Sibley Volcanic Preserve…

So today Ksenya and I decided to do a shorter hike at Sibley Volcanic Preserve with some people from the Sierra Club’s “Inner City Outings (ICO)” group. Ksenya had heard about the ICO and was interested in volunteering to lead a future hike for kids in the city who wouldn’t otherwise have the opportunity to get out and enjoy nature (super cool). =)

For this hike, we met up with several trail leaders including Craig the trip organizer, and Nancy, a woman who joined the group a number of years ago when she first moved to the Bay Area. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Craig, Nancy and several other hikers brought their dogs. I totally missed Sierra but as fate would have it, I would have my hands full with two dogs that got lost on the trail.

We hiked for a while on a paved road and then broke off to the main volcanic loop trail. At the top of this hill Ksenya noticed that there was a white dog that was wandering on the hill across the way (dog not in picture but was sitting about 3/4 of the way up the hill in the middle of the mountain).

As soon as I saw that the dog was not heading back to an owner and appeared to be stuck (it kept trying to navigate its way down the hill and kept having to turn back) my heart sunk as it looked like it would be very difficult to retrieve the dog. Nonetheless I was not willing to just leave it to chance that the dog would find its way down so I jogged down the trail and then back up and around the hillside to find the best location to try and call the dog from. I called the dog like I would if it were Sierra and got down on my knees with outstretched arms to coax the dog over. After much encouragement, the dog stood up and started to walk very cautiously in my direction.

It seemed like forever but the dog finally reached me and laid down appreciatively at my feet while I stroked her head and back. I heard a round of cheers from the group and some people at the bottom of the chasm who had been trying to call the dog too. =)

Fortunately the dog had a collar so I was able to walk her back to the group. Since the other dogs were off lead, Craig offered to let me use his leash on the new dog. We were just about to leave when someone noticed that there was a black dog that seemed to be lost too. For real!?? Yep, I slowly approached and although this dog was much more apprehensive than the other I was able to put a leash on him so he could join our group.

Rachel helped me find tags on the second dog and Ksenya spent nearly 10 minutes on the phone trying to call the vet to locate the pets owner. She finally got a phone number and left a message with the owner. We figured we’d take the dogs on the remainder of the walk and if he didn’t run into the owners we’d cross our fingers that we’d find them in the parking lot.

As we were walking we ran into someone saying there was a woman in the parking lot who had lost two dogs. Confident that we had an owner waiting, we kept walking and I just hoped that this person would be appropriately upset about losing her dogs. These dogs were so sweet and didn’t deserve to have an owner that wouldn’t keep a close eye on them when they were off lead. We figured we’d give them a good walk since they were already out so Ksenya took the white dog and I took the black dog. I think Ksenya took a liking to the white dog. She definitely looks like she’s enjoying herself so hey bad pet owner, better watch out cause if you don’t take better care of your dogs, someone else will. =P

After hiking to the end of the volcanic trail, we headed back on the round top trail which led back to the visitor center. Once we reached the parking lot a woman carrying some serious photography gear nonchalantly flagged us down to say those were her dogs. I kind of gave her a hard time about her dogs not having tags and the fact that the white one was totally stuck on the hill. She didn’t seem too upset and both Ksenya and I just had to cross our fingers that she’d be more responsible with her dogs on the next hike.

I guess all in all everything turned out good. Visibility was awesome and the weather was chill but calm so it was nice. After the hike K and I went to REI in Berkeley and I picked up a backpack, sleeping bag and some other gear for our two day backpacking trip to Big Sur the first weekend of May. That will be my first backpacking trip and I’m sure I’ll have a ton to write about that. So guess I’ll get back to work stuff and I’ll write more later. =)