First hike of the new year to watch the first light of the new year with the Valley Wanderers. We would need to spend a few more hours to actually see the sun itself, but we did see the first light of dawn. We met at 8 am and hiked up the closed road to the mine buildings in the icy cold and dark conditions. The temperature varied between -5 and zero on the hike but had warmed up to +11 by the time we got back to our cars. Since we started out in the dark, we all wore headlamps and some even wore Christmas lights. Bella wore her lighted harness. That was a good thing too, because she tended to run far ahead and would have totally disappeared except for her flashing multi-colored blinking harness. At least we always knew where she was. I did have to take a couple minutes out 3 times to replace escaping booties. But for the most part, they did stay on. She was mostly the leader and seemed to know exactly where we wanted to go. It was like the wise men following yonder star because we just followed her lead up the trail. I was so glad I didn't need to put her in my backpack. For being as cold as it was, she was a real trooper and did really well all the way. But she was shaking pretty hard and very happy when we got back to the car. It was only about a 2 1/2-mile hike, but in those temperatures and the dark, it was long enough.
Happy New Year!
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