Backpacking With Dogs in Colorado

A fellow student introduced me to backpacking after I moved to Colorado to attend law school. Although we only packed in a couple miles on the east side of the Flat Top Wilderness in western Colorado, the silence and area’s beauty hooked me on backpacking. I continued backpacking after I passed the bar and an exuberant yellow Labrador retriever named Whiskey joined me in Colorado. Each backpack, often to a high alpine lake, became a weekend escape from the hordes of criminal defense attorneys and their clients who wanted to make plea bargains with me, a deputy district attorney. I attribute backpacking with Whiskey and a couple of friends for keeping my sanity.

Then I met Dave, my now husband. Unfortunately, Dave, Whiskey, and I only backpacked a couple of times until a car accident sidelined me.

Fast forward twenty-seven years.

Last year, I half-jokingly asked my physical therapist, who sometimes treats my aging back, if I could backpack.

“Sure,” she said, much to my surprise and delight.  She cautioned me to carry no more than sixteen to seventeen pounds in a well-fitting, supportive pack which she lent me to try out.  The pack fit me perfectly, so a bought one to use on a trial backpack, sans dogs.

Thanks to Dave and today’s lightweight gear, we both survived the trip without pain or other health complications. In my early backpacking days in the 80s, I carried an external backpack, loaded with a two-man tent, sleeping bag and pad, plus food, metal mess kit, two water bottles, a stove, and assorted clothing. My pack often weighed thirty to forty pounds depending on the length of the trip.

Whiskey also wore a pack that contained a small metal food dish and kibble in Ziploc bags to keep dry when he swam. His bright red pack was nicely padded with faux sheepskin but could be rubbed off and lost in dense willows, a lesson I learned that left two canines without dog food. They survived by sharing human food.

This past July, Dave and I, plus our current Labradors Ranger and Betty, joined friends for a backpack in the Sangre de Cristo mountains in southern Colorado. We hoped to camp just shy of South Colony Lake on a hillside away from a creek to keep the dogs dry. The next day, we planned to climb Humboldt Peak, a 14er, and then would return to camp for a second night.

Dave had backpacked in the area twice before when he climbed Crestone Peak and Crestone Needle, two extremely difficult 14ers. He assured me that climbing Humboldt was dog friendly and not hard. Six years prior, he’d climbed Humboldt with a friend and his dog without an issue. “It’s fine for dogs,” he said.

His assurance made me believe that Betty, our adoptee that is very athletic, wouldn’t have any trouble with the climb nor would Ranger, our veteran that had summited fourteen different 14ers plus numerous duplicates. Humboldt would be Betty’s first 14er climb.

When our friends invited us on this backpacking-climbing excursion to celebrate their wedding anniversary, Dave and I plus Betty and Ranger started to train.

Limited by the larger than usual snowpack, we found a couple of trails/hikes accessible that led to 12,000-foot-plus ridge, and one to a 13,332 foot summit. The dogs carried their Ruffwear packs with increasing weight. Our vet advised their packs should weight no more than seven pounds each. (See: https://www.caryunkelbach.com/preparing-dogs-for-enjoyable-hikes/ for tips to make sure hikes are safe and enjoyable.)

As we packed our lightweight backpacks at home, Dave and I commented how much lighter gear was than some forty years ago! Not only tents but inflatable pads, sleeping bags, water filters, tiny stoves, ground covers, sporks, cups, featherweight down jackets, and whisper-light wick off pants and shirts. Of course, this lightweight equipment also costs much more than I could have afforded as a law student and then prosecutor who adhered to a budget to pay off student loans!

Dog’s packs also are much more secure than decades ago. Betty and Ranger’s “Approach” packs have four instead of two non-waterproof compartments.

What should each dog carry? I chose Betty to take some factory-sealed dehydrated human food along with her ultralight packable dish and some dog food carefully sealed in sandwich-sized Ziplock’s. She likes to roll in snowbanks but usually doesn’t swim and soak in streams as much as her brother Ranger.

Ranger would carry the bulk of the dog food―kibble and an assortment of sizes of dog biscuits― some in sandwich bags and some in quart-sized Ziplock’s, another lightweight compactible dog dish, a trowel, and an empty water bottle. Once in camp, Dave would sterilize the drinking water for all of us.

I carefully weighed the food and equipment, and then evenly distributed both on each side of the dogs’ packs. That task took at least an hour. Dave insisted on bringing four cans of beer which the dogs also would transport in exchange for his carrying a foam exercise pad for them to sleep on in the tent, and I’d bring a chamois cloth and a medium-sized towel to dry off Betty and Ranger after their guaranteed swims. Each can of beer weighed 13.2 ounces―exactly. The pad weighed 13.6 ounces!

Unlike the olden days, I packed one set of dog booties in my pack for an emergency, Mushers Secret for the rocky portion of our 14er climb, plus some Pepcid AC original, metronidazole in case our furry friends ate something horrifically yucky that resulted in diarrhea, and a few anti-inflammatory tablets.

A couple of days before we left home, I trimmed the dogs’ to prevent tears in the feather-light bottom of our ultralight three-man tent.

On July 3^rd, we reached the trailhead around noon and ate lunch before saddling up. All of our packs, including Betty’s and Ranger’s, were at the maximum “permissible” weight.

“Which dog is carrying three cans of beer?” Dave asked. I looked dumbfounded at him.

“Three cans of beer? They are both carrying two, “I informed him. “You said that you wanted to bring four cans of beer.”

“But that was before you said you would drink one.” His surprise announcement took me aback. I had painstakingly weighed the contents of the dogs’ packs.  He wisely offered to take the fifth can which I took from him within a mile. Phew, crisis averted.

We camped lower than expected because of deep snowpack that other backpackers warned us about near our original camping destination. We chose two sites with perfectly flat areas for tents, built-in grills, and lots of tree stumps to use as stools and tables. Did I mention the sites were next to a rushing creek that provided ample opportunity for Betty and Ranger to cool off in? The chamois cloth later worked its wonders, so we had dry dogs by nightfall. Piles of snow lay around the sites―perfect for cooling off food and beverages!

After setting up the tent, Dave and I unpacked the rest of our collective gear and discovered a few mishaps. One beer can had been punctured by a log or rock when the dogs rolled, so two of the dogs’ meals were a bit beer soaked because sandwich-sized Ziplock’s are NOT waterproof. The other three cans of beer were only dented!

The next morning, we set out to climb Humboldt and crossed numerous snowfields― much to the delight of both Betty and Ranger. As we began our real ascent to the saddle, wind picked up and never let up. After the saddle, we weaved along a “trail” through fairly good-sized rocks. Ranger expertly leaped from one to another. Betty wasn’t as surefooted and ended up on a leash to be guided. Dave hadn’t remembered so many boulders. We were off track even though we’d followed cairns. Many cairns.

Undoubtedly thanks to the popularity of climbing 14ers, and Colorado’s population which has mushroomed to more than 5.5 million, this mountain and probably many others have many cairned routes to summits. The route we took was definitely not for dogs. We finally discovered the main trail and head toward the summit, with Betty leashed during areas of exposure. All of us summited, ate lunch, and descended on the main trail just as the wind died down. Off the steep portion of the trail, we detoured to North Crestone Lake where the dogs swam and Betty tried to catch fish! The remainder of the day was uneventful as we headed back to camp to celebrate the Fourth.

Here’s what we learned from our two-and- a-half day backpacking experience:

• Ruffwear dog packs are very secure even on canines swimming in rushing streams and rolling in the snow.
• But packs create different dynamics for dogs in water. Canines expend much more effort trying to swim and can’t do so as easily as they can without packs.
• Ziplock snack and sandwich bags leak! Quart size Ziploc’s only leak a tad.
• The chamois cloth folded up to a small size, dried the dogs relatively well, and dried quickly.
• Both dogs had no ill effects after eating their beer-soaked kibble which apparently tasted great to them.
• Bring lots of extra dog food because canines, like humans, get extra hungry when camping!
• Choose a route with good water sources so that you can carry less water but still keep your dog hydrated.
• The exercise mat provided plenty of cushion in the tent, so the dogs slept on it throughout the night instead of on top of us nestled in our sleeping bags.
• If you make a campfire, poop will burn without smelling, so you can adhere to leave no trace principles.

  

• Thanks to so many people camping and too many who are either ignorant or exceptionally lazy, human feces and toilet paper may be scattered on top on the ground, close to your campsite. Beware and leave no trace!
• Start an inexperienced climbing dog on an easy 14er! Not Humboldt which is NOT a good 14er for canines.
• Keep dogs under voice control when not on leashes to keep them out of dangerously roaring streams or away from fishermen at lakes.
• Caution friends that your swim-loving canine might pay them a visit after an early morning dip in a stream and then shake outside their closed tent door. That’s how Ranger woke up our friends one morning!

  

On our second backpack with Ranger and Betty, we brought about 75% more than their usual amount of kibble packed in quart and then in gallon-sized Ziplock’s. The extra food kept them happy as did meeting a couple of large groups of backpackers who lavished them with plenty of pats and hugs!

Backpacking remains a great way for humans and dogs to enjoy the quiet and beauty of the great outdoors. It’s still one of my favorite summertime activities!

Related articles:

https://www.caryunkelbach.com/climbing-colorados-14ers-and-hiking-with-dogs-a-veterinarians-perspective/

https://www.caryunkelbach.com/climbing-colorados-14ers-with-dogs/

https://www.caryunkelbach.com/favorite-colorado-14er-climbs-dogs/

https://www.caryunkelbach.com/climbing-favorite-colorado-14ers-dogs/

https://www.caryunkelbach.com/climbing-redcloud-peak-dogs/