01 January 2013

Fresh Start

I promised to write and so I shall.

Today, I'm going to describe our brief snowshoe trek. I got up late, and a little groggy (New Year's after all.) We packed up and drove westward. I watched the car's thermometer drop from about 29F. By the time we reached Georgetown it read 18. We began to slowly drive up Guanella Pass. It was a bit icy, and the temperature continued to drop as we climbed. The day was beautiful though, with so much bright sunlight, it was hard to believe it was actually 10 degrees and still dropping.

We got the the trailhead just after 1:00. The thermometer said 6, but the sun still twinkled off the fresh snow. We got out the snowshoes and prepared to set off. Then, disaster struck.

Zorro whined and picked up each of his four paws in turn. The snow was too cold for his poor little feet (keep in mind this is a 75 pound Rottie mix we're talking about.) We found two socks in the trunk and I cut them up and tried to duct tape them to Zorro's feet. The duct tape was incidentally frozen and didn't stick well, but the makeshift booties worked well enough for most of the short hike. Once we got going, Zorro seemed to forget he was cold and just enjoyed being outside. He seems to really like snow when it doesn't hurt him.

The cold wasn't a problem as we were walking, because moving kept us pretty warm. However, our camel bak tubes began to freeze. Oops.

It was a short trip for many reasons, but it was a very nice breath of fresh mountain air.

Happy New Year. 


1 comment:

Abby said...

Aw, poor Zorro! I like the makeshift booties. A local dogwalker does the same when it's snowy out.
Sounds like fun, I've never snowshoed.