My daughter, Abby, my friend, Colleen, and I grabbed the opportunity for a pack trip to the mountains last week.

We planned to ride both familiar and unexplored trails for a couple of days, take a few deep breaths and pause the chaos swirling among our respective to-do lists.

We had no idea we were about to learn the importance of pushing ourselves just a little farther.

We started out in the afternoon so by the time our feet hit the stirrups, we had about two hours of daylight left.

We headed for a meadow near a pretty, gurgling creek.

The grizzly Abby spotted was running away, turning his head to check on us, so we felt relatively confident that he would be too nervous to visit our camp that night.

I counted on the dogs to let us know whether my confidence was misplaced.

Hot dogs

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