by Deborah Jelley
October 16, 2019
Boots crunching up a trail in grainy mid-March snow and ice, whisper of wind in the trees, and my dog chasing enticing scents across the white desert of open forest floor. I love going on winter hikes: so quiet and restorative. My 7 year old dog Birdie and I were following the tracks of other hikers up to the top of The Pinnacle (Barton & Coit/The Pinnacle trails) in Newport, NH. We arrived at the peak and took a break to enjoy the view and to decide where to go next. Do I retrace my steps back to the main trail and head over to take in Coit Mountain? Or do I loop back to the parking lot from The Pinnacle, as there were a bunch of trail branches to explore down-slope from us. Breathing great lungfuls of crisp air, I determined I wanted to cross over the top of The Pinnacle and explore O’Neill or Bear Trap trails on the way down.
I checked my watch: 1:30 pm. Plenty of time. Pulling out my trusty smart phone, (I use an app to locate and load trail maps wherever I happen to be), I saw I wasn’t too far from the trail heading the way I wanted to go. This app includes a handy pointer that works a bit like a direction finder and a bit like a compass. However, I did note that there were no other hikers’ footprints on the trail leading down over the top. It was pristine snow only. The other hikers had all gone back the way they’d come. Heck with it. I’ll find my way — I have the technology, right?
But first, where’s my dog? I scanned the area. Birdie is a mostly black dog and shows up well against white snow. However, tree branches, rock outcroppings and bald patches can make spotting her difficult.
“Birdie, come!” I called loudly. “This way.”
She looked up from where she was digging around and I could see she was already on the trail I wanted to take. Dutifully, she came up to where I was standing and took a treat from my hand.
“OK, let’s go.” I said
She bounded back to exactly where I had called her from and resumed checking things out. I crunched down the trail to where she was.
“Keep going this way.” I told her.
In general, she doesn’t listen to me when more interesting smells have her full attention, so I slogged past her and ten paces beyond fell to my right thigh in an air pocket. Birdie came up, licked my face and trotted away off-trail.
Fighting my way back to standing and dumping snow out of my boot, I called to Birdie.
“Not that way. This way.”
I pointed in the direction beyond me. Three more steps and my left leg dropped into another air pocket. Birdie, about fifty feet away, doing a capital deaf-dog imitation, and finding more exciting scents was wildly wagging her tail.
Crawling out of the second air pocket, brushing snow off my coat and shaking out my mittens, I checked my location. I was off-trail, big time. I pointed the phone towards Birdie’s position. She was spot on. The right way. Sighing, I put away my phone and followed her.
Pinnacle trails aren’t well marked, and hiking in snow cover makes the blazes difficult to see. I did the best I could for another 20 steps or so as my boots kept slipping and sliding over snow covered tree branches and brush. Meanwhile, Birdie had started going the wrong direction again. Darn that dog!
I called her back to where I was standing. She turned, looked at me, looked down the trail and then at me, and slowly trotted back up the hill towards me. On that day, snow was forecast for later in the afternoon, and sometimes with a heavy cloud cover, I can’t get a fast reading of my location, so I have to wave the phone around to get it to pick up a signal, any signal. Minutes later, the phone updated our position. I was again way off course. Birdie’s former direction was the right way.
Gritting my teeth, I gave her a dried liver treat (good dog!) and told her to lead me to the car. She took off along a track I swore was the wrong way, but since I had amply demonstrated I wasn’t a good judge of direction on snow, I followed her.
On the way down, I had good traction, solid footing, no air pockets and soon I was spotting the trail markers more regularly than ever. Birdie led me down the hill where we met up with the trail I recognized as one we’d taken on the way up.
Home free. I pulled out my phone to check how far we’d come. Sheesh! We’d only gone about a mile and a half for the entire hike! This trek was supposed to be around 4.5 miles. By the time we got back to the trail leading to the parking lot, a full hour and a half had passed. Past time to get into the car and go meet my husband coming off the ski-slopes of Mt. Sunapee. My husband is a disabled veteran, and the Mt. Sunapee area puts on wonderful adaptive ski events for veterans in conjunction with local VA organizations, and we were up for the day in mid-March to get him on the slopes for a fun time.
That day, I learned a lesson about how capable a scent hound really is. Birdie saved us from rambling around the side of Mt. Pinnacle for at least another hour or two, and when we drove up to the ski slope parking area five – six miles from the trail head, it had gotten dark and started to snow.
Yep. Just Follow the Dog and it’ll be okay.
