One tired puppy...

...and two tired people arrived back in Colorado Springs Saturday night after camping and hiking.

(the summary is below, and the photos with descriptions are in reverse order because blogger isn't allowing me to cut and paste right now)

At the end of the trail.

Views along the way.
A damp Hurley waiting for Joel to give her a dog treat.
We stopped to give Hurley a break and she dug a hole next to a rock and tried to take a nap.
One of the creeks we crossed along the trail...I love mountain streams!
Mining relics at the start of the Emerald Valley Ranch trail.
Campsite.


Joel enjoyed his Brickman Founder's Day on Friday. They played tug-of-war and soccer against the other branches. Unfortunately, the Colorado Springs branch didn't win anything, but a good time was had by all. When Joel got home, we packed up the car and headed into the mountains for a quick camping trip. We found one of the two free campgrounds in the Pike National Forest and really enjoyed the location. We took a gamble and took Hurley camping with us, but she did great! We just put her kennel next to the tent and she didn't make a peep until the morning! There were lots of things to smell and chew on, and I think she was on sensory overload.

Saturday morning, we tried to find two different trails, but ended up on a third because none of them were marked very well. The one we ended up taking was a nice wooded hike that was supposed to lead to some beaver ponds. It started raining when we reached what should have been the end of the trail, and we only saw one beaver puddle, so we headed back. It was a beautiful hike though, and I think it will be really nice in the fall because there were a lot of aspens along the way. Poor Hurley didn't know why we were punishing her with the rain. She kept trying to shake the rain off, but it didn't do much good!

We took a different route back to the car that was shorter, but uphill for about 2.5 miles. Hurley fell asleep immediately when we reached the car, and proceeded to sleep for the next 7 hours and all through the night!