The Rest of Dobie’s Adventure in the Adirodacks

On the last trip we made to the Adirondacks I found something out that I wouldn’t have guessed at.

We left early and decided to check in at a nice little motel in Keene Valley.  They catered to backpackers and hikers and it was a lovely place to clean up after being grubby for days.

Before I go further, I would like to explain something about the way Dobie hiked.  He would run up the trail, disappear around a corner, then come running back to us.  He put on three times the mileage we did with all his running back and forth.

Anyway, we got to the motel and were pulling up in front when Dobie started to really react.  His hackles stood up around his neck and he gave a low menacing growl.  Completely unlike him.  He jumped from the back seat into the front seat and was staring intently at the motel.  The chambermaid was doing the rooms–nothing weird there–but he was glaring and growling and whining.

Let me say that this was quite a few years after  our first backpacking trips.  Dobie was now a lot older and he might have had some vision loss.

Suddenly it hit me.  The maid was surrounded by large black plastic bags into which she was putting the linens that she had changed. Large, lumpy black bags.

Bears.

He had seen bears on the trail.  We had not seen them because he was so far ahead of us. And of course, he came right back to us.  Most black bears (unless it’s a sow who feels her cubs are in danger) mind their own business and prefer to avoid encounters.

Now so much fell into place.  Dobie had never eaten much on the trail.  When we would come down we would go to this nice bar and restaurant and get him a pound of the best hamburger meat I had ever eaten.  He would wolf in down and sleep for hours.  He must have been on high alert whenever we were hiking.

My poor little guy had been anxious and evidently did not like the bear aspect of hiking.  He had had much more of an adventure than I could have guessed at. And probably more than once.