[pct-l] Siberian Husky

[ckwrkornge at aol.com]

Hiya:


A few things I've noticed about taking dogs hiking and backcountry skiing:

1) Have a contingency plan if the dog gets sick/injured.  Do you have the phone number of the nearest vet?  Who will watch Juno if he becomes unable to continue, but you still want to go on?  Do you have something (your pack and trekking poles) you can use to hike Juno out if he becomes unable to move any more?

2) Get a pair of Kevlar booties for Juno for the desert & aforementioned volcano rocks.  The dog won't like it, but snow and ice and stabby plants will cause a lot of pad issues.  If you put them on right before hikes, he might associate the booties with fun time and be a little better about not chewing them off.  Vit E oil can help for a little dryness, but not huge sores.

3) Your dog is going to get very hot in the desert.  Folks I know with dogs in the desert hike about 4 hours in the morning and a couple at night, so if you seriously want to take the dog give yourself a lot of time to get to Kennedy Meadows and plan your water sources accordingly.

4) Your dog should know "come", "stay" and "leave it" to avoid any issues with wildlife.  The dog should obey these commands even if faced with something very desirable that runs on its own accord (maybe you could practice this with a mean rooster?)  I know a couple of huskys who have mastered the "leave it" command regarding wildlife and livestock, but disregarded the "stay" command, or the "come" command and have had many stitches involved with barbed wire fencing.  You don't want this to happen to your dog.

5) That little trowel should be used to pick up dog poo too.  Please, please, bury the dog's poo if it's near the trail or a campsite!

A lot of dogs breeds are historically used for work and work hard (I'm saying this more to the anti-dog lobby). Continue working with Juno or take him on more trips when it's hot and he's expected to walk 20 miles/day: know what signs he makes when tired, and this is really, really tricky, because he is going to try to hide it.  Does his tail drop a little?  Does he stop running circles around you?  When he makes these signs you need to have the habit of stopping immediately and putting up a shade.

Technically you are allowed to have a dog within 50' of pavement of a national park, but road walking in a national park would really suck so here are a couple alternates I can recommend:

You might consider a detour through the Inyo National Forest instead of Sequoia/Kings Canyon and Yosemite.  The Inyo is on the eastern side of the Sierra and has many beautiful hiking options.  I love the Inyo!  Check out the Tom Harrison "Mono Divide" and "Mammoth High Country" mapsets.  You could also re-supply in Mammoth via exiting the Lakes Basin over Duck Pass instead of Devil's Postpile (a National Monument - dogs not welcome).  Maybe take a detour to Ivabell hot spring?  Going the Inyo route would also give you a resupply of Lee Vining (small grocery store, but well stocked and a couple of great cafes) as opposed to Tuolumne Meadows.  Avoid the western slope of the Sierra.  The San Joquin valley airshed is atrocious. 

Crater Lake shouldn't be too difficult to go around either, honestly, you could road walk the entire thing and still see the rim and have your dog stay at the car campground, but if you don't want to do that I would advise going the Rogue (west) side due to resupply options in Prospect (~9 miles off the PCT via the tom & jerry trail) and you could also possibly send a resupply package to Diamond Lake Resort on the north side (call first-they should be fine with it, but they get swamped if it's a busy fire season).  If it is a particularly dry year you could also walk the highway which would suck, but it would have river access almost the whole way.  There are some good layers on Google Earth you can look at for this.  Be especially careful of your water sources; the pumice rock is very porous and a lot of springs might not be running in August.

With a big dog, hitching might be a little rough.  Prepare for a lot of pickup bed rides.

Best,

EnviroPyro