San Angelo native Trace Drake makes the journey from Texas to Alaska; aims to make history

LINCOLN, MT — The weather at the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex was not conducive for sled dog racing earlier this year. Due to a lack of snow and unseasonably warm weather in the northwest United States, many sled dog races like the Eagle Cap Extreme in northeast Oregon were canceled. The cancellations threw a wrench into Trace Drake's plans to compete in his first sled dog race, but if the weather turned around he would be on track to compete in future races this season.

Without the snow, Drake hooked up a four-wheeler to his team of dogs to start training before the area's first good snowfall. While on a run up into the mountain where the good snow was, Drake was rounding a corner when his wheels locked up and he, along with his team of dogs, slid on a patch of ice off down the side of the mountain. It was a steep 45-degree plummet downward, and fortuitously managed to navigate out from underneath his falling ATV to avoid serious injury.

"Sometimes I've gotten to the point where I'm like, 'Am I just crazy? Or insane? Why am I putting myself through this?'," Drake said.

Mountains, sleds and snow were a far cry from Drake's West Texas upbringing in San Angelo. Drake graduated from San Angelo Central High School in 2018 and worked various jobs in the oil industry in West Texas. That was until 2021 when he decided to pursue his dream of traveling to Alaska. He sold his house, along with most of his belongings, and took off for the last frontier. And three years later, he is on track to be the first Texan to compete in the Idaho Sled Dog Challenge.

"The first thing I did (when I got to Alaska) was I went to this website called coolworks.com, which was a website for seasonal jobs," Drake said. "And I just figured I'd go work a season in Alaska and be like 'Oh, okay, I did that. Cool.' And then come back (to West Texas)."

The first job Drake took was a ziplining job with the company Alaska X. Through that job, he was introduced to dog mushing.

"Dog mushing was just like everything that I just really loved all in one," Drake said. "It was camping, racing, dogs and having fun in the snow."

After getting more familiar with dog mushing, Drake got another job through Alaska Icefield Expeditions. Drake, along with a team of 20 guides and 260 dogs, would take a group of tourists on a one- to two-mile dog sled tour along the Denver Glacier. On the glacier, Drake worked under Martin Buser, a multiple-time Iditarod champion and legendary dog musher. Through Buser, Drake met Clayton Perry, who is an experienced musher and owner of TSA Kennels in Montana, where Drake now trains.

With Perry's help, Drake put together a team of young dogs to train and grow together with, starting with his two lead dogs, Ovando and Chinook.

"Yeah I definitely had to work with (Ovando)," Drake said. " She wouldn't listen to me one bit in the beginning. I was the new cat on the block and she was with Clayton who only ran her a year at that point. ... So after a couple of runs, she warmed up to me, especially after I fed her by hand and gave her snacks. After you reward them for the hard work they've done, they just melt in your hand like a stick of butter, and they'll do whatever and anything for you."

With his team of eight Alaskan Huskies: Ovando, Chinook, Comet, Mosby, Dinosaur, Medusa, Chet and Wyola, Drake aims to be the first person from Texas to compete in the Iditarod. Currently, Drake is training in Lincoln, Montana with Perry and four-time Iditarod champion Doug Swingly — the first non-Alaskan-born person to win the Iditarod.

To qualify for the Iditarod, Drake would need to finish his first 150-mile race and complete two more 300-mile races. His original goal this year was to complete the Rocky Mountain Triple Crown, which consists of three races — the Eagle Cap Extreme, the Idaho Sled Dog Challenge and the Race to the Sky. Due to poor weather, though, Drake missed out on the Eagle Cap Extreme and the Idaho Sled Dog Challenge and will have to wait for 2025 to complete the Rocky Mountain Triple Crown — he would also be the first Texan to compete in those races.

Without the possibility of the Triple Crown this year, Drake will compete in the Yukon Quest in Canada and the CopperDog in Michigan.

"We'll be doing a few races that are a bit out of our league," Drake said. "But we're gonna go with our head held high and we're gonna try."

This article originally appeared on San Angelo Standard-Times: West Texas, San Angelo native aims to make sled dog racing history