As part of my continuing quest to re-visit waterfalls I have already been to and taking Journey along for the ride, next up on my list: Sly Park Falls. I knew this waterfall was still flowing decent because of a recent photo I had seen. At least I thought it was still flowing. It is a man-made waterfall so they could turn off the tap anytime, even if it was flowing a week ago. Cross fingers and hope for the best, right?
I have been extremely happy with Journey on recent walks. Make no mistake about it: Journey is 1000% a mama’s girl. She lives and breathes for her mama. She will do anything for her mama. That is not to say she does not love her daddy. She loves going to the park with me. Nonetheless, in the beginning she did not really trust me completely and I could not trust her either if I let her off-leash. Slowly, however, she has turned the corner with me. She trusts me now fully. On recent hikes I have let her off leash more and more, and she will stay with me and she will listen to me. She has been absolutely awesome. This makes me very happy. I would hike with our previous dog Kaya off leash all the time and I want Journey to have the same freedom. We are getting there.
The hike to Sly Park Falls was a perfect one for her. It is all on trail, it is not difficult, and there was no one else around so early in the morning. We just saw one jogger on the entire hike. I had her off leash for about 80% of the hike and she was perfect. She stayed with me the entire time, except when she stopped for the occasional sniffing of the flowers and bushes (which Kaya always did as well), but she would always come back to me when I called her. I was so happy. And so was Journey.
Along the way we passed by a forestry workers site. There was a big machine that was running but I saw no people around. Did they just leave it running all night? I think perhaps they were getting ready to work for the day and there was a sign saying do no enter due to the forestry work going on. I suspected that we would not be able to return this same way. Fortunately I did have an alternate way back to the car otherwise it could have been an issue.
We arrived at the waterfall. It was still flowing very well. Thanks for not turning off the tap, people of the park. In order to get this particular viewpoint without all the tree branches in the way you need to cross the two streams. It was not hard but Journey did not particularly want to cross it, though she did it with no difficulty. We stayed at the waterfall for quite awhile. I took my photos and Journey waited for me patiently. Then she had a good snack before we headed back.
We took a different route. It was a lot steeper. In fact it was almost vertical. I had a very hard time finding purchase for my feet in the loose dirt as I climbed up the mountain. Journey had no such trouble. We got back to the car and drove home. Mama was still sleeping but Journey was happy to wake her up. Wake up mama, I’m home. Let’s play! Ha ha. It was a fantastic morning in Eldorado National Forest.
