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I just realized this never posted so it here it is again...
I am on the road at 7:30am and make good time to the road up to the trailhead. I guess the storm the day before created more washout as there were many more cars parked right up to the ditch from hell. I take the same lines but the ditch is not letting up and between burning the fur off my clutch and bottoming out, I eventually get up the road. Shep and I start walking up after he poses for a couple of pics at 9:20am and I know its gonna be busy as there was a Shorty school bus and the lot was full.
I had Shep off leash and he would sprint ahead, then just before he gets outta sight, he would wait for me ) Everyone gave him some loving throughout the day. My legs were stiff so the going was much slower today and also I didn't have anyone to talk to this time.
We took the split in the trail to head up to Torreys. I was told its actually easier to do Grays first but I wanted to do Torreys just in case the weather got bad again. Shep had his first ever experience with snow so I took some pics.
At the summit of Torreys there was a couple with two dogs so Shep got to hangout though I had him leashed up as there was some serious drop offs.
Its funny, when he is being naughty I usually threaten him with the great doggy park in the sky, but today it actually was, well at 14,267 feet anyway. The weather was beautiful so when I hiked back down Torrey, we took the ridge straight up to Grays peak.
Bumped into a bunch of aussies who were coming down and I had my Pav Srnicek goalie shirt on with the big Newcastle Brown Ale logo. One of them asked me if that was their NBA and I told him no. They get Newcastle imported into OZ and coz they have a city called Newcastle, he thought it was from there! So that left it wide open for me to explain that the Sydney Harbor bridge is a copy of the Tyne bridge which they didn't know, and so then I threw a few comments about them being our criminals and I think Captain Cook came up also haha, Good natured banter!
So more pics at the top of Grays then time to head back down. During our descent I noticed that Shep was limping pretty badly. Going down he would usually stay behind me, so if he twisted his paw then I missed it. I checked his paws and he has blisters on his pads so I am sure that didn't help. In some sections I had to carry his ass down the big steps and at altitude a 50lb dog is a dead weight! Going down was real slow but I kept giving him water and helping him out until we got down to the less rocky path.
He stopped for a snow break to cool down the paws
oh and when we got back I bought him some booties for his birthday
About ten mins into that path a huge brown thing darted right in front of us. I guess it was a Marmot. I thought I had a photo of a marmot from the previous day but I have been told its a pika? Whatever that is!! Anyways, Sheppers, the little barsteward goes sprinting after this thing down the hill and when he realizes he ain't gonna catch it or he actually paid attention to my shouting at him, he comes running back up. Hmmm his limping mysteriously disappeared? So now he's on the lookout for another but luckily he didn't see any. He was still limping I guess but not as much. We made it back to the car at 4:30pm and it took 25 mins to get down from the trailhead to I-70 which is only 3 miles away!!! My calfs kept cramping up. Got home at 6pm and Shep is fast asleep.
Well I hope you enjoy the pics as much as I enjoyed the hike.
David.
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