It's all about Hope: Hiking with Hope

Since Nick went home with our co-raisers after the holiday party, and poor Hope was home by herself yesterday for most of the day, today was her day. There was no rain in sight, so I thought I'd take advantage of the nice weather to take her out for a hike and some geocaching.

Last night I was scoping out some new areas to hike that weren't too far away from home and that had some geocaches hidden along the trails. We ended up going to Cronan Ranch in Pilot Hill off of Highway 49. What a great place with a ton of great hiking trails. When I left Folsom in the morning, it was totally foggy and cold. By the time we got to the trailhead, it was sunny and I ended up peeling off my jacket and long-sleeved shirt and doing the entire hike in short sleeves. I guess we were above the fog line as when we left about 3pm and were coming back down into Folsom, it was all foggy and cold again.

Here's Hope on the trail with some other hikers in the distance....

I was able to let Hope off leash for a good part of the hike, the only bad thing was that there were a ton of horseback riders on the trails so I had to be careful and put her on leash when they went by just for safety's sake. She was so good and just stuck next to me for the most part, not like her younger days when she would just run off and not even come back. I did catch her eating some horse poop a few times (yuck!) and gave her a big correction and after that she totally went around it - good girl! Let's just hope she remembers that the next time she thinks about it again!

We hiked about 5 miles together and found 12 geocaches. Check out my geocaching blog at: http://pk-a-boo.blogspot.com/ for my favorite one of the day, its pretty funny. We hiked on this high ridge that gave us great views of the South Fork of the American River and I even recognized the "Lollipop Tree" that I've seen on rafting trips I've done on the South Fork. The Lollipop Tree marks the beginning of the Gorge run of the river - where all the fun Class III rapids are.

Hope sitting on a rock patiently waiting for me to find a geocache... (the Lollipop Tree way up on the ridge behind her - if you click on the picture it is way off in the distance at the top of the ridge)

Hope is wondering why I continually drag her off the trail and stick my hand in piles of rocks! This is why I don't go geocaching in the summer - this is rattlesnake haven, I just hope they are asleep...

It was such a beautiful sunny day, hard to believe it is December and I'm hiking in short sleeves. I really treasured this day with Hope, it was so nice to spend it together with her, just the two of us. Here's a shot of Hope with the South Fork of the American River in the background...