[at-l] Non AT trip report..long

[kahley7@ptd.net (kahley7)]

I've actually had three people ask me for this.  Must be trip report withdrawal....
not a cheery report so you have been warned...delete opportunity

As I told you last week, I was very up for this trip since I was NOT going to
'go over known ground but seek a previously undiscovered trail.  I got off on
time and after about 45 mins. in the car, I was at the most likely road to get
me to where the trail should be.  As clear as it was when outlined with snow,
if I did't "know" where it was, I never would have spotted it again.  It's
on a fairly long uniform ridge with no real features to mark a spot as different
from another so I started to have doubts about keeping the area in view as
we drove the winding course thru the hillies twit the main road and the trail.

As I anticipated, the road brought us to the closest bridge to my trail.  What
wasn't anticipated was the bridge was closed to vehicles.  How did I screw
this up?  I knew this bridge was closed..had been for years.  Only after I
got home did I figure out the mistake was in counting a bridge which was
on the map but no longer in existence, so number two bridge was actually
number three bridge and...well..anyway, we  could drive no closer.

There was room to park nearby and I rigged the dogs to road walk an
unknown amount to my unknown trail.  It was a nice walk, actually, with
a good sized creek on our left complete with ducks.  The problem lay in the
destination.  The trail was not a trail.  What I had seen was the cuts made as
the hillside was selectively harvested.  At least I think so or else I was totally
off the map and the trail lay much further from the bridge.  

Anyway, when I'd first seen the "trail" I noted it was only visible for the first 3/5
up the ridge and I assumed it slabbed the rest of the way up.  Since these
cut marks likely ended at the 3/5th mark and I had all four dogs with, we headed
back to the car.

My mind was not on the walking.  I was mentally struggling thru the maps in my 
mind to find something different to do.  Some new route or loop or something new.
The chef restrictions were the time and having Nugee along.  He is an aging fellow...
Nug was the best lead dog I've ever known.  He was made to go to Maine.  Head
front....no sniffing stuff.....he'd push my pace just perfectly, only stopping when we'd
hit a fork in the trail and only long enough to catch my eye and wait for the nod
to go left or right.  He didn't  bother much with critters and slept through the night.

Just a perfect traildog, until two summers ago when he abruptly quit.  He peeled off
lead and came back to walk with me or even behind me.  Now he sniffs at everything
and is constantly trotting to catch up.  I have to keep him on lead because he is
deaf and is going blind and he could get lost.  ( I won't even try and tell you that the
day he quit was the same day I went crying through the woods because I had finally
realized my thru was to be postponed for more than a year or two.  But I swear he
knew and that changed his whole attitude about hiking and he has been stopping 
to smell the roses or deershit ever since).

So with Nugee along, there was no way to push miles and I won't drag the old boy 
over anything really bad unless we could really take our time.  Eventually, I thought
I had an idea but would need the maps in my car to see for sure so I brought my mind
back to the walking.  That's when i noticed how Snickers was lagging.  She and Oreo
are usually so wild on the trail, zooming from side to side, that I use a short coupler
attached to a long lead to keep them from tangling each other up.  Normally Snicks
paces Oreo and vice versa really well since they have been hiking as a team for about
five years.  Not that day though, she was obviously not liking the normal pace, so I
took her off the coupler and with her own lead and her own pace, she dropped in next to 
me.  

Great.....now what's wrong with her?  A good checked showed nothing obvious and while
she didn't limp, she didn't have the same "flow" that she usually had.  I knew that anything
ambitious was gonna be hard for me since I am sooo outta shape.  Now two of my fourpaws
were gonna need extra care and attention.  I put them in the car and headed for home.

Lots of possibilities ran through my mind, including the fact that neither Nug or Snicks had been
trimmed of their winter coat so they might just be slow cause they were hot.  Or it could be
that we just hadn't been training since Snickers got stuck on that cliff.  Or something else,
but whatever it was I couldn't take the chance or doing damage.

So I took Nugee and Snicks home and because I was waiting to hear big news from a friend,
I logged into my email....big mistake, since my work email also comes to my home, two
problems at work downloaded.  Two quick phonecalls solved one and the other was a 
doozee so I said "screw it..my day off"  because to fix that would have taken hours.  
Snickers _did_not_understand why she was staying home.....I think she hates me now <sigh>.

Back in the car and four hours trashed, we head back to the mountains.  At this point, I don't
care where we go.  I just want OUT of the car and we retreat to where the parking is safe,
the water plentiful and the trail a known factor and in no time are finally hiking.  It was hot by our
standards and I dragged up to camp.  It was an odd afternoon....very humid and sooo still.  The
sound of my breathing seem way outta place in the hush.  The rest of the day was pretty standard
except I kept kicking myself for not swapping out the tent for a smaller one when I dropped of
two of the dogs.

Morning was foggy and I like to watch the fog so that was OK.  Considering I had two fewer 
dogs to rig,  it took me a loong time to break camp and nothing seemed right.  Allthough
we have left Nugee home a few times in the past two years, I haven't spent a night in the woods 
without Snicks for about seven years and I flat out missed her.  My two best trail dogs may be
no longer able and I'm stuck with the maniacs......<sigh>.

The day was pretty nondescript with the exception of one break when we sought shade for a POBO.
I've often been in the woods when starlings come through en masse  so when Oreo alerted, I 
expected the same but they were smaller..maybe juncos ?  Dunno, they were in the sun and
I had left my binocs at home to save weight.  Oh and we came home that evening because the 
weather guessers changed the projected low to mid 20's which was outta our comfort zone
given what we carried.

So that's it..pretty depressing, for what it portends.  Just couldn't spice it up <g>. k