The April 2006 hiking trip was the most classing Boomer hiking adventure ever. We returned to the scene of our failed attempt to hike Bond Cliff in October of 2005. Joining us were my Dad, the Holts, and Copper! The picture above shows us at our familiar starting spot, the Liberty Woods parking lot.
We took Boomer’s leash off, and he hadn’t been on the trail more than a mile when he found a tennis ball while he was sloshing around in the mud. He was a mess, as usual.
When we made it to the 3 mile point, we stopped at Franconia Falls. Tommy got out the camera and said, “Hey, let’s take a family picture”. Boomer was thinking to himself: “Where’s Copper?”, and he took off down river to find him.
My Dad actually took a nice picture of us with our boys…..
Once we were done with the pictures, we saw Copper, but not Boomer! We whistled and yelled for him, but he didn’t show up. The last thing we remembered was him running down river to find Copper, so we wandered down the river ourselves. We climbed down around Franconia Falls, and there he was, trapped in a whirlpool at the base of the waterfall. His fur was so soaked and the rocks so slick that there was no way for him to get out. This waterfall area was the same one that Matthew 
and Boomer had posed in front of six months ago. He must have been in the water for a few minutes, and of course it was ice cold. We formed a human chain with me at the bottom, and I got a hold of his collar and started to pull him out. Right at that moment Copper launched himself into the pool and then got right out again (his fur coat didn’t weigh him down). We then understood how Boomer had probably fallen in (by jumping in after Copper!). I almost had Boomer pulled all the way out when his Red Sox collar started slipping right off his head! He fell back in with a splash. I was starting to worry that I would have to jump in after him. We tried one more time, and with all my might I pulled him by the scruff of his neck. We saved him! After he was done, he was in an absolute daze (see below). I started to worry that he had hypothermia or something.
If there was one thing that could bring Boomer to life, it was food. Since we were all having lunch, Tommy wandered over to Boomer and asked him if he wanted a bite of his sandwich……
This brought a surge of life back into Boomer’s frozen bones and he happily snacked down the tasty morsel and became his own self again. We continued hiking for the next two miles and set up camp at the base of Bond Cliff Trail. Boomer and Copper were absolutely wiped out!
We hit the sack and the adventures continued as Boomer puked inside the tent that night. Maybe it was his exhaustion, or maybe it was because he ate who-knows-what on the trail. I had to clean it up with my underwear so that we could fall back asleep without worrying about any of us rolling around in it.
The next morning we woke up and hike a few hundred yards down to the suspension bridge and took some great pictures.
Later that day we hiked back out to our cars and we all headed home, but Matthew, Boomer and I left our tent set up for our return the next day…..
