HUMAN

Name: Steve Murphy

Age: 44

Residence:  Spokane, Washington

Occupation:  Freelance photographer and I also do sales for an auto transport company and yeah, former news guy.

Years involved with Iditarod: This is my first time.

Iditarod Roles: I’m the live Iditarod insiders photographer. So with Liz and Jordan.

Current Location: McGrath, Alaska

Date of Photo: March 9, 2022

Temperature: 34F Outdoors & a little snowy

What, who or how and when did you first get involved with the Iditarod?

I first became involved with the Iditarod by getting a tweet from Greg Heister about being in really cold, cold weather and potentially losing fingers and toes but having a great time and having potentially the experience of a lifetime. I know Greg because he’s also in Spokane with Jordan and they both tagged team me and recruited me, I guess, a little bit to say, hey, if there’s a year that you could do this, this would be the year and we’d love to have you. So this is, as I said, my first year and I had heard of it before but didn’t really know a lot about it. They talked to me about it and gave me the how’s and what’s and what might happen and gave me the worst case scenario. I said, yeah, let’s do it and here I am.

What is your Why? Why are you here TODAY and involved with the Iditarod?

I’m here today and involved with Iditarod because again, I got the tweet from Greg and Jordan and they decided that with the things that I’ve gone through the last couple of years with COVID, like everybody, just with jobs kind of in and out that I haven’t been working full time for the most part the last couple years so I have some free time but also could use a little extra money and that kind of thing. Jordan and I see each other quite a bit at Gonzaga games and so they basically were, hey, do you want to come do this? And I said, yeah and the money or the benefits of a little bit of money was one thing but the other part of it is the experience, which is the biggest part of it was how many people would have the opportunity to do this. When would I ever have the opportunity to do it? I kicked myself for thinking, man, I wish I could have done this 15 or 20 years ago when I was younger but I’m handling it okay so yeah, I’m here because I couldn’t pass up the experience, is probably most people’s answer but that’s basically why.

Tell me about just one of your most memorable Iditarod experiences.

One of my most memorable Iditarod experiences was first getting to Rainy Pass and I get how unseasonably warm it is here right now, especially during this race and then it’s tough on the dogs and the mushers but for somebody like me, from where I’m coming from, it was absolutely gorgeous. The sun was out, dry. Obviously all the snow on the ground but that’s what made it beautiful. It was almost so bright with the sun coming off the snow that it made hard to see but it was just such a cool thing. I just, everything, I took pictures of everything, on my personal phone. So, that is so far a weekend that is definitely my most memorable thing that I keep thinking about.

What in life do you know for sure?

What I know for sure in life is It’s a garden, dig it.