HUMAN
Name: Tim Pappas
Age: 36
Residence: Big Lake, Alaska
Occupation: Guide & Musher
How many Years involved with Iditarod: Since 2014
First Year Ran Iditarod: 2016
Iditarod Role: Musher
Current Location: Downtown Anchorage Ceremonial Start Staging Area
Date of Photo: March 7, 2026
Temperature: 16F
Question 1: What is it about running sled dogs that you love so much?
What I love about running sled dogs is just spending time with the dogs and traveling across Alaska, and doing that with a good team of dogs is about as fun as it gets. Working with young dogs has been something I’ve always loved, and working with them as they grow up and traveling with them is a very satisfying experience.
Question 2: What, who or how and when & why did you first get involved running the Iditarod?
So I learned about the Iditarod, oh, I guess I was probably in elementary school, but I started following it when I was in eighth grade and was pretty interested in it. Never thought I would be a musher or compete in the Iditarod.
Later in life, I was living in Wyoming, working actually at a ranch doing some kind of horseback stuff. But I worked with a guy there that had worked with a musher in Wyoming, Billy Snodgrass, and he basically convinced me to come and work and start running dog sledding trips with Billy. And so, that’s how I first got into it, I went and worked and just pretty much fell in love with it. Ended up bringing dogs I was working with in Wyoming up to Juneau and working for Alaska Icefield Expeditions in the summer and running dogs all summer, and then going back to Wyoming and running them in the winter.
While I was in Juneau, I worked with some folks that had worked with Martin Buser, and from there, I basically got connected with Martin and Kathy and ended up working with… I moved up to Big Lake in 2014 and started working with Martin. And he had a group of young dogs that I was working with, and one day he asked me if I wanted to run the Iditarod, and I said, “Heck yeah.” And so, I was lucky enough to participate in 2016 for the first time.
Question 3: Tell me about just one of your most memorable Iditarod experiences running the Iditarod.
My most memorable experience running the Iditarod is in the 2016 Iditarod, I was racing, and a friend of mine, James, who was also running a team for Martin Buser, was ahead of me. And we had gone through the gorge, and I had talked to him in Rohn, and while I was going down the gorge, we were on this section of shelf ice where the trail was going around tight corners, it was really a pretty tight corner, you’re on this shelf ice and the trail was pretty… It was fine. But I saw a set of runner tracks that had missed the trail and gone down the shelf ice, and then there was a little ice bridge over the Dalzell Creek. And the runner tracks went up and over that little ice bridge, and it was a raging creek down there below the ice bridge, and then the tracks went back onto the other side and kept going.
And I remember getting to Rohn and I said, “Hey, James, did you see those runner tracks going over that little ice bridge?” And he was like, “Yeah, because I made them.” I was just like, holy cow, that was crazy. Because it was only maybe two and a half feet wide, and his whole team had just… He said his leaders got up there and they had missed the turn, but he couldn’t turn around because he was on a narrow ledge of ice, and they all just funneled right across that ice bridge and went right up and over. It was pretty wild.
What in life do you know for sure?:
What I know for sure in life is every moment is a new chance to make the most of.