Highland glories

Sunday was a lovely day, so Spouse and I decided to do our best to wear out the hounds at Highland Forest.

I love Highland - I've been going there since I was a kid in all seasons for all sorts of activities.  It's great for hiking, cross-country skiing or snow shoeing, winter camping with girl scouts, mountain biking, and horseback riding.  There are lots of different trails through different types of terrain, and it seems as though there's hardly ever anyone there.  If you haven't yet caught on, when it comes to the great outdoors I'm completely anti-social.  I like quiet and solitude, aside from the people I'm actually hiking with.

The sun was shining, and while most of the leaves were on the ground there were enough touches of gold to make the woods look positively luminous.

We made a fatal mistake right at the start, though.  We forgot the haltis (funky harnesses that go around the dogs' snouts rather than their necks so they can't pull as hard).  Despite countless hours of effort and lots of obedience classes, our hounds perform poorly on leashes and yank like crazy whenever they catch an interesting scent.  Oh, wait, they're hounds - there's always an interesting scent.  With a low center of gravity and a lot of strength pulling in unison, they'll happily drag their human down the street, Marmaduke style.  The haltis don't solve the problem (their neck muscles are too strong for anything to work completely), but they certainly help.

Our fearless leaders:

We walked (and squelched) nearly 8 miles in total, up and down hills, but the hounds never got in the least bit tired and yanked and yoinked the entire time.  They irritated my husband so much that about 3/4 of the way through the walk he crossly pronounced that the dogs have two modes: annoying and asleep.

Here we are taking a break from the yanking in a lean-to.  I love Lucy's little face peeking out:

It was simply lovely though.  The light was so pretty, and the temperature comfortable with just jeans and long sleeves.  A few pictures to leave you with:

And, because I can never seem to resist a good climbing tree: