Aiyana Ferraro trains with her sled-dog team in the Flathead Lake area. Ferraro has been training rigorously for the 2010 Junior Race to the Sky in Lincoln Feb. 14. (Courtesy of Ferraro family)

Musher gets early start on racing career

by Jessica Stugelmayer | February 3, 2010 | Montana Kaimin

It will be freezing cold and pitch black. But she is eager and well trained. She will be equipped with a first-aid kit, snowshoes, a sleeping bag, a knife, an ax and a “snow hook.” She will have her eight closest companions, her sled dog team.

She is 12 years old.

Aiyana Ferraro of Victor is preparing herself for the Junior Race to the Sky, an annual Montana sled-dog race that is approximately 100 miles. The 350-mile counterpart for adults will begin Feb. 12 in Lincoln, followed by the junior race two days later at 10 a.m. on Feb. 14.

Ferraro will be the youngest competitor in her class, the 13 to 18 age group. Ferraro said she qualified for the race several weeks ago in the Flathead Sled Dog Days competition. She said the race marshals had to make sure that a girl her age and size could handle the dogs.

Ferraro was ecstatic when she got the news she would be going to the Race to the Sky.

“It’s been really fun this year,” Ferraro said.

The race will consist of two legs, each around 50 miles long. The first leg will take racers to the Whitetail Ranch near Ovando, where there will be a four-hour mandatory rest period. During this time, the dogs will undergo a veterinary check and the mushers will feed, water and care for the dogs. Ferraro said it will probably take five hours or more to reach the first leg checkpoint.

“Hopefully less, because I have a fast team,” Ferraro said.

From there, teams will head toward Seeley Lake over a slightly shorter distance. Ferraro hopes to finish this part of the course in less than four hours. Keeping track of time, Ferraro estimates that she will complete the race around 2 a.m. the next day.

A typical parent would be terrified at the thought of their 12-year-old in the woods alone at night, but not Doug Ferraro, Aiyana’s father. He said that even though Aiyana has to be alone, he is usually about a mile behind her on snowmobile.

“The hard part of the mushing thing is dogs. You have to be     responsible for them wherever you end up,” Doug said.

At the Flathead race, Doug said Aiyana took her first solo ride of 18 to 20 miles while he waited in the parking lot. He said it was nerve-racking, but now that the worst is over, he is confident in Aiyana’s handling of her dogs.

“She’s got good dogs. She spends a lot of time with them,” Doug said. “She is so in tune with them.  She knows how they run.”

Aiyana said that she isn’t afraid of running the dogs at the night, however wildlife could pose a problem. She said she worries about wolves and mountain lions, but is more concerned about moose.

“Moose are not afraid of dogs because they kind of remind them of wolves,” Aiyana said.

Both father and daughter explained the rigorous training Aiyana and the dogs have had to get her to this point, including upgrading Aiyana’s beginner dogs to the “more vigorous” ones she mushes now.

“I don’t think there is another person of her age and size that has run a race like this,” Doug said.

According to their Web site, Race to the Sky began in 1986 as the Montana’s Governor’s Cup Sled Dog Race and has been an Iditarod qualifier since then. It later became known as the Race to the Sky when the non-profit group Montana Sled Dog, Inc. took over in 1989.

The race has been run every February for the past 25 years. This year, in honor of the event’s 25th anniversary, Gov. Brian Schweitzer declared Feb. 12 Race to the Sky Day in Montana.

Aiyana said her racing began with a puppy and an obedience class, but with a little luck, she may make some history of her own Feb. 15.

jessica.stugelmayer.umontana.edu

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