Matthew Philips is my new personal hero. This fact cannot be overstated. When Juno dumped 3 feet of snow across the Northeast last week, I stayed in my pajamas for a full 48 hours – Philips turned the snowy cityscape of Pittsburgh into his own personal Iditarod.
Armed with a GoPro and a dream, Phillips and his two Husky pups braved the kind of cold that turns lesser humans into blanket-dwelling, Netflix-bingeing shells of their former selves.
“Since I knew downtown was a ghost town late at night, I watched the forecast the other night and waited for the perfect time to go downtown in hopes of just having a fun time and getting some one-of-a-kind pictures. Then we packed up the equipment and the dogs hopped in the car and we just picked a good spot to park and went for it. All-in-all, we probably did around 2 miles, including the roads, bike lanes, sidewalks, bridges and the riverfront trail. We encountered one snow plow, going the opposite direction who stopped and looked at us in surprise, and a couple pedestrians and police officers, who pulled out their phones to take pictures and joked about needing a ride home after the storm finished, ” the intrepid musher said to The Daily Dot.
Well done, Philips and pups! You’ve inspired us to make the most of snowy adventures with our dogs from now on!