ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) – Stan Hecker hoisted a 40-pound bag of dog food up on one shoulder and lumbered off where he deposited it on a pallet to be shipped to one of the checkpoints along the 1,100-mile Iditarod Trail.

For Hecker, a 57-year-old retired labor relations practitioner from East Lansing, Mich., making the trek to Alaska for the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race has become a decade-long tradition.

Hecker was one of about 30 volunteers who assembled at a loading dock Wednesday close to the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport for the dog food drops – a sure sign that the world’s longest sled dog race is just a few weeks away.

“It became a vacation for me,” said Hecker, who plans to spend 45 days in Alaska. “It’s fun.”

As of Wednesday, 83 teams will compete in the 2007 Iditarod, set to start March 3 from downtown Anchorage.

Most of the mushers are from Alaska, with Washington, Montana, Wisconsin, Vermont, Colorado, Wyoming, Ohio and Michigan also represented.

Mushers also are coming from Canada, Norway, Germany, Argentina and Serbia.

Hecker helped the mushers as they backed their trucks up to the loading dock to deliver more than 2,000 pounds of dog food each, divided into bags with the musher’s name and checkpoint destination written in large block letters on the outside.

The dog food – approximately 86 tons – is stockpiled at more than two dozen checkpoints, where mushers can rest their dogs on straw beds, fill up their food bowls and perhaps get a little sleep themselves before heading out on the trail again.

Iditarod volunteer Opie Combs, 37, who describes himself as “a bum” but actually works in a retail store in Anchorage, also was helping hoist food bags on Wednesday. During the race, he and Hecker will help out at the Kaltag checkpoint 359 miles from the finish line.

“It’s fun. I like the dogs. I like the race,” Combs said. “I always root for the underdog so I hope someone comes up huge from the back.”

That was not the case last year when Jeff King, 50, of Denali Park became a four-time Iditarod winner, fending off four-time champion Doug Swingley, 53, of Lincoln, Mont.

Each team needs about 2,000 pounds of dog food along the trail, said volunteer Sonny Chambers of Eagle River, who was helping weigh the bags. The Iditarod air force – a collection of pilots who volunteer their time and planes – will fly out of Anchorage this weekend to make deliveries. The focus now is getting food to checkpoints south of the Alaska Range.

“They will ship it out pretty quick,” Chambers said.

Kristee Nichols, a 52-year-old ultrasound technician from Old Lyme, Conn., said she spent $800 for airfare to fly to Anchorage for a couple of days to help out.

“I don’t like laying on the beach. I like an active vacation and an odd vacation. This is certainly odd,” she said, as she waited to be handed another sack of food.

“All right, back to work,” she said, as she turned and dragged another bag across the floor.

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On the Net:

www.iditarod.com

AP-ES-02-14-07 1948EST