DeeDee Jonrowe booties "Animal" before leaving the Galena checkpoint March 13. (Stephen Nowers photo)

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"I can't imagine any other place on earth I would rather be in March than out here," DeeDee Jonrowe said as she packed bags inside a checkpoint on the Iditarod Trail.

Easy to spot in her trademark pink clothing and blonde braids, her face was flush from chilly, wind-worn runs as she sat a moment beside a fellow musher and offered words of encouragement. It is classic DeeDee - a veteran racer with an open ear and plenty of advice for downtrodden spirits.

Robert Nelson, another musher, changed his race strategy after a checkpoint chat with Jonrowe. She likes the warmer weather of day, but his team prefers colder, overnight runs. Arriving in Galena in the morning, he'd planned to quickly move on, but also knew the daylight hours would mean a "slug fest" for his Kotzebue-based dog team. After speaking with Jonrowe, Nelson opted to take an eight-hour rest. Her advice? Play to the strength of your team.

This year, Jonrowe, a veteran musher with 25 Iditarod finishes to her credit, is struggling on the trail. Shoulder injuries have sidelined several of her dogs, and by the time she hit Galena she was running with only eight. To avoid scratching, her team must overcome the injury trend. If she's loses three more dogs, she'll be disqualified. Race rules require mushers to have six dogs when they cross the finish line.

There's more than the health of her team weighing on her mind. Her heart is heavy with an obstacle she is powerless to control. While Jonrowe makes her way to Nome, her mother, 82, will undergo a double mastectomy after a recent breast cancer diagnosis.

Jonrowe survived her own battle with the illness - hence the pink theme for her and her dogs. But knowing her elderly mother must now endure that same fight is almost too much to bear.

"One of the things that has not gone so right this year is mama being diagnosed with breast cancer. I wish I could take that away from mom. But it dawned on me one of these runs that the reason that is painful is because I have such a great mom," she said fighting back tears.

She has made her Iditarod run without any calls home. Her sister is in Anchorage to help their mother through surgery, giving Jonrowe a chance to make her annual sojourn north to Nome.

Jonrowe depends on faith to navigate tough times in life and on the trail. She loves driving dogs, and in pursuing that passion they've become an earthly compass line north to the spiritual space where matters of the mind and heart are at their most raw.

It is in the rolling hills of Interior Alaska, long river runs and stark white vistas of the frozen Bering Sea that she feels the most exposed.

"There is so little between you and God the majority of your day," she said. "When do you ever get a chance like this where there are so little interruptions in the focus of your life?"

On this trip, a big topic has been her mom, and Jonrowe asked that, in the event cancer claims her mother's life, she is prepared for when it happens and with enough time to let her mother know how much she is loved.

"How often do you ever stop and be still and know that you are you truly blessed?" she said. "This is what trips on the Iditarod trail give me."

Contact Jill Burke at jill(at)alaskadispatch.com