In August of 2009 Matthew and I made what would be our last hike with Boomer. It was getting near the end of the summer and Matthew would be starting the JV Football season on Monday, so we drove up on a Saturday morning to climb Mt. Chocorua. I snapped the picture above of both boys resting while I was driving up (we did the whole thing in one day).
Matthew and I had partially climbed Mt. Chocorua with GrampaT when he was very, very young, and I hadn’t climbed to the top for a long time. The picture below shows Boom and I resting on the trail.
Boomer, as he always was, was raring to go, and waited patiently for me to climb up to his level!
As we got higher I pointed out familiar spots to Boomer, and then we took a picture of him posing near the ledge.
Matthew climbed ahead and took a beautiful picture of Boom and I as he looked north….
We were nearing the top, and Boomer had to really scramble to get over some of the big rocks!
And finally we arrived! Boomer stood victorious!
We did not know of course that it would be our last summit with Boomer, and I am glad that we took the following great pictures of him with us.
It was such an incredibly gorgeous day. We decided to take three more pictures of each of us, posing with the beautiful White Mountains behind us. I took this picture of Matthew, which is one of the best I have ever taken of him.
Then we sat Boomer down for a pose. He was clearly pretty happy with himself, proud that he had made the summit, and just glad that he was with us!
Then it was my turn for one last summit photo with Boomer, and I thought it would be nice to hold him in my arms. Boomer never liked that too much, and you can see that on his face in this photo.
When we were prepared to hike back down, we looked at him and said, “Ready to Go?”, and clearly he was!
We started our descent down the trail….
Boomer liked to stop and take a peek whenever a beautiful view appeared on the trail.
Boomer rests in the shade below. You can tell he just had a drink. There’s water on his nose and the top of his head!
Matthew snapped another great picture of us descending the trail. Boomer found another shady spot and laid down.
And finally it started to flatten out! Look how happy Boomer and I were about that!
The final 100 yards of the hike were a boggy, muddy mess, and I didn’t want Boomer to get muddy before he hopped into the car. So once again, I had to carry him, and once again he was none too happy!
And we had made it!
Hiking and backpacking with a dog takes a lot of time and preparation, but I am so glad that Matthew and I took all these trips with Boomer. He was a joy to hike with, and the memories that we created with him on the trail were some of the best we will ever have.
