Rookie McNeal walks the Iditarod Trail along Iditarod

In high school, Josh McNeal “most likely …” could have been picked, and it wouldn’t matter what followed.

“I could have seen Josh do anything,” said John Lambert, La Center High football coach. “If he were to become president, I wouldn’t be surprised. When he decided to climb the mountain. Everest, I would say, “I could see Josh do this.” He was just one of those kids who could do anything he set out to do. “

So it was no surprise to Lambert to hear that one of his former players was about to compete in his first Iditarod sled dog race, which began today.

“Yeah, that sounds like Josh,” said Lambert.

McNeal graduated from La Center High, a small town near Vancouver, Washington, in 2013.

He was one of 46 mushers and 11 newbies to race at Deshka Landing on Sunday on the 852-mile round-trip route to Iditarod.

Chugiak rookie musher Sean Williams scratched himself early Sunday before take-off due to a non-COVID-related family health issue, Iditarod headquarters said in a press release.

The others left an unusually calm starting line with little fanfare in bright, sunny skies and temperatures above zero in the 30s.

“The route doesn’t go to Nome this year because of COVID,” said McNeal. “The organizers didn’t want mushers and volunteers to go to some of the remote villages on the way to Nome.”

McNeal’s journey to becoming an Iditarod musher actually began a decade ago as a teenager.

A chance meeting with the owners of an Alaskan fishing cabin at the Portland Boat Show led McNeal, La Center’s parents, Tom and Gina McNeal, to spend his summers as fishing guides in the 49th state. “The original Alaska draw was the adventure,” said McNeal, now 26. “I started working on the Kenai Peninsula in the summer when I was 16. I would fly up and work for the summer and then fly back a few days before that Football started in La Center. “

When McNeal decided to study petroleum engineering in college, he returned to attend the University of Alaska Anchorage.

“My sophomore year I started skijoring, which is cross-country skiing that involves some sled dogs,” said McNeal. “I really enjoyed that and wanted to connect with a few more dogs.”

He began to muscle in his spare time and then worked as a handler in the kennel of Iditarod musher Ken Anderson during his senior year at the UAA. “I helped him train his team on the Iditarod,” said McNeal. “I was really excited about these really long runs.”

In the spring of 2018, when Anderson decided to retire from mushing, McNeal bought his kennel. “And then my kennel was born,” said McNeal.

McNeal runs the Crooked Creek Kennel in Ester with his wife Jobie.

“We started dating before I got dogs, and I told her I wanted my own canine team,” said McNeal. “She really didn’t know what that meant. But she was here with me the whole trip. We got married in December and she is just as part of the training and supervision of the team as I am. “

McNeal works two weeks later than two weeks as a construction manager for a north coast oil company.

“While I am at work, my wife and handler take care of the dogs and work to train them and keep them moving,” said McNeal. “And when I get home to work, dogs pretty much run every day.”

And it’s not a cheap pursuit. McNeal said it can cost an average of $ 1,000 a year per dog to meet its food and veterinary needs. And his kennel has almost 40 dogs.

“We have friends and family to help out as sponsors,” he said. “And we have a sponsorship program. You can sponsor a single dog and we’ll give them sweatshirts and stuff with our logo on them. We definitely appreciate that as this is an expensive sport. “

He started racing in the winter of 2018/19 and took part in several competitions in Alaska. During the winter of 2019-20, he moved to the Lower 48 to race in Idaho, Michigan and Minnesota. Earlier this winter he took part in the Willow 300, which qualified him for the Iditarod 2021.

McNeal said participating in soccer and wrestling at La Center High School helped him prepare for the rigors of the dog sled race.

“There are actually a lot of people who were high school and college wrestlers and are now mushers,” he said. “It’s a very mentally demanding sport. You become extremely tired, sleep deprived. It’s a lot of work on the trail. Sometimes the weather is miserable. There are many obstacles to overcome. “

One of the bigger challenges McNeal faced was the Idaho Dog Sled Challenge in December 2019, when he stopped his team to pick up trash that had fallen off his sled.

“I set both snow hooks, but none on a tree,” he said. “But I thought I was fine. As a rule of thumb, never get behind your sled because you could lose your team. I went back to pick up the piece of trash and my team pulled out the snow hook. I started on a dead sprint and when I jumped to grab my sled I actually tore my hamstring pretty badly. And my team pulled me down a mountain about two miles. Then I had to continue driving the next 20 miles or so with a torn Achilles tendon to the next checkpoint. “

McNeal is confident that nothing like this will happen at the Iditarod.

“It’s about how you can deal with all of these challenges and have a good attitude,” he said. “If you have a good attitude, your dogs will feed on it.”

While confident with his team, McNeal said his main goal is to finish the race. “I don’t plan to do anything crazy in the first half of the race,” he said. “As long as dogs look good as they should, I have a schedule in mind that I want to run. And when I’m on a healthy team and we’re able to compete, we’ll start competing. It would be really great to win the rookie of the year, but this year there are some really competitive rookies in it. “

The dogs are the real stars of the Iditarod. McNeal will start with 14 dogs on his sled, led by Jenna, Suka, Mara and Hoagie.

“I’m just going to take every day and every mile one by one and lead my team to the best of my ability and make sure health comes first before any of the goals I envision is achieved,” he said. to complete with a healthy, happy team. “

Some may wonder why someone would want to face such a strenuous ordeal with very little sleep in sometimes bitterly cold temperatures with a possible run-up with a grumpy moose.

But for Josh McNeal, it’s all part of the adventure.

“Mushing just added to the adventure of seeing all of these amazingly beautiful places with some of your best friends,” he said of his time in Alaska. “I have to see some incredible sights across the state, some incredible northern lights, and the association with the dogs is hard to explain.”

This story was first published in The Columbian, Vancouver, Washington.