Wright Mountain, Gobbler's Knob

13 May 2001 (Mother's Day)

By: Blackie Popescu, translated by Maggie Wilson

Hiking with Humans
Leaders: Virgil Popescu and Maggie Wilson

On Mothers Day, Mika (my sister) and I decided to take our pet human, Virgil Popescu, and a few of his friends out on a K-9/HPS outing. It is important for our humans to get out now and then to smell the flowers and pee in the bushes. They don't seem to enjoy smelling each others' personal parts like Mika and I do with our friends, but, of course, they are only humans.

Our plan - trot northeast on the Pacific Crest Trail, run off the trail and bag Wright Mtn, eat. After lunch, trot back down the PCT, run up Gobbler's Knob from the saddle north of the peak, don't stop on top (we can't sign registers anyway), and run east off of the peak to the cars.

Virgil had five of his friends on the hike, but none of our doggie buddies could make it. Two doggie acquaintances tried to have their pet humans drive them up the dirt road off of Lone Pine Canyon Road to the trailhead at Gobbler's Knob, but their car couldn't make it.

Although I don't know if I should share this with Virgil, his friends seemed extremely bored on the hike. Although I ran ahead many times trying to stir things up, nothing happened. They marched right behind Virgil the entire way up and the entire way down. It was as if they were in a trance. Not once did I see them sprint ahead on the trail, chase a squirrel up the side of a hill or eat any manner of enjoyable tidbits that were found along the way. They acted as if we had not let them off their leashes. Oh sure, they ooo'd and ah'd about the pretty views and nice smells, but they really couldn't have been enjoying themselves. They were just trying to be polite to our pet human.

Mike and I found Virgil's friends to be more interesting once we reached the top of Wright Mtn at 12:45. They had food. Different kinds of food. We liked sharing the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with Maggie. We didn't much care for sitting in place while the pet humans took pictures. Bruce Arnold gave my ears a nice scratching.

The pet humans were not so generous on the top of Gobbler's Knob. We did not get one morsel to eat. Only water and more pictures. Again, the humans spoke as if they were enjoying themselves, but Mika and I figured it out. It was not politeness, they had been hypnotized! Virgil tries to do that to Mika and me, but we don't fall for it. He is lucky we come when he calls. Humans! What suckers!

Mika and I and the robots, I mean pet humans, arrived back at the parking area east of Gobbler's Knob about 3:30 p.m. We may take Virgil and his friends out again. If we do, we will have Virgil turn on the big air conditioner in the sky when we hike (it got to be a bit warm), more of our friends will be there, we will require all humans to share their munchies and both Mika and I will be able to sleep in Maggie's lap on the way to the trailhead.