Taj MuttHall Dog Diary: Hiking Among Other People's Dogs

SUMMARY: Blurry photos of the day, with exercise.

Here's the plan for Aug 22:
* Meet friend in Hayward (40 minutes, elevation ~10 feet) at 6:30 a.m.
* Drive to Yosemite Valley (4 hours, elevation 4000 feet).
* Hike up the trail to Glacier Point (4 and a half miles, elevation 7000 feet). (It's called "four mile trail" but it's longer than that.)
* Hike back down.
* Drive home.

That's dang ambitious for moi, up 3000 feet and back down in one day. I was tricked into agreeing to it by another dog agility person whose name we wouldn't mention if it didn't happen to also be Ellen. The dogs will stay at home.

You want to know what 3000 feet straight up a granite cliff looks like? Here's a photo from Glacier Point looking down into the valley where the trail starts. That's a lonnnnng way.

With this in mind, on Friday evening I walked a brisk 4 miles around the neighborhood with the dogs--no uphill/downhill, though. Then yesterday hiked at Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park (hopefully not one that will be closed due to budget crisis) in the Santa Cruz Mountains with 2 other friends. About 6-7 miles round trip, cumulative elevation gain about 1000 feet (and back down again). It was a perfect day for a hike among the redwoods, but unfortunately, dogs weren't welcome on the trails we wanted to do. Fortunately, they were welcome on some trails, so I got in a few shots of dogs.

With my crappy point and shoot, which doesn't do well in low light (can you say redwood forest?) and particularly not with motion (can you say dogs?). But here ya go anyhoo.

Borzois. Turns out my friend's son was once a student of the borzoi owner. Small world.

Labrador. They zoomed past, playing tug, to distract the lab from the borzois.

Cattle dog. Following along with a group of people on horseback. Didn't matter whether it was trail or water; faithful doggie.

And finally, an eager Siberian Husky who had better things to do than posing, or even slowing down.

Then there's me at the obligatory redwood forest cutaway with historic dates. Left hand, birth of Christ. Right hand, 1066 and the Norman Invasion. Didn't have another limb that would reach out to the early 20th century.