Last highlights of 2014!

Mom and Dad visit Oct. 11, 2014. Hike within Golden Gate Canyon State Park

Lauren's first hike at Golden Gate Canyon State Park!

First day of skiing for the season at A-Basin, Oct. 19, 2014

On Halloween night, Evan and I camped at the base of Mt. Democrat just outside Alma, CO to get a head start in the morning to complete four 14ers (Mt. Democrat, Lincoln, Cameron, and Bross).  To our surprise, we woke up in the morning and had another dog outside our campsite.  With only one other couple that drove up that morning in the area we assumed the dog belonged to this couple.   We were wrong!  He was on his own. He had a tag that said his name, Jake, and had the numbers of his owners. We tried calling but no one had cell service.  So, we decided to bring Jake along with us to tackle four 14ers since he seemed like he knew the trail and was very eager to start hiking! Ozzy had to share his food, water, hiking trail, and owners for a day and he actually responded very well to the situation!

If you look close you will see Jake staying very close to me along the ridge of the mountain. Jake and I bonded quickly! He was one of the most friendly, kind dogs I have ever met.

We were able to summit all of the 14ers (except Bross...we were only a couple hundred feet from the summit) even with a wrong turn that took us all the way down a mountain so we had to climb right back up!  After we got back to our truck we took Jake back down to Alma to get cell service and tried contacting his owners. With multiple messages left and no returned calls we had to search a little harder for his home. The local bar knew exactly where his owners lived so we went to the "Dome" house outside of Alma and noticed a dog door.  We let Jake out, knocked on their door (without an answer) and Jake went right into his dog door.  We never heard from the owners but after searching online we found out that Jake has completed many summits outside of his "Dome"  home and will follow cars independently to the trail head and go along with them!  He was a great dog and next time we go we hope he can come along with us! Next time we will let him off leash!

Christmas Day in Keystone. A fun day of skiing!