We loaded some firewood into some old backpacks; mine weighed 9 pounds, Steve's weighted 12 lbs. That's how much weight each of us has lost so far, though we didn't plan it out that way... So far so good. (My son came along, too). It sounded brilliant, we thought. Except the logs kinda poked us in the backs and shifted about in the packs throughout the hike... But off we went. The dogs thought this was the best hike ever, as if we'd never hiked with them before... (We hike with them all the time, I swear!)
Lately, our favorite place to hike is the Seaton Trail. This time we hiked the trail from just south of Taunton road up to Whitevale where we'd left the other car. It's only around 5 km, but the trail is straight up and down the whole time, the terrain is rugged. It was going along great... Ah, the joy.....until......
Now, look closely here. See the grey and white in the middle of the pic? Until Chinook decided to jump off the edge of a sandslide cliff and the slope was so extreme that she got stuck. yes, stuck. Sat there howling, refused to budge. Dumb dog. She sees water and bolts, no matter how far, no matter how cold or deep. Yea, there's a river at the bottom. Not that she made it to the bottom. She just jumped, tumbled, skidded and plunked herself down, refusing to budge. And thought it was a good idea to start crying, too. Grrr.
Steve had to man up and rescue the dumb beast. There was no convincing her to come back to where we were.
So, that tiny speck Steve at the bottom of the sandslide, I'm at the top taking the picture. Yea, he had to go around the point, and wade upriver because there's another drop at the bottom (note that it's about 2 degrees outside and he went knee deep in water....) With a backpack loaded with logs still... I throw down the leash, but I throw like a girl and he has to climb halfway up just to retrieve the leash. So he gets halfway up the cliff and Chinook is still refusing to come meet him halfway, when I get tired of waiting and watching, I decide to hop over the top lip of the cliff, grab the dog, and walk her over to meet him. "Uh, we could just shove her over the top, you know..." I say slowly. At this point, Steve has been attempting to climb that cliff for around a half hour or a bit more. I get this weird look from him before he says, "uh, yeah." So just like that we leash the dog and I get up top and pull and he shoves from below, and she's back up top with my, the other dog, and my son who is happily texting god-only-knows-who, completely oblivious to our stupidity. Only Steve's backpack is at the bottom of the cliff, so he has to go back down and then wade (again) downriver and climb up the far side which is only slightly less steep to get back to where we are. Alright. I was pretty sure the hike was going to end in a u-turn right then. But Steve manned-up again. Caught his breath, smiled, and off we went for the rest of the hike. Made me pretty proud. Sure, I didn't get the hardest workout ever, but I bet he did. 
See? Teenaged son, happy as a clam, with headphones on. I don't know how he didn't trip since he was texting and walking the whole time. Of course, he wasn't wearing logs. And I have to admit that by the end of the hike, my neck and shoulders were feelin' it. Workout accomplished.
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