Snow-cation!

We took a long weekend this past weekend to take Kat and Gus to play in the snow. We went to Angel Fire, New Mexico. It ended up being a good choice. It’s about an 11 hour drive from our house, so something we can easily do in a day. There is also a lot of national forest near Angel Fire, perfect for snowshoeing with the pups.

We rented a one bedroom chalet near the ski resort. It ended up being perfect for us. It was on the ground floor so Kat didn’t have to navigate a bunch of steps and it was nice to have a living room for hanging out and catching up on my TV shows after our hikes each day. There were also a few restaurants within walking distance, so we could crate Kat and Gus and walk somewhere for supper.

On the first day, we went to the Lower Eagle Nest Lake trail. It was supposed to be a trail around a lake, but we didn’t make it around the lake for a number of reasons. First, my snowshoes broke. They are probably 12 years old and the plastic on the binding is brittle. Last year we replaced the straps, but this year the bottom of the binding broke. Since I didn’t have snowshoes, we tried to just walk, but I got very tired. The other problem was that no one had used the trail and there were not any markers, so we were essentially just wandering around in the open. It was nice because Kat and Gus could be on their long leashes and run around. We eventually just turned around and went back to the car. We covered about 2.6 miles that day.

On Sunday, we headed to Carson National Forest and hiked the Elliott Barker Trail.

We rented some snowshoes for me, but because snowmobiles had used the trail before us, it was pretty packed down and I didn’t need snowshoes. We hiked 5.7 miles with 1163 feet of elevation gain. I worried about it being too much for Kat, but she did great. We took several breaks for her.

We really liked the Elliott Barker trail. The fact that it was packed down made it a lot easier for Kat to navigate and go a longer distance.

On our last day, we headed back to Carson National Forest to do the Whoop Dee Do and Ho Chin Min trails. These trails were not as well used, so we had to use our snowshoes and break trail. Kat likes to be in front, so for a while, we let her lead.

We could tell that breaking trail was wearing her out though, so after we stopped for lunch, we decided Kat shouldn’t break the trail anymore. First we tried to let David and Gus go first, but Gus is not a leader. He was trying to go 90 degrees off the side of the trail or he walked behind David, or he would just stop for no reason. Eventually, we hooked both Kat and Gus to me and David went first to try to break the trail and make it easier on Kat. I think it did make it easier for her, but it took her a while to settle down and let David go first. She is definitely a lead dog.

Our total mileage for the last day was 4.5 miles. When we got back to the chalet, the pups were super tired. They are still recovering and I think have enjoyed napping all the way home.

We all had a good time though and are so glad Kat is able to do so much physical activity at 13. She loves the snow so much though. It makes her act like a puppy again!