Sturdy great-grandmother plans to hitch Idita-ride of life

Mary Ann Tripp is an 82-year-old Spokane clog-dancing instructor.

You heard me.

And the great thing about her story is: She’s about to participate in an activity even more unlikely – the Iditarod.

On March 7, Tripp will ride on a dog sled in Alaska’s Iditarod race, thus fulfilling one of her longtime goals.

This clog-dancing great-grandmother won’t exactly be a musher. She’ll be a guest rider on the sled for the first 10 miles. In musher’s parlance, she’ll be an Idita-rider.

Yet those 10 miles should provide enough thrills for any 82-year-old.

“I’ll be sitting on the sled, all strapped in, all bundled in,” Mary Ann said. “Have you seen how fast they go? I need to learn the musher word for ‘Whoa!’ ”

She’s busy this weekend making preparations for Alaska: packing her warm clothes, arranging her transportation, updating her will …

Updating her …?

“Oh, don’t worry,” she said. “I’m not worried about the dog trip. The will is more for the airplane trip.”

Mind you, Mary Ann, a 1944 North Central High School graduate, hasn’t actually ridden on a dog sled before.

But Mary Ann has been fascinated by dog-sled racing since one of her sons, Chuck, moved to Anchorage in 1974. She went to Alaska to visit him, attended a championship dog-sled sprint race and was hooked.

She has been particularly fascinated with the Iditarod, the most famous race of all. In fact, one wall of her north Spokane living room is devoted to Iditarod paintings and posters.

Why does she love it so much?

“The dogs,” she said, as the two dogs in her backyard barked in approval. “I really am a dog person. And a wolf person.”

So her son and his wife, Janeie, have been trying for years to finagle an Iditarod ride for Mary Ann. Janeie works for Horizon Lines, a shipping company that sponsors an Iditarod racing team. Every year, the company holds a drawing for the right to be the guest Idita-rider on the team. The guest rider gets to ride on the 10-mile ceremonial leg of the race out of Anchorage.

This year, they finally picked Mary Ann’s entry. Her son called her and told her she was about to get the best birthday present ever.

“I was so excited,” she said.

She’ll be riding with musher Robert Nelson, who will presumably be extra careful with his cargo.

Yet Mary Ann is not the most fragile of 82-year-olds. She is the leader of the Happy Feet Cloggers, the senior clog-dancing group. She teaches classes through the Institute for Extended Learning at the Sinto Senior Center.

Isn’t clogging a little bit arduous for a woman her age?

“The only thing that makes it challenging is that I have a bad knee and a bad hip,” she allowed.

Other than that, why not teach clog-dancing? She started teaching tap, ballet and jazz dance 55 years ago, and switched to clogging about 23 years ago.

“Clogging is more relaxing and more fun,” she said. “Not so regimented.”

By the way, her musher, Nelson, is a veteran racer from Kotzebue, Alaska. She doesn’t know much about him yet except for one thing.

“I’m more than twice his age,” she said.