Always Trust the Dog

I’m not sure what exactly possessed us to try this last hike, considering we skipped the third peak of the Stawamus Chief last year because the trail was unmarked. I guess we’ve become braver (or more foolish) since then, because there we were stranded in the middle of nowhere on what barely amounted to a game trail on an unmapped section of woods off the side of a highway. Well okay, if we’re being honest it wasn’t exactly in the middle of nowhere. Technically we were only about ten minutes from the road at the point we got lost, but after hiking back and forth for over an hour trying to find the exit it sure felt like the middle of nowhere.

Before you jump to conclusions, no we did not just park the car and start walking into the bush. It’s a sort of legitimate trail, just one that the locals keep secret to stop people from going in and trashing it. J had even been through it with a friend already, and when he gushed about how cool it was it was too much to resist. So, off we went to try it on our own.

J was able to get us to the creek, but on the way back we ended up on an actual game/wildlife trail. I’ll spare you the details on the cursing, the whining about how we should have know better, and how embarrassing it would be to have to call for help right at the end. It was around this point that Suki started to dig her heels in, and somewhere between hauling her up a muddy hill and thinking about joining her in what I assumed was giving up, we made eye contact and the thought that she knew the way just popped into my head. It must have been telepathy, because I have no other reason for thinking that. Or desperation. It could have been that.

Either way I gave her the lead and she was off, her vigour renewed. It turns out she was digging in her heels not because she was physically tired, but because she was fed up with following two dumb bipeds around in circles. She would walk a meter or two, stop to sniff a leaf or patch of dirt, then head off again on a mission. Rinse and repeat. She tracked our scent back through the brush, all the way to the car. Thanks to Suki we didn’t need to call anyone, and we escaped with our pride only moderately crumpled instead of completely destroyed.

Needless to say, Suki got a lot of love after she took us back to the car. Followed by an ice cream cone when we got back to town.