Sports

Anderson: Minnesota’s ‘Three Old Guys’ fire up snowmobiles again and head for Alaska

2,300 miles through remote, frozen back country? No problem – maybe.

By Dennis Anderson

The Minnesota Star Tribune

January 30, 2026 at 9:08PM

Rob Hallstrom, left, Paul Dick and Rex Hibbert hope to ride their snowmobiles into Fairbanks, Alaska, this month. In 2023, they rode sleds 5,000 miles from Grand Rapids, Minn., to Fairbanks, but broke down a few miles from their goal. (Courtesy Rob Hallstrom)

Spanning 2,318 miles and winding through Alaska’s remote back country, the Iron Dog Snowmobile Race rightfully calls itself the toughest mechanized marathon in the world.

The winners of last year’s Iron Dog, Robby Schachle and Brad George, both Alaskans, reached top speeds of more than 80 miles per hour during eight days of racing — and won $80,000 for their efforts.

Sounds like fun, say the self-described “Three Old Guys,” who have signed up for the 2026 Iron Dog, which begins Feb. 12 in Big Lake, Alaska.

“We plan to ride the entire 2,300 miles,” said Rob Hallstrom, 68, of Park Rapids, Minn. “But we won’t be racing.”

Hallstrom, along with Paul Dick, 75, and Rex Hibbert, 72, earned places in snowmobiling history in 2023 when they departed from Dick’s home in Grand Rapids, Minn., and rode sleds through deep slush and even deeper snow to Fairbanks, Alaska.

Well, not exactly to Fairbanks.

Mechanical problems stopped them a veritable stone’s throw from that city.

Then last year, the trio rode snowmobiles from Grand Rapids to Newfoundland, on the Canadian east coast, a 4,000-mile trek.

Those adventures caught the eye of Iron Dog’s organizers, who invited Hibbert, of Soda Springs, Idaho, and Hallstrom and Dick to be ambassadors for the rugged Alaska race.

As such, they’ll leave Anchorage two days ahead of the adrenaline junkies who will be racing.

“The Iron Dog has three divisions,” Hallstrom said. “The Pro Class are the serious guys who will race in teams of two, on two separate machines. Then there’s the Expedition Class, consisting of people riding the course essentially for fun. In our class, the Ambassador, we’ll ride the entire route, but we’ll stop in towns along the way, giving away prizes and spreading good will for the race and for snowmobiling.”

Longtime devotees of Minnesota-made snowmobiles, Dick, Hibbert and Hallstrom will ride Arctic Cats in the Iron Dog. The ZR 600s they’ve been testing in northern Minnesota in recent weeks are similar to the machines they rode to Newfoundland.

“This year’s models have electronic power steering,” Hallstrom said. “We’re eager to see if it relieves some of the strain of riding long distances.”

Paul Dick, right, of Grand Rapids, Minn., is one of the "Three Old Guys'' who will ride in this month's Iron Dog snowmobile race in remote Alaska. At left is Tom Rowland of Ogilvie, Minn., an Arctic Cat dealer and friend of the Minnesota snowmobilers. Rowland will also ride in the Iron Dog. (Courtesy Rob Hallstrom)

For the past month, the three men, along with Tom Rowland, an Arctic Cat dealer from Ogilvie, Minn, who will ride with them in the Iron Dog, have tinkered with their machines in Dick’s industrial-size Grand Rapids workshop. Extra gas tanks have been added, and the sleds’ struts have been reinforced.

Partially disassembled and crated, the snowmobiles are now en route to Anchorage by truck and ship.

For Dick, this year’s Iron Dog will be déjà vu all over again, as Yogi Berra once said. He and Hibbert raced the Iron Dog in 1994, and Dick and his son Brian gave it a go in 2012.

Temperatures during the 1994 race dipped to 50-below zero.

“This was before everyone had GPS, and Rex and I went up there sort of dumb and stupid, using a map and compass to navigate,” Dick said. “It was so cold that at one point I couldn’t feel my toes anymore. I took my boots off and my big toe on my right foot was all black. Six weeks later, back home, about a half inch of that toe fell off. Since then, some of it has grown back. Now it’s only about a quarter-inch shorter than the other one.”

Dick and Hibbert finished third in that year’s Iron Dog, a rare distinction for first-timers.

“In 2012, my son and I would have done pretty good, too,” Dick said. “But I blew a piston in my machine. We carried two extra pistons with us, and I replaced the bad one. But we lost a couple hours doing it.”

Minnesotans among this year’s 31 Pro Class Iron Dog teams include Dustin Dohrn of Elgin, paired with Gage Schaack of Cold Bay, Alaska, riding Ski-Doos; Wyatt Halek-Hooper of McGregor and Adam Stafford of Aitkin, riding Arctic Cats; and Dan Zimmerman and C.J. Vandeputte, both of Nisswa, riding Ski-Doos.

Hallstrom, Dick and Hibbert hope to finish this year’s Iron Dog — but do it their way.

They haven’t forgotten that in 2023, en route from Grand Rapids to Fairbanks over 38 days, they dug their machines out of snowbanks, airlifted spare parts to secluded Arctic villages, and more than once depended on Canada’s indigenous people to show them the way when the way was lost in a whiteout. All so they could say they rode from Grand Rapids to Fairbanks.

The sledding was oftentimes tough in 2023 as the "Three Old Guys'' snowmobiled cross-country from Grand Rapids, Minn., to (almost) Fairbanks, Alaska, a distance of 5,000 miles. (Courtesy Rob Hallstrom)

Instead, because of a few last-minute mechanical hiccups, they traveled the final handful of miles into Fairbanks in pickups, with their sleds in tow.

“Our goal in 2023 was to ride to Fairbanks,” Hallstrom said. “Then last year, our goal was to reach the Canadian East Coast, which we did. That would have connected us from Fairbanks across the entirety of Canada.

“But because we didn’t quite ride into Fairbanks, we’re going to attempt to leave the Iron Dog Trail near the race’s end and ride to Fort Yukon, Alaska, and then to Circle, Alaska, near where we had mechanical problems in 2023, and from there we can ride into Fairbanks.

“We won’t know until we get there if the alternate trail we want to take is even passable. We know we won’t be chainsawing any downed trees. We won’t have a saw with us, and anyway we’re too old for that.

“We’ll see how it goes.”

about the writer

Dennis Anderson

Columnist

Outdoors columnist Dennis Anderson joined the Star Tribune in 1993 after serving in the same position at the St. Paul Pioneer Press for 13 years. His column topics vary widely, and include canoeing, fishing, hunting, adventure travel and conservation of the environment.