Hiking with Tink has been a big adjustment.

Thankfully, we're not alone. Our good friends Scott and Jo have both a two year old lab, Odin, and a puppy just a few weeks older than Tinkham named Freya. Odin's all about the big trips, but Freya is in the same boat as Tink so they're a perfect match.

Scott and I took the dogs up a little-known and infrequently used trail into the wilderness. With no one around and Odin running herd on the littles they ran themselves silly. Dogs are pack animals and it's never more apparent than when seeing a usually isolated puppy getting to dash through the ferns and tumble in the moss with others.

It wasn't a long hike and we quickly found ourselves at the summit. Not too high for the pups, but high enough to get them the exercise they needed. It was enough too for me to satisfy my adventure needs. From the top we had views across the valley to the snowy peaks we might otherwise have considered. They made a perfect backdrop for the kind of posed pictures Scott excels at. I'm way too impatient for that so I snap on the run and hope for the best. Scott is Odin while I'm the puppies.

Of course, even Odin gets into the play at times. You'd have to be dead inside not to. That's probably why we go out into the mountains to play so often. We're all just a bunch of silly puppies.