Bad Camera and a Good Bear

Fur this week's hike we went to Stokes State Forest in Noo Joisey where we hiked 10 miles. We has hiked there afore but this time we wanted to take some trails wot not many peeples hike on plus part of the Appalachian Trail wot goes thru there to make some more thru-hiker furrends! Now be the time lots of thru-hikers be coming thru Noo Joisey on their way to Maine from Georgia.
We started out on a road fur a little ways from the parking lot.  There woz kewl sunbeams.

This pikshure is blurry but there woz these red efts all ofur the trail so mom and I had to watch our paws so we did not squish them like SPLAT!  We woz careful and hopscotched down the trail so we did not step on them.

So folks, after this pikshure:

THE CAMERA DIED!!!!!!!  Yes folks, it died.  This camera be only 6 months old.  It still do be unner warranty but that did us no goods NOW!  (If'n you want to know wot kind it is, mom buyed it coz the reviews woz good but she has nefur rilly liked this camera anyways. It do be a Panasonic DMC-ZR3.  She mite be getting a new one anyways and keep this as a backup when it be fixed so if'n anybuddy has a camera wot they LOVE, pawlese let us know wot kind it do be.)

So anyways, no camera and would you not knows there be major eggsitements shortly thereafter?  A bear!  We seened a bear!  It be our furst bear encounter in the fur up close and fursonal this year.  I will has to draw you a pikshure:

The bear stopped and watched us and we so could has gotted a furry good pikshure of him IF'N WE HAD A CAMERA WOT WERKED!  Mom woz talking to me so the bear could hear her voice and know we be furrends and just be passing thru.  Usually that makes the bears give bear booty and run but not this one, he stood pawfektly still and just looked at us.  So mom speaked directly to the bear.  "Good Morning Bear! Lovely forest you have here!!"  It woz so embarassing. The bear looked at mom like she be a crazy laydee, gibbed us bear booty and sauntered off nice and slow in the opposite direkshun.

So then mom had the most brilliantest idea!  She could take pikshures with her cell phone! (Duh.)  Mom nefur uses the camera on her cell phone so we stopped to take a break while she messed around with it and finally figgered out how to make it take pikshures.  Then she did not know how to get them off the camera so she figgered out how to email them to herself and got them that way.  Like I has menshunned afore, mom is techie challanged.  How embarassing.

Anyways, we has a few more pikshures from when we got to the Appalachian Trail with some seeniks.  They is not the bestest pikshures but they will has to do.

Peeking into Pencilvania from atop the Appalachian Trail.

This do be a fire tower but I did not let mom try to climb up the stairs coz it be skeery fur her.

Ummmm, is anybuddy missing their britches?

We seened several thru-hikers and just sayed "Hello" to them and they gibbed me skritches in passing to get their doggie fix since they had been on the trail fur months and not seeing many dogs.  But this Appalachian Trail thru-hiker woz taking a break so we stopped and talked to him and I got my pikshure takened with him.  His trail name be "Grandpa".

We woz almost back at our car and still had a full container of water wot we had not dranked out of so we gibbed it to Grandpa to fill up his water bottles coz drinking water be hard to come by on the Appalachian Trail.  Nice meeting you and chatting with you, Grandpa!

Annual Blogville Picnic in the Bark

Welcome to the Annual Blogville Picnic in the Bark!  Get your picnic on!

Come on ofur to the Blogville Ampy Theater fur a moovie eggstravaganza pawsented by your Parks and Recreashuns Department starring yours trooly.

Stop by the conceshun stand on your way fur some noms to complete your entertainment eggsperience...

Pawseed ofur to the ampy theater. Sit. Stay. The moovie be starting in three.... two..... one.... AKSHUN!

Pawlese hold your apaws coz we still has a speshull bonus feeture - did you knows you can recycle lots of different types of plastic bags in the plastic bag depository at your grocery store, not just shopping bags?  Of course none of our peeps has plastic shopping bags fur recycling coz they all be using reusable bags, right? But they has bread bags, toilet paper roll bags, all kinds of udder plastic bags.  Watch this eggsiting moovie to find out about it!

Oh noes, there be litterbugs amungst us here in Blogville!  Let's keep Blogville clean.  Use you arrow keys to move youself around to pick up the litter and put it in the proper recycling bins.  Find the litter bug and show him the error of hims way by bonking him with your snooter or gibbing him a good head butt and turn him into a green dude wot duss not be a litterbug.


Thank you all fur keeping Blogville litter free!  On your way out of the Ampy Theater, pawlese stop by Odwalla to plant a tree in your favorite Blogville park!

Now on to udder Picnic in the Bark funs and games. Here be a direktory fur your conveniences:

Fenris' Flower Show

Oskar's Bug House

Sarge's Bobbin fur Tube Steaks

Mollie Jo's Fashion Show

Ronnii & Uji's Wally Melon Eatin

Puddles' Dunk Tank and Sack Race

The Road Dogs' Bounce House

Pip's Brat and Beer Tent

Bouncing Bertie

Wyatt

Paws of Peace

Hiking in Massachusetts

Yes furrends, this week we hiked in Massy-chew-sits. The wevver peeples woz forecasting rain fur the weekend so mom taked anudder vakashun day so we could go on Furiday! As you can see by the sign below, we hiked to Sages Ravine wot is named fur my furrend Sage ofur in Oregon but it going to take us a while to get there coz we has to hike thru some udder places furst.  Akshually we has to hike 7 miles to get there then turn around and go back to the car so we hiked 14 miles!

 OK, so we started out at Race Brook Falls fur more waterfalls.

The litter bugs has been at the waterfalls. We put the litter by a sign on the trail so we would see it on our way back coz we did not want to carry it the whole way with us.

The litter woz still there at the end of our hike - nobuddy had swipied it. Imagine that.

The mountain laurel fowahs woz blooming - furry pritty!

So this trail taked us to the Appalachian Trail - you knows, that trail wot starts in Georgia and goes ofur 2,000 gabillion miles up to Maine.  You see, you just follow the white lines on the trees thusly...

 OMD, mom, hurry up and climb up these rawks. You has to see these seeniks!

Wowsers! Those seeniks went on and on and on fur ofur half a mile along the top of the mountain!  Then as we woz coming down off of the mountain on the udder side, I got to meet a real live Appalachian Trail thru-hiker! She started hiking in Georgia on March 5 and I runned into her in Massy-chew-sits on her way to Maine. Can you beleef she hiked that far?

Rememmer last week how I met Sonny Daze and how that woz his trail name from when he thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail in 1986? Well, this new furrend's trail name is "Peach" and she is thru-hiking in 2011!  She gibbed me skritches and we wished her a nice rest of her looooooong hike.

Then it woz down to Sages Ravine!  You see, my furrend Sage lives all the way ofur there in Oregon and her ravine is all the way ofur here in Massy-chew-sits so I has to visit it fur her.

So to gib the full effect of the ravine, I has a cuppull of movies. Furst up, a panorama of Sage's Ravine:

Then after we hiked along the whole ravine I made mom put her water shoes on and get in the water with me and pawtend she be Sage but she did a furry poor job of it coz she did not sposh around and get muddy and stuffs like Sage would has.  At least I got all my furs wet.




So then I metted anudder noo furrend wot is thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail.  Her trail name be "Butter" and you is nefur going to beleef this.... She had COOKIES fur me!  And I got to nom ALL of them coz she sayed she brought them fur dogs wot is thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail and none of them wanted her cookies. Is they crazee? These woz my most fave Zuke's cookies wot Butter carried on the Appalachian Trail with her speshull fur ME! Thank you Butter!

See how she has to carry her hidey spot and blankie in her backpack fur sleeping in the nighttimes in the woods?

A waterfall in Sages Ravine.

So then we had to climb back out of Sages Ravine.  That woz lots of werk and I had to stop fur a nap.

Then back up and ofur the mountain with all those seeniks...

Uh oh... bear poo... I know you is out there somewhere Bear....

Hope you enjoyed your trip to your ravine, Sage!

More Waterfalls and the "Secret" Trail

So last weekend we did our death defying hike at Glen Onoko and lived to woof about it.  Hiking with way more waterfalls this week? BRING. IT. ON.  Akshually, mom and I has been wanting to do this hike fur a few years but it do be a 3 hour drive each way so we wanted the condishuns to be perfect fur this hike.  Yesterday woz that perfect day.  Bloo skies, 73 degrees, no hoomidities, and still lots of water running from all the rains we had.  Waterfalls dry up in the summertime so spring do be the bestest time and well, spring almost be ofur!  So mom taked the day off werk and at 5:45 am we hit the road!

Yikes!  More death defying hiking!

Akshually, hiking these waterfalls trails woz not near as challenging as wot we hiked last week but peeples wot duss stoopid stuffs gets hurt so they has to make it out worser than it really do be.

So we hiked by 18 of the 22 waterfalls in the park wot has names! And one of them do be the highlight of the hike.  Check it out:

"Ummm, mom, this do not be my waterfall..."

"Seriously mom, my name duss not be F. L. Ricketts and this be the F. L. Ricketts Fall ..."

Yes furrends, my mom taked my pikshure IN FRONT OF THE WRONG WATERFALL!  This one below do be my waterfall and she duss not has me in the pikshure! (Good help do be so hard to find.  Sigh.)  Wate a minit - hold your leashes! I is so in the pikshure. If'n you click on the pikshure to biggify it, then click it again to biggify it more, you will see me at the top to the right of the falls all teeny tiny.

Once mom sorted through all of the pikshures fur her bloggie and woz putting the names in the pikshures, she figgered out the error of hers ways.  Well, she will just has to take me back to that park again to get it right.

So anyways, after that fiasco bootiful waterfall trail, we went searching fur the "SEKRIT TRAIL" - rilly!  It woz so sekrit we could not find the sekrit portal to enter.  So we seened anudder hiker and asked him.  Turns out he lives 20 minutes away, has hiked there fur 30 years, he do be a trail maintainer with the local hiking club and he knows ALL the sekrit trails so he gibbed me a pawsonal tour!

My noo furrend "Sonny Daze" AT '86

OK, so I has to eggsplain his name.  Furstly, the "AT '86" after the name means he thru-hiked all of the Appalachian Trail from Georgia all the way to Maine in 1986!  My hero!  The "Sonny Daze" be hims trail name.  You see, when you hike the Appalachian Trail you get a trail name wot is not your real name.  And OMD, did he gib the bestest efur skritches!

"I dussn't know about you mom, but I be following my noo furrend wot knows where he be going..."

So Sonny Daze taked us on sekrit trail thru sekrit woods with sekrit creeks and waterfalls. This all be sekrit coz only a few peeples knows about the trails and there be no map.  No way would mom has efur figgered out the sekrit code fur these trail. Who woz she kidding? She could not even get me in front of the right waterfall. Thank dog we runned into Sonny Daze!

Taking a dip in a sekrit creek.

So after the wonnerful tour of the sekrit part of the park we sayed thank you furry much and good-bye to Sonny Daze and continued on our hike.

We taked a break up high on a ledge with a creek and waterfalls down below us. The sounds of the waterfalls woz furry relaxing so I napped.

I woz a little muddy (you should has seen my belleh)...

So I had a soak in the creek to clean up - now this be my kind of baf!

Then we commed to this maze in the rawks and I woz able to get us thru that.

Watch you head, mom!

So at this point after hiking, are you reddy fur this, hold on to your collahs - SIXTEEN MILES!!!!! - mom asked if'n I had one more mile in me.  You betcha, let's go!  So we got in the car and drived ofur to the Evergreen Trail.

There woz so much interesting stuff there and I won't bore you with all of it (you has to be there in pawson to appreshiate it) but I will share this most furry kewl thing with you:

That hemlock tree next to me woz blowned down in 2005. The forest peeples counted the rings in the tree trunk to see how old that tree woz.  It woz ofur 500 years old! That tree be standing when that Columbus dude sailed in!  How pawsome is that?

I leaved some pawfitti.