Leon Turnbull Photography

It was about 42 degrees at night. Journey was warm enough with her two coats plus my sleeping bag liner over her. In the middle of the night we got up to go to the bathroom. As soon as she got out of the tent she started growling and tried to chase something in our camp. I always have her on leash at night for this very reason. I don’t need her chasing after some animal in the night. I don’t know what it was but she certainly saw something.

In the morning we hiked to Upper Pauley Falls. Yet another discovery by waterfallswest. It is off trail but not difficult. The viewpoint is along the side of a cliff so I was worried and had to be careful about Journey getting too close to the edge. When my kids were little it was the same thing. I am paranoid but safety comes first. Upper Pauley Falls is 43 ft. high, a gorgeous multi-tiered drop. The viewpoint was a very good one. We spent some time here and then hiked back down. The middle falls is just below the upper falls but I could see no easy way to get over to it on this side of the creek. We crossed the bridge and tried the other side. Again, we found a nice viewpoint on the edge of the cliff. The middle falls was very nice as well.

We headed back to camp for breakfast. I always bring a special breakfast of Journey’s favorite meal even though it is heavy to carry. After eating, we packed up camp and hiked back down the trail. Once she had her pack back on Journey was noticeably dragging and going slowly. Was the pack hurting her? Was she too tired? She was fine on the way to the waterfall and back (with no pack on). I checked over the pack and it seemed to be in good order. I did not really understand but I think maybe there were a couple things going on: Firstly, I was walking much faster than the previous day. Going downhill and the trail was in good condition, I felt good, and I was hiking much quicker than the 1.5 mph pace I did on the previous day which was a very difficult uphill climb. Journey on the other hand was going the same speed. That is ok! Hike Your Own Hike and all that, which is exactly what she was doing. I had no problem with her going this speed and I waited patiently for her, not trying to encourage her to go faster than she wanted. We had lots of time. It took a couple hours to hike the 3 miles back to our lunch spot on the previous day where we stopped again. Journey was definitely tired but I noticed now that she had a sore on her leg. Was this from the pack rubbing against her leg? It did not make sense. I checked it! Did I not check it well enough? Now I was worried about the pack hurting her too much so I decided to carry it for her the rest of the way. It was about 4 miles back to the car and it helped her enormously.

Also, we did not go back the same way. Instead of going back down the Second Divide Trail with all the tree blowdowns we went back on the Third Divide Trail. This was shorter and was far better. There were only a couple blowdowns on this section. It did mean we had to do a road walk at the end to get back to the car and Journey had to be on leash for that part. All in all, I think it was a better choice. I suppose we could have just hiked from the Third Divide trailhead in the first place but the parking lot was gated and there would have been no place to park overnight. Why was the parking lot for Third Divide closed? The Third Divide is also popular with mountain bikers. We saw three groups of bikers on the way down. Fortunately they all passed us when Journey and I were together and stopped for a break. Journey had a lot of energy (without her pack on) and for the most part she was running far ahead of me. I was worried a biker was going to zoom past and scare her but I did not want to call her back because she was having too much fun going down the trail. Thankfully we did not see any other bikers.

We arrived back at the car very exhausted and drove home. It was an awesome overnight backpacking trip in Tahoe National Forest.

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