Mini Hike

Today, my family went for a short little .6 mile hike round-trip to Grotto Falls in Payson Canyon. It was a lot of fun, and the perfect first hike for Clyde.
My cousins tagged along, and one of them took a bunch of pictures for us. :)


Here is me and Clyde at the beginning of the hike.


Clyde in the fall leaves


Clyde sitting on a tree stump.


Here is Clyde on a little mini bridge across a creek.


Clyde and I on the mini bridge. He wasn't a big fan of it.


So instead of trying to get him to walk forward on them, I let him walk in the creek below while I walked across.


Here he is navigating his way through some rocks.


And here he is in the water at the Grotto.


Here is me, my sister, my dad and Clyde leaning against a fence at the end of the hike.

Clyde by himself, putting his paws up on the fence. :)

And here he is, tied up to the fence while we took some pictures of just the humans.

It was a fun, short hike. My brothers and my little cousins had fun running up and down the trail, and Clyde thoroughly enjoyed exploring the mountains for the first time. He thinks he's a mountain dog now!

When we got home, I put Clyde in the tub to rinse off the dirt from his legs and tummy. When we were going down the stairs after his bath, he decided to try to randomly dash down the stairs, and as a result, I was pulled forward and down. I landed on my already-damaged ankle*, and I am now wearing a splint. yay!

*In March 2009, I was riding a green-broke horse. The horse spooked and threw me. I landed on my ankle and thought I had broken it. So my mom picked me up and took me to the emergency room, where I had an x-ray. There were no broken bones, so they called it a sprained ankle, gave me a splint, and sent me on my way. A week later, it was still hurting like crazy, still very swollen, and I had a VERY hard time walking on it. So I went to my regular doctor. He took an MRI and said that I had torn all the ligaments in my ankle (also called a 3rd degree sprain). He said that torn ligaments often hurt more and take longer to heal than broken bones. He also said that it can sometimes cause permanent instability. He gave me an ankle-foot boot and sent me home.
Ever since then, my ankle gets sore when I take long walks without breaks (about 3 miles+), it gets sore when I ride horses (which is why I don't do it nearly as often anymore). And also, as a result of this injury, my right ankle is slightly larger than my left (I'm assuming it's scar tissue?), and wearing closed-toed shoes is sometimes slightly uncomfortable. (Which is why I wear flip-flops all the time, weather and activity permitting)
A month and a half after all this, I went to my first puppy meeting. :)