

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