The one goal rookie musher Kiara Adams has for this year's Yukon Quest is to be back in Whitehorse in time for her 19th birthday.

It should prove to be a realistic goal. Her birthday isn't until Feb. 25 and is the day of the Quest's finish and awards banquet.

But Adams says if everything really goes as plan, she should be at the finish line by Feb. 23. What place she's in when she crosses the line, though, she's not quite sure.

'A lot of people seem to think I'll do really well but I have no idea,' says Adams. 'I wouldn't be surprised if I was in the top-10 kind of thing, but I also wouldn't be surprised if I was dead-last either.'

The race will begin Saturday in Fairbanks.

Adams did obedience and agility training with her Jack Russell terrier, Aggie, when she was younger and has always felt a connection to dogs.

'I just like them. They make good champions,' she says. 'When you're working with them, it's really neat to watch them learn and teach them things.'

In 1999, when she was 11 years old, Adams began spending time at Quest veteran Bill Stewart's kennel. Stewart placed third in the 1996 race.

A year after learning the ropes from Stewart, with the help of three-time Quest champion Hans Gatt, Adams was able to inherit seven dogs from a woman with retiring dogs in Atlin, B.C.

Adams, who had previously reached an agreement to borrow a team of yearlings from Gatt and Stewart, decided to take on the retiring team and purchase her own leader instead.

She began sprint racing, and as her interest evolved, she also competed in mid-distance races.

Last year, Adams placed second in the Yukon Quest 300 and 13th in the Percy DeWolfe from Dawson City to Eagle, Alaska.

In 2004, she placed fourth in the Jr. Yukon Quest and first in the Jr. Percy DeWolfe.

Despite her past successes, Adams admits she has never trained before for anything like the 1,600-kilometre trail between Fairbanks and Whitehorse.

'I don't know what's going to happen. It's new for me and it's new for half of my team. This is a whole new ball game.'

She says she has been getting tips from other mushers and past veterans of the race.

Her questions range from tips about training, to the science of dog care, to 'just all kinds of little stupid things that make life easier,' she says, like whether to line her cooler on the Quest with a garbage bag. Gatt told her not to bother.

Adams will be one of the youngest mushers to ever take to the Quest's trail. Kyla Boivin and Jeninne Cathers also ran the race when they were just 18, the minimum age requirement to enter.

But Adams says she's been too busy to be nervous about hitting the trail.

Last summer, she worked four jobs to help finance the cost of keeping her 28-dog kennel.

She estimates the costs of running the 2006 Quest, training and keeping her kennel will have totalled about $20,000.

It has been her parents, Sabine and Ron, who have helped her with the costs that her own work, community fundraisers and sponsors haven't covered.

Her team on the Quest will include seven females and seven males. The two youngest dogs are three and the two oldest are seven.

All the dogs have names from children's shows, such a Fraggle Rock, The Friendly Giant, Sesame Street and The Flintstones.

'I seem to have developed a really slow, steady, happy team,' she says. 'They just never seem to get tired and they're always happy.

'But they aren't moving along really quickly, either; on the Quest, you don't want them to move along quickly anyway.'

Adams says she isn't going to be running the Quest as a race this year.

'Right now, I just want to rest them lots and make sure to keep it slow and steady. Make sure they get to Dawson,' she says.'I'm not really going to race it, at least until I get to Pelly (Crossing).

'If, at Pelly, I've got a strong team, then I might start to put together more of a race plan and run them harder, rest them less sort of thing.'

Beyond celebrating her birthday when she gets back from the Quest, she also plans to finish her high school education and start looking at career options.

'After this, I'm planning to take some time off. I can't stay here forever,' she says. 'I'm going to try to work on that. Then get back into it when I'm in a place where I'm financially stable.'

Adams is thinking about joining the RCMP and hopefully one day joining their canine division.