A Celebration of Our Dogs

There is no "upside" to the flood devastation in our area. But, we took advantage of one feature yesterday - the disconnect between town and the mountains. I've mentioned that "we can't get to town from here", at least not easily or in any remotely reasonable drive time.

Well, the opposite is also true. People from town can't get here - and it's even harder for them to make the trip than for us because the best routes are limited to mountain residents only. In fact, the National Guard has checkpoints where every driver must show ID, with a mountain address, to pass through.

Thus, the trails, forests, and mountains are empty of people, one feature that I have to admit is nice.

Yesterday, we did the hike that we called "K's Birthday Hike" over her lifetime, because we love doing it in September. Due to crowds of hikers that are usually visiting from the flats, we normally grit our teeth and power hike through the first mile until we reach the point where we branch away from the crowds. Yesterday, over the entire hike, we saw three people - total.

We had a popular alpine lake all to ourselves!

And then we hiked off-trail in search of "Dog Leap Lake", our favorite destination. As we hiked upward, I thought of all the dogs we've brought to Dog Leap Lake. Including R and Shyla, we've had six Labs in our family who have visited this lake. Sadly, one of our Labs died before we moved to Colorado, so he never leaped into this lake.

Our off-trail navigation was not perfect so we ended up traversing a high alpine slope that looked down over a huge basin of lakes on our way to Dog Leap Lake. It was glorious to be so high in the sky even though some of the hike was precarious.

Eventually, we found Dog Leap Lake. We've never seen another person at Dog Leap Lake.

Due to our navigational diversion onto the high alpine slopes, we didn't arrive at the lake until it had fallen into the shade. Because yesterday was cold, the dogs' swimming time was limited before they started shivering. But they had a blast for their short swimming time!

Shyla was still reticent about competing with R for actual water retrieves. He'd bring the stick toward shore after swimming out to fetch it.

Then, Shyla would meet him to "help" bring the stick the last few yards to shore.

I don't fully understand the dynamics of their relationship when it comes to water retrieving. In all other situations, Shyla is willing to compete and play at full effort with R. I've seen her retrieve from lakes by herself, and she's fast enough to win some of the races in the water. I guess she's still a bit under-confident.

Our annual visit to Dog Leap Lake near K's Birthday is a wonderful family tradition. R is our link to our past generations of dogs, so he understands what's going on as soon as we arrive at the trailhead. He is earnestly intense about the hike and the swimming!

In many ways, playing at Dog Leap Lake is a celebration of all of our dogs and the love that they have brought to our family. That's why we'll keep doing this hike every September for as long as we can.