Pickles is a blue merle Australian Shepherd that we have raised since he was 8 weeks old. Here you can watch him grow, learn, and play. We are very enthusiastic about dog training and plan to have the most creatively trained dog in town.
This past weekend, we took Pickles hiking and camping up in the flattops wilderness south west of Steamboat Springs. Our goal was hiking across Devil's Causeway, a 5ft wide ridge with thousand foot drops on both sides.
Talia came with us!
Saturday, we did a tour de lakes almost all off trail following along at the base of the cliffs. Sunday we hiked in reverse along the same circle but on the top of the mountain. We dump camped at the Horseshoe Campground nearby Saturday night. This was an amazingly beautiful area. We saw very few people and true to its name the mountains were flat. We didn't gain much elevation on either hike.
Pickles went swimming in some of the lakes to cool off
He dries surprisingly fast after exiting the lake with 10lbs of water in his coat
After accidentally jumping head first into a stream that was buried under some tall grasses, Pickles found a soft dry mound of dirt and did his crazy doggy dance.
There were still quite a few flowers including these columbine
There was one steep traverse on our off-trail hike; Pickles was not very cautious running full speed across the slope
Back at the campsite, Pickles and Mark are kissing in the hammock
Dinner was baked potatoes, grilled cherry tomatoes, corn, and asparagus. Pickles had dried venison and sweet potatoes
Climbing up towards the causeway on Sunday
Talia crossing the causeway. Pickles was fully harnessed and leashed for this part.
Up on top, Pickles found several large snowfields and played fetch with an ice chunk. His feet turned bright pink from the bacteria on the snow (watermelon snow).
We stopped for a nap on Sunday at Mosquito lake and were treated to a rare moose viewing.
The end of the day, hiking back past Stillwater Reservoir
Since we were car camping, Pickles brought his lounge chair. He was one tired pup.
Saturday, August 27 we took Pickles on the hike of a lifetime. We started by attempting to drive up to Rollins Pass from the east side. We'd never been past the Moffat tunnel and didn't know what the road would be like. Turns out it is quite a long way (1.5 hours) of really really rocky slow road. Nothing that really needed high clearance but enough rocks that you didn't want to go more than 5 mph. After the first 30 minutes we started debating whether it was worth it to keep going, but stuck to it. Eventually we came out above treeline, still on the road, with the most gorgeous views. There were some awesome campsites along the side as we passed Yankee Doodle lake which continued till we reached the end of the road.
There were other cars parked at this point so we decided to stop driving and start hiking. We were up really early so we didn't see anyone on the road except people at their campsites just waking up. On the drive down we passed a lot of cars and bikes.
Pretty soon after we started hiking there was a giant snow drift along the road and Pickles went crazy. Something about snow makes dogs wild.
Shortly thereafter we got to the needle eye tunnel which is closed. There was a man in his dirt bike outfit looking through the tunnel that spooked Pickles (we had passed this guy earlier and Pickles was nothing but friendly). He barked a lot until we finally got close enough that he could smell the guy.
We climbed up over the tunnel and took the wagon road up over the hill towards the pass. When we arrived a the pass we realized there was an easier old rail road bed route that didn't gain any elevation from the tunnel (we took this on the way back). From the pass we decided to drop down to King Lake in Indian Peaks instead of heading up farther onto the High Lonesome trail. You can see King Lake below in the picture.
Pickles saw the snow field down the hill and started doing laps; he ran down the hill to the snow sprinted across it and then circled back up to us, seeing that we hadn't moved yet he did it again. It was a pretty far ways down and I think he ran at least 4 laps.
King Lake was beautiful. We stopped for lunch and Pickles went wading.
After King Lake we decided to continue on to Bob and Betty Lakes. These are at about the same elevation as King but you have to go down and back up to get to them. The wild flowers are amazing in this area.
One the way we found the waterfall we had seen from the wagon road.
Looking from the wagon road towards King Lake and Bob and Betty Lakes (see the waterfall).
At the waterfall, the railroad bed is visible across the valley.
On our way to Bob Lake looking back towards Rollins Pass, we arrived at the pass from the left.
By the time we reached Bob Lake the clouds were starting to gather and we had a long way back above treeline so we skipped Betty Lake. Pickles was hot and trying to swim, but the bank was real steep and he couldn't figure out how to get in. Finally, I just grabbed his harness and dropped him in. He paddled around in little circles, loving it, before he climbed out.
Bob Lake.
When we got back to the pass, a couple of guys had set up a rail in the snowfield and were snowboarding. There was a pretty steep drop just to the right of them where the snowfield dropped over the edge, but I guess the snow was soft enough they could stop themselves easily.
We then crossed some awesome railroad trestles on our alternative route back. They were pretty exposed so we put Pickles on a leash.
We made it back to the car at 2pm, 6 hours after we started. Pickles was exhausted. And we still had to drive back down that awful bumpy. But we concluded that the awful drive was worth the amazing hike (though I'm not sure if we could do it again soon). Maybe the drive from the west side is better.
Roscoe and Lily both came over today to play with Pickles. I think it's a safe bet that they were all very very happy about this situation. The morning started off with some wrestling in the living room followed by a game of chase in the backyard. Our backyard is way too small for chase. They might have all sustained some bruises from running into things. It's pretty hot outside today too. After everyone got as much heat as they could stand, the party moved back inside for another hour of wrestling. Finally, at 12:30 they all took a brief nap. After nap time, we had some lunch. Roscoe ate out of a Frisbee and was surprisingly ravenous, Pickles ate off the floor and Lily ignored them and continued her nap. After lunch we had some training 101. We practiced sit, down, shake, come, and stay. It is really cute to train three dogs at the same time. They are adorable all lined up in a row sitting or laying down. Next they had a rousing game of ankle biting. This is especially fun with three dogs because you are never safe. Sometimes Lily likes to just supervise. These are seriously the three cutest dogs ever! They get along so well. They slept for another hour and then played the rest of the day. We'll have to have another play date soon.
This year we rented a small 10'x10' plot in a community garden. It's only about a 10 minute walk from our house up on a hill skirted by a grassy slope. This is a great Pickles walking destination. He gets to run off leash up the hill through the grass to the garden, and there are often other dogs up there to play with. We have quite a harvest of cherry tomatoes this year so we usually walk up there every couple days. The garden is also overrun with acorn and butternut squashes; another month and they should be ready to harvest.
How many acorn squashes can you find?
You can see the corner of Paul's plot on the right. It is much more organized that our tangle of vines.
We enrolled Pickles in the Humane Society's puppy agility class which is 4 weeks long for an hour once a week. The class is geared towards puppies with age appropriate equipment, i.e. no high jumping. We have been to two classes so far. It's been a slow start in part probably because Pickles is not afraid of any of the equipment and he already has a jump and tunnel at home, the two pieces of equipment he has been introduced to. So far we have gotten our puppies used to going over a jump and through a tunnel and walking on a wobble board and other flat boards. They did have a tire jump which he hasn't seen before but had no trouble going through and they can bend their tunnel so that it isn't straight. This also didn't phase him. On the boards, we were supposed to work on him pausing at the end with front feet off and back feet on. This is the easy way to make sure the dog puts at least one paw in the "contact area" a yellow portion at the bottom of the A-frame, dog walk, and teeter totter that is aimed to prevent dogs from leaping unsafely off the equipment from high heights. We're still working on the contact part. Hopefully, in the next two weeks we'll actually get to see a dog walk, teeter totter, and A-frame.
The best part about class is that there are other puppies there that are really good distractions so that we can work on keeping his attention and getting him to focus in the face of real work distractions.
Lily is spending the weekend with us. She and Pickles have become fast friends. We took them to res to go swimming this morning and Lily loved the water. Here they are cooling off.
A couple weekends ago we went up to Horsetooth Mountain Park near Fort Collins. There is a huge reservoir (Horsetooth Reservoir) next to the park. On the beginning of our hike we came to an arm of the reservoir and stopped to take a swim. Pickles waded right in and swam in circles to cool off. Our hike then took us up to a waterfall which had carved some really cool pools into the rock. We had lunch at the bottom and Pickles enjoying another cool-down swim.
