Japhy's First Backpacking Adventure
This past weekend, after much deliberation about how best to do it safely for everyone, a friend and I took Japhy on his very first backpacking adventure on The Colorado Trail.
The trip was an exciting one, and an emotional one. The loss of Mani hit me hard again. I'd been backpacking this trail with her since 2016, and to be out there without her was harder than I anticipated. This trail had come to define us as a pack. It bonded us like nothing else could. It's how we went from butting heads like a couple of stubborn old mules to relaxing into a deep trust. When you attach a leash to a dog, and then clip the other end of that leash around your waist and go for a two hundred mile walk through the mountain wilderness over four years, something remarkable happens. You become one. Maybe that sounds a bit mystical, but it's true. I shed tears out there last weekend remembering our time together in that rugged mountain terrain, connected to each other physically and spiritually. It was Mani's time to show me what she needed to show me and teach me what she needed to teach me, and I am deeply grateful for that time.
Now it's Japhy's time. Having survived distemper and a pretty stressful first year of life, I'd say an official introduction to this thing called living was long overdue.
With COVID-19 still a significant risk, my friend and I made a plan to head out and backpack a short 10.6 mile stretch of the CT, stopping only for fuel along the way. We never once stepped foot inside a building. Overall our plan to stay to ourselves the entire trip was successful, with the exception of Saturday night's hail storm on the trail, which brought a handful of hikers and one near-hypothermic mountain biker to a shelter about seven miles from the nearest trail head. We all hunkered down under the shelter for a few hours, and the handful of hikers, including us, ended up pitching camp in the area.
Since this was Japhy's first backpacking trip, my friend and I drove separately so that we could park a vehicle at each end of the 10.6 miles. If something happened early on, or if it seemed like Japhy just wasn't cut out to be a mountain dog, we would turn around and not be stuck without a car. As it turns out, however, Japhy is a fantastic mountain dog. For his first time ever experiencing rough terrain, altitude, significant mileage, a hail storm with loud thunder and a bit of lightning, and his first time sleeping in a backpacking tent (a lot like putting a bull in a china shop, as they say), he was damned near perfect. In fact, I can't believe he was so calm through everything. Especially the storm.
One of the other hikers who stopped at the shelter to get out of the hail was hiking with a seven year old Sheltie named Bear. Bear was utterly terrified of thunder and was flipping out. His owner sat on the floor of the shelter holding him tightly between his knees with both arms fully embracing him; but every time the thunder crashed, Bear let out the loudest, shrillest cries and tried to escape. He desperately wanted to chase the storm, catch it, and make it stop. Meanwhile, Japhy sat on the other side of the shelter like a perfect gentleman, watching everything and everyone and just taking it all in. When the storm first hit, I had to pull Japhy in under the shelter because he was just casually standing out in the hail picking up the little pea-sized pellets of ice and eating them even as they came down on his big bully head in buckets. It makes me smile to think of it, because when I first brought him home from the shelter he was afraid of everything. He growled at anything that moved, and he physically jumped back or ran away when something scared him. Now he's quite calm, very curious, and mostly only goes into protective mode when there's a legitimate cause. If he's unsure of something, he will sometimes look at me to make sure it's okay. If I'm okay, he's okay. When the near-hypothermic mountain biker came up to the shelter, Japhy barked and growled at first, but it was only because the biker was wearing a full-face helmet with protective glasses. When the biker removed his helmet and safety glasses, Japhy sniffed him and then was fine with him. The same thing occurred earlier Saturday when we passed a fellow hiker who was wearing a hat, sunglasses and a buff pulled up over his nose and mouth. That hiker put out his hand to pet Japhy and Japhy stepped back and let out a soft growl. Japhy's reaction was only because he couldn't see the hiker's face. Saturday night after we had set up the tent and gone inside to lay down, a fellow hiker came up to our tent and asked if we knew where the nearest water source was. Japhy was sound asleep, I was half asleep, and it was dark. He bolted awake with a ferocious bark, and I jumped up and grabbed his collar to keep him from trying to charge through the wall of the tent at the unknown hiker. I'm pretty sure it scared her more than it scared Japhy or myself. She apologized and started to leave before I called out, "No, it's OK. You just scared us." I told her where the nearest water source was, and she left. Hopefully with clean pants. :-)
[By the way, the near-hypothermic mountain biker was fine. Between the skills and supplies of the handful of hikers who were at the shelter when he arrived, we had him taken care of and he was back on the trail in a few hours. This is why I love the backcountry community -- lots of skills, lots of knowledge, lots of love.]
In closing, I am 99.999% certain that Japhy thoroughly enjoyed his first backcountry mountain adventure. When The Boy is really excited, he can't walk straight. He weaves from left to right, swinging his tail from side to side as if it's an engine propelling him wildly forward. He walked the entire 10.6 miles with his head held high, looking quite confident and proud. He sniffed All The Things, licked an ant off a rock (oops), learned to jump over mud puddles on single track (kind-of), saw his very first deer up close and didn't try to chase it, saw ground squirrels and chipmunks and didn't try to chase them, mostly didn't pull on the leash as we traveled the path together paw over foot, did not become impatient when we stopped to rest, climbed all over the boulders like a professional parkour artist, and perhaps most importantly had zero injuries or allergic reactions (hooray!). And I 100% enjoyed watching him have these new experiences.
Here's to the next one. I hope you enjoy the photos.
