Hiking with dogs in the fall, can't beat that. Well, yeah, you can hike with your daughter and the dogs on a challenging climb up to dizzying views of the Delaware Water Gap on a day when the sky bears the moodiness of yesterday's snows and the glory of tomorrow's sun.
Jess's little rat terrier, Anubis, amazes with his gravity-defying vertical leaps up boulders and sheer ascents that proportionately must be equivalent to two-story buildings. Anubis weighs perhaps eight pounds, and wears a fluffy aquamarine sweater (his own hair is probably not even 1/8" long) that makes his athletic prowess all the more incongruous. As my young shepherd, Ieuan, puzzles over the best route through jumbled boulders, and as Jess and I lag further behind both dogs, trying not to twist an ankle, little Anubis's silly appearance fades as the reality of his hardiness becomes undeniable. He's kicking our butts.
Last time we hiked the Water Gap we did the usual AT up, looping over the ridge below Sunfish Pond and back down the green trail as it follows along a carefree creek. Today we took the Taminy Trail, a more challenging climb but not a great distance-- combining it with the blue trail back down to the same creek, plus an exploratory venture on along the ridgeline, I'd guesstimate we did perhaps five miles tops. Several stupendous overlooks gave us opportunity to watch the Delaware River disappear to a silver ribbon below. Ieuan, not an experienced hiker, didn't know how to pace himself, but finally realized that Nubi seemed to know what he was doing and began tailing him. He soon learned to take advantage of the humans' tendency to pull a boxy machine out of a bag and stop to look through it (click, click, aww, that's a great shot!) by flopping down to pant and rest. Always ready for action, he'd pop up the instant the lens cap went back on.
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