Alex loves climbing snowy peaks probably more than is healthy. He’ll wake up at midnight, leave the house, drive 5 hours, climb a 14,000′ peak by himself, summit at sunrise, and be back at work by noon. That’s the level of dedication we’re talking about here. We made sure to get an athletic dog because we needed a dog that could keep up with this kind of insanity, one that would love scrambling up rocks as much (or almost as much) as Alex does. For the most part, Roux is exactly that dog. She loves climbing and has summited five or six of Colorado’s 14,000′ peaks already in her short life. But there is a hitch, which is that this dog is not by any stretch of the imagination made for snow. And Colorado’s mountains tend to be covered in snow most of the year. Roux now has almost as much clothing as we do; she has doggie boots, socks, and a pretty killer jacket.
We climbed Mt. Sniktau (a 13,000′ peak) a couple weeks ago, before Roux’s jacket had arrived. It was our first snowy hike of the season and we quickly discovered the doggie fleece we bought her last winter when she was 4 months old no longer fits over her ever expanding midsection. We had a bit of a quandary over how to keep her warm. I dug through my closet and found a zip up North Face fleece that ended up fitting her pretty darn well. (Not only does she wear my Halloween costume, she also wears my outdoor apparel). I brought my camera with me, which is something of a minor miracle because that never happens. I almost always consider it, but usually decide that the last thing I need on a climb is an extra 10 pounds of camera gear to lug around. So these kinds of shots are few and far between, and that makes them even better.
Roux does this thing where she runs around in circles, leaping and jumping like a maniac. It’s like suddenly on a hike or a climb it occurs to her that she loves hiking, like she’s so happy she can’t hold it and just goes beserk. We’ve learned how to cultivate this crazy behavior and we’ll occasionally indulge her and run around like maniacs with her.
Yup, Roux loves her daddy.
So do I.
