Lower Ash Canyon

Today was the last hike with the dogs this year. Tomorrow morning I am taking off with Eric for the long drive to Chicagoland over the holiday. Kevin doesn't walk the dogs and the dogs needed exercise. I took Sammy, Sadie, Minnie and Zeke out for a four-mile hike at 9:15am.

We had a storm blow over yesterday. It's now hampering the Central Plains and will haunt the East Coast after C'mas. This morning the residual was still there in the mountains. A fresh layer of light snow covered the peaks. This snow didn't hamper our hike at all. Where we started there was no snow, but the wind was blustery and there was cold drizzle. Staying in the canyon kept us from the blustery winds, so we stayed low.

I had wanted to go higher at the start but the higher we drove, the stronger and colder the winds were. This didn't seem to bother the dogs, but I was cold! We ended up walking uphill from the lower canyon trailhead, followed the dry creek bed to the official trailhead two miles up, and walked up one more switchback before turning around. Fast-moving dark grey clouds overhead made this an arctic blast challenge. Dead trees from the 2011 fire continue to drop their weakened branches. Even live trees weakened by the summer floods are also uprooting after heavy winds.

Prospectors are back in the lower canyon digging for placer gold again. There were now holes that weren't there the last time I walked through here.

There was no one around, but by 10am I could hear target shooters in the lower canyon. More were coming uphill as we were going downhill via the forest road. The dogs stayed nearby and enjoyed the romp. The three younger ones were aheadm but Sammy was close-by up front.

When we got back to the van, the external temperature gauge read 39F. My hands were cold! It was warmer outside the house at 44F. Most of the clouds stayed over the mountains.

Hip dysplasia

I took Minnie and Sadie with me to the shelter with the intent of going on a hike afterwards. Then Valli came by the house unexpectedly and she asked if she could come along. I agreed, although I felt awkward at first because who wants to watch me take photos of shelter animals?

Both dogs jumped happily in the van and waited patiently for me for three plus hours while I photographed dogs and cats and watched Valli, who drove with me to the shelter in her separate car, assessed the dogs. Carol was already there and was chatting with Niki. Danielle had just finished walking big dog Yeka, a huge white Great Pyrenees. There was no Joe and no Charlie. There were no adopters, either. The most annoying person there was the teenaged girl, but even she was on her best behavior today. It was a very pleasant experience at the shelter. It felt like the early days from this past winter. I had to walk my dogs halfway through my photo session with Valli since it did get warm in the van even with the windows open and the dogs were getting restless.

I am very pleased with the photos I took.

It occurred to me to ask Carol if she thought Sadie had hip dysplasia. She is a retired vet tech and knows her way around dogs. She felt her hips, watched her walk and run and said that yes, she does have it and pointed out the bone structure of her hips. Her hips are not even. Is this why she's been sauntering all her life? Her run has slowed down, she tires more easily but she's still fast and doesn't fall down (yet). I now have to mentally get myself prepared for the next medical horror with Sadie. She's going to be six years old in March and I love her dearly. Lately she's been jumping up on the bed at night and I wake up spooning her.

The sun was already setting when I left the shelter. I drove down to Lower Huachuca City and let the dogs out near the wash. I had never been down there and it gave me a weird look at the town. There is not one nice house in that town; it's all small slump brick or dilapidated shacks with chain link fences. Both dogs chased each other in the setting sun, dust was blowing up from their stampede and as I stood there watching my dogs, a little tear swelled in my heart knowing that in a few years Sadie may not be able to run like that anymore. I need to make sure the rest of her life is a good life.

East Hunter Canyon trail

I didn't work today and wanted to take the dogs on a decent hike in warm weather, something that Sammy could do. I chose the Hunter Canyon trail, starting at the parking lot inside Hunter Canyon and walking along a creek trail for a mile to get to the official trail head. There was only one target shooter out today and he was far enough away to not be a nuisance. The dogs didn't care.

I had taken them on this trail a few days ago, but this time I took them almost two miles on the trail before resting and turning around. Only Sammy seemed tired and I knew that taking him on hikes longer than three miles are now the past. His hind legs tend to point inward when he's tired, perhaps from an old injury from 2005 when he was hit by a pick-up truck.

We started the hike at 11:11am. The pace was normal as we meandered in the shade of oaks along the creek. No one was around. While the dogs were running back and forth and chasing each other, Sammy stayed by my side. I'm starting to worry about that dog. Although he seems to have recovered some from Sara's passing, I know he misses having someone his own age around. Zeke's nothing but a nuisance and Sammy only growls at that dog.

Once at the official trai lhead, the exposure comes out. The trail s now an old mining trail along the creek. We stayed on this trail until we hit the old water tank, continued straight ahead, and rested by a spring where the dogs drank water and Sammy rested. A hunter was camped out nearby. We were at a slight elevation, and I could see San Jose Peak.

At this point we turned around and went back the way we came. I discovered a small grave dedicated to someone's pet Teehla. How come I had never seen that before? It's right off the trail!

Sammy was exhausted when we got home at 1pm

Miller Peak after our first snow of the season

We had a nice late fall storm blow through Thursday and Friday. When it finally cleared it revealed snow-covered peaks! Ellen asked if I was interested in hiking with her and Jessa up the Miller Canyon trail today and I agreed, not knowing how deep the snow was or how long we would be on the trail. I opted to take Zeke on this hike as he's great in the snow. We met at 7:15am at the Miller Canyon trail head parking lot and took off. It was still very cold in the shade. Zeke was excited to be on the trail and ran back and forth between the front (Jessa) and the rear (me).

"We should put a GPS on that dog to see how far he actually goes!" said Jessa. Zeke kept that up for four miles. When we reached the bath tub he slowed down a lot and stayed behind me.

I had a hard time getting into the hike. I haven't been hiking as much as I had been, and I know I need to maintain my conditioning. Today I kept thinking about the upcoming scandal at the shelter again, and the town council meeting that I'm sure will be another media scandal. My mind couldn't stop thinking about it all. I was the slowest of the three, but Ellen and Jessa always took breaks to wait for me.

There wasn't as much snow on the ground as I expected. The first mile was snow-free. Then I noticed powdered frost a mile on the trail, which turned to a light coating of snow. The heaviest sections were those in the shade, but the snow never covered my Kayland boots. I'm estimating three to five inches of snow at most, and many sections seemed to have some melting by the time we came down.

My feet and hands were warm in my triple layer of tops. I wore my wide-brim hat which kept my head warm but not my ears. I had on brown ski pants which perhaps were frivolous as Jessa wore jeans and was quite fine. My Kayland boots are stiff but kept me warm and provided traction.

The sun finally got over the mountains to bring light in at 8:41am as we were three miles up. That helped get us energized, but the many shaded sections were more than the sun, which didn't help the photographs until we were on the Crest Trail.

We got to the bath tub at 10:33am where I took my first snack break with Zeke. The bath tub water was cold and clear, with the usual pine needles on the bottom of the tub. Zeke didn't show much interest in drinking. I had carried two gallons of water with me for the two of us and he probably didn't more than a pint today.

It was a bit chilly here higher up. We were still 2.5 miles from the peak and even though the grade now was not so extreme, I still had to take short breaks. Jessa and Ellen took off at the peak trail and when I got to the peak at 12:21pm I couldn't find them. They had found a wind-free boulder to hide behind and eat lunch that was off the trail and out of sight.

I was there for ten minutes on that blustery peak wondering where they were. I had to hold on to my hat as that wind blew! Four soldiers came up and wanted me to take their picture of them holding the US flag. I happily obliged. It's the 72nd anniversary of Pearl Harbor today, and I found it befitting that these four soldiers from B Co, 305th MI BN would want to showcase the flag.

We all were anxious to get off that blustery peak, though. The soldiers ran down, we were much slower, but we did meet them near the peak trail intersection where they ate lunch before running past us again. The guys had flattened whatever snow there was for us.

Ellen had stopped several times on the hike to either take layers off or add new ones. I never took anything off. I unzipped my outer wind breaker and my wool zipper sweater. The wind chill did me in, and as long as there was snow below us, we were cold. Once we left the snow level, things warmed up and I even took off my gloves.

Zeke did very well today. He did surprisingly well on the distance since he doesn't normally go on hikes, but away from Sadie and Minnie he does quite well UNTIL he sees other people approaching and especially with another dog. A father-son duo past us as we rested near the creek on our way down, with their young hound which they adopted from the Benson shelter a few months ago. I quickly put Zeke on a leash. Zeke barked at the dog, the dogs sniffed, and all was fine.

We got back to the cars at 3:45pm. My right knee and left ankle are going to be hurting tomorrow. When I got home at 4pm Kevin was doing the finishing touches on a full chicken dinner, and even Eric joined in when he got home from work.

Bushwhack up a hill

I had been meaning to bushwhack up a hill that Kevin and I had hiked up with Sara and Sammy years ago. It's a small hill at the mouth of Hunter Canyon overlooking SR92 that illegal border crossers would use as an overlook. I took four dogs with me on this: Sammy, Sadie, Zeke and Minnie. I was hoping I could find the original trail from years ago, but apparently the 2011 fire and flood washed most of the trail away. I couldn't find a trace of the old trail. Everything was overgrown with waist-high Lovegrass.

The hike up the hill started at the first pull-out on the right side of the forest road. We crossed the dry drainage and just went up the ridgeline, heading to the peak. The grass was so tall that I only could see the top of all the dogs' ears as they frolicked around. They certainly enjoyed the romp and I enjoyed being able to take them somewhere where they wouldn't bother anyone, but walking up this hill was not easy: the tall grass hid all the many loose rocks.

There was no sign of any old trail, either. It used to meander up the side of the hill along the forest boundary. The peak was popular for the border crossers to use as a look-out about ten years ago, as the highway below does get patrolled by the USBP. But today I saw little trash and what I did find had been there a while.

There was, however, a lot of underwear at the peak, and I will now call that peak Underwear Hill. I picked up a few rusty cans to throw out back home.

We rested a bit, took in the scenery. The sky around us was various shades of grey all around. One gets a nice view of Hunter Canyon from this small hill. And then we walked down, taking a slightly different route down until we got to the drainage and took the drainage route back to the car. This was only a two-hour hike but all the dogs got some exercise and everyone seemed happy to get out.