Father's Day 2006

Dear Liebe:

Today for Father’s Day, Joe and I took Reuel hiking up Siouxon Creek. This is the valley where they had lots of adventures when Joe was growing up, including “The Trip” which started some of their never-ending climbing escapades.

We stopped at Chelatchie Store on way up. Reuel bought me my standard jerky dog treat and threw pieces on the dash for me to clean up. This totally amazed Joe who thought I would rip up everything in sight during my feeding frenzy….not to fear.

We got to the trailhead and WOW; there were lots of fat juicy boy scouts but I had to stay on my leash. Then we started down the trail past “the rappel training rock” and came to the first creek crossing. Reuel tried to go part way across the creek on this very small log, and Gee, well, he slipped and got wet feet. Joe scrambled across on the rocks, and then I showed them how to do it by just running across the log. Reuel slipped again and got wet on the other side. He then tried to help me and ended up cutting his hand on the rocks. (I do NOT need help).

Then we were off thru the wilderness. Well, not quite…every 10 minutes we encountered people with ferocious Lab dogs that I needed to protect Joe and Reuel from. There was loud yelling and leash yanking, but we won all those encounters.

We went up the trail couple miles, then they sat on logs and rested and talked. I chased off some people with dogs and gave Reuel a leash burn on his hand when he tried to save one of the lab dogs. Joe and Reuel kept talking about “Do you remember?”;
The tree with the hole; the old trail; where we crawled across on “the trip”; the steep trail; on and on. Twas quite amazing, how much time they have been up there and all the things they did.

A couple times I let them keep the leash while I adventured up on logs and stuff…. This is neat place, if you can find a way to get up on the 6’ diameter logs. Then you need find a way to get off em. Joe just jumps but I need find a little less vertical drop. Reuel said this was just like old times with Joe running out to the end of the green mossy logs.

We found a really neat tree that fell across the Siouxon creek from the north side to south side, to high up by the trail. Keep in mind that the spring Siouxon Creek is bigger than your Rio Grande River and these are REAL trees. Joe climbed out on the snag to where you could start across, then he came back. Joe and Reuel view it as an adventure crossing, so somewhere in future we may have a video of us crossing the creek on the tree. (I know Reuel will need lots of help getting up in the tree.)

Finally we returned back down the trail. Crossing the creek was a little easier this time. After running back across the little log, I managed to jump all the stuff on the far side of the log. Joe was quite astounded at my distance abilities. Reuel, who had dried out, managed to get his clumsy feet wet yet again.
I don’t know why they didn’t use the log bridge the bikers were using. Reuel muttered something about “the way it was”.

I was such a good dog, they were talking about giving me a swimming lesson, something about dangling me in a waterfall until I “started behaving”. What does “Behaving” mean?”

When we reached the car at the trailhead there were regular hikers there, but no food, so we returned home….with a beer and pretzel stop at Amboy. Pretzels are really good, but holy cow I need a lot of water after just a few salty pretzels.

Reuel got really choked up reading this letter to Briggie. I don’t understand what all the fuss was about. It was just a hike in the green forest of days long gone.
I am gonna sign off now, cause I am really tired.

Charlie