Going On A Hike...With A Cat

Living on the side of a mountain and at the head of a very popular hiking trail, I see hikers trek up and down the mountain all the time.

I don't think I've ever seen anyone take their cat along...

But last week, I did.

It was me.

It was after work and I wanted to see if I could get any pictures of the colors before storms erased it all. I loaded up my nice camera and I began my hike.

Teewinot, our cat, started following me.

It's not unusual for him to do this. If I'm out and I decided to walk to the end of our street or around my yard, many times he'll follow me. When I started out on my hike, I didn't know how far I'd go or how long I'd be gone, so when he started following me, I thought it was cute. I didn't expect he'd stay with me the entire time.

I hiked about a half a mile up the hill. There's a road we call the Fire Break Road that far away. I wasn't sure I'd end up there, but it was such a beautiful afternoon, that became my goal. Teewinot kept up with me the entire time.

Our cat's been with us for years. I'm sure he's been up and down that mountain and where we went was nothing new to him. Still, it was fun to watch an aging cat make the hike. He was much quicker going down--aren't we all? 

It's getting colder--it even snowed last weekend, not enough to stick around, but it will, eventually. I don't do a lot of hikes anyway so I'm probably not going to be up the hill again much any time soon. But, last week, on a nice Utah autumn afternoon, me and the cat had a good time.