Plans have been hatched to run the mythically beautiful Paintbrush to Cascade Canyon but the forecast is grim. Sunday morning dawns with a cloudburst so the plans are scrapped in favor of a loop closer to home: Devil's Staircase to Alaska Basin, from Teton Canyon. This loop, despite entering the heart of the Tetons, does not cross into GTNP, so Sophie is invited along.
She whines with excitement at the trailhead where she usually gets to go on bike rides, but the car keeps going, to end of the road. The rain has dispersed into mist. She runs in front of the people, through vegetation that towers over her head and showers condensation on her. They climb the Devil's Staircase and it looks like some Scandinavian brochure porn--gloomy skies and miles of exposed granite and tiny brilliant wildflowers.
The Teton Shelf is high and lonely and bare except for low-growing grasses. The rain begins in earnest. Sophie trots along to the cadence of cold wet, cold wet. She hates rain and darts under boulders, which offer little shelter. Her sullen ears are pressed against her head. The people stop at what must be a lightning strike: a deep scar in the earth, rocks charred. Just then the thunder rumbles. Spooked, they run faster. Sophie, who mostly depends on sight, sees brown lumps in the distance that make her uneasy. Bear or rock? She cagily approaches. The people laugh at her.
They leave the shelf and descend hewn rock switchbacks into Alaska Basin. Sophie spots a fat marmot and chases it over a horizon line. She finds herself on a ledge with six feet of cliff above and below her. She barks a little and roots around in the hole into which her prey darted. The people have to rescue her, to their annoyance.
They stop in a little cove and eat food and complain about how cold their hands are. Sophie's person feeds her kibble. Alaska Basin is all green green green and granite slabs and rushing water. The descent is long and rough and wet. Sophie has to cross more cold streams than she would prefer.
They enter dark woods and she senses something. Around a switchback a bull moose appears and she chases it as her person screams at her. It runs away instead of stomping her face. Lucky dog indeed.
The loop is longer than a quick map estimate implied, and it's raining harder. The people run stiffly, hoods up and fists clenched, but Sophie maintains her light, smooth trot. She sees hoof prints in the mud and hopes to encounter the moose again.
They finally reach the car and her person towels her off. At home she deigns to play with her roommate Kaha for a bit, but when he gets too amorous she goes in her room and curls up in bed, a warm and tired little dog.
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