February 19th 2007

We came back from our Mount Baker weekend today.

We spent the weekend in a four-bedroom cabin near Mount Baker. Bill and Karen and Jen and Ben and Indie Olsen stayed with us, along with Jen and Ben’s dogs. The cabin was an old fashioned little building with no dishwasher and a crazy spiral staircase.

On the last day of the weekend Heidi and Logan and I left the cabin and went to the Hannigan Pass trail to ski. It was the first time we used the Chariot. It was easy to set up, and Logan seemed to enjoy riding in it. I towed Logan behind me, and we skied along the trail until it ended at an old collapsed bridge. It was a nice day – warm and drizzling very slightly. Logan was asleep by the time we turned around. On the way back to our car we passed a woman with two dogs, a pit bull and a rottweiler. The dogs seemed friendly, and were happy to meet Chazz. The woman with the dogs said “Lots of heavy panting going on.” After a few minutes the woman’s rottweiler showed up again. He came running up, happy to see Chazz and seemingly content to follow us back to the car. I decided to ski back and find the woman – but I couldn’t catch up with her. She hadn’t stopped, or even slowed down. I finally turned around after speaking with a family that had passed the woman. They said she wasn’t worried, that her dog ran away all the time.

After we loaded our wet gear back into our packed car and left for home we were startled to see the rottweiler standing in the middle of the highway. He had gone back to the parking lot and was chasing cars. Heidi stopped, and wanted to put the dog in our car. Chazz wouldn’t allow it – he growled and barked as soon as he saw it. Heidi took the dog and walked back to the nearby ranger station while I drove the car there. We left the dog with the national forest personnel.