Like so many before him, Robert Forto had a romantic vision of mushing formed by reading Jack London. Now the Colorado dog trainer is discovering the damn hard work it takes to become an Iditarod Trail sled dog racer.

Deep into the cold, dark heart of the Alaska winter, Robert Forto is chasing his dream. It is not an easy pursuit. Mid-December found him shivering in a poorly insulated, 63-degree house along the George Parks Highway near the outpost community of Willow, nursing a collarbone that might have been broken in a collision with a tree.

He hit the tree on what was his sixth or seventh ride behind a dogsled in Alaska. Forto's dream is to get on the runners of one of those sleds to travel 1,000 miles from Anchorage to Nome in the 2013 Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. He is sacrificing the better part of three years to try to make the dream come true.

Dreams are easy things to form, but transforming them into reality can be a lot of damn hard work. A professional dog trainer from Denver, Forto is chasing the mother of all dog dreams. Blame author Jack London. Like so many who came north before, Forto read London's turn-of-the-century tales of the north in his youth and formed a romantic vision that stayed with him through a life lived normally otherwise.

Forto grew up traveling the country with his military parents. He went to college, earned a doctorate in animal behavior, and learned a profession. He got married. He started a family. He built a business. It's all back in Colorado now. Forto's wife, Michele, visited the family's second home in Alaska over the Thanksgiving holiday. Robert was glad to see her, but the visit was brief. Michele had to get back to manage the family business, Denver Dog Works. "I probably won't see them again until March," Robert said.

Michele admits to some reservations about a planned move for the family to Willow, set for the summer of 2012. The temperature in Denver was near 40 on Thursday, and the sun was smiling from between clouds. In Willow, the day started in the dark at 10 degrees below zero and never really got that much warmer or brighter. Frail light from a sun far to the south didn't begin to creep over the Talkeetna Mountains until after 10 a.m., and it was gone again by about 3:30 p.m. The temperature at midday struggled to climb near zero. The weatherman was calling for it to plunge toward 15 or 20 below overnight.

His shoulder hurting, Robert pulled on his arctic clothing and went out to struggle through the chores of feeding, watering and cleaning up after about 50 Alaska sled dogs. "I don't have a whole lot of free time," he said. "It's a lot of work."

His normal work day runs from 8:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. four days per week. He shares kennel chores with neighbors and gets the other three days free to go online to help Michele with the business and do an online radio show about dogs. Robert can't quite believe that some people hold full-time jobs and train for Iditarod at the same time.

"It would be almost impossible to do this and do a full-time job," he said. To avoid an attempt at undertaking the impossible, he's worked out a long-range $30,000-a-year plan designed to get him to the Iditarod start line. He bought an old house fairly cheap in Willow. He works part-time online. Michele stays in Denver to run their business.

She'll come up in 2012 to join him in Willow while their 19-year-old son, already a professionally certified dog trainer himself, temporarily takes over the business in Denver, helped by existing staff and with online consultation from mom and dad.

"We've got some really good help," Robert said, adding, "It was either this way or pay someone $50,000 to $60,000 to lease a team."