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By Harriette Halepis

Source Derived from Alaska Dispatch, March 19, 2010 – During an Alaskan sled dog race, musher Gerry Willomitzer fell off of his dog sled during the wee hours of the morning. Unaware that their owner had tumbled off of the sled, Willomitzer’s dog team kept running. To say the least, being left in the cold Alaskan snow at 3 am is slightly more than nerve-wracking; it’s entirely life-threatening.

GPS & Dog Sled Racing

Willomitzer was no novice to the treacherous Alaskan Iditarod trail, but he couldn’t fight his fatigue on that cold and snowy day. As soon as he woke from his fall, Willomitzer realized that his dog team was nearly out of sight. A fading dog team coupled with many layers of warm clothing made it impossible for him to run after the team, though he could watch the dogs escaping into the snowy abyss.

Helpless, Willomitzer shed some layers, and began to walk toward the end of the trail (many miles from his original landing point). As luck would have it, a fellow musher happened to stumble upon Willomitzer, and the two made their way towards the town of Shaktoolik – where the dogs should have been. Unfortunately, the dogs were nowhere to be seen, though a local resident did have a handheld GPS tracker.

Since Willomitzer had installed a GPS tracker on his sled, the dogs were able to be tracked using the handheld tracker. Willomitzer’s dogsled team was tracked to a remote beach location, though the dogs could not be seen. After investigating the scene, it was finally discovered that the sled had become stuck in a ditch. By looking down into the ditch, Willomitzer could see his turned-over sled – along with a pack of perfectly warm sleeping dogs.

As any musher would do, Willomitzer turned over the sled, sat in his seat, and began to direct the well-rested dogs towards town. When all was said and done, Willomitzer came in 13^th, though he was simply happy that his dogs were unharmed. In his own words, “we would have had a hard time finding them without that tracker (Alaska Dispatch).”

A few years ago, a law was passed that required all Alaskan mushers to equip dogsleds with GPS trackers. In the case of Gerry Willomitzer, a GPS tracker made it possible for him to find his dog team before the harsh winter conditions took a tragic toll.