Tuesday afternoon we received a call of a missing man in Rochester NY. Abby and I hit the truck and drove the 3 hours to the city of Greece right on lake Ontario as far north as we could go before hitting Canada! We were fielded immediately and put right to work clearing an area till dark fell. We spent the night and reported to staging the next morning at 8 am.  Abby and I put in another day of clearing areas which included some very swampy and wet terrain. Abby worked great and we headed home Wednesday night to let fresh K9’s take over the next day.

Abby taking a rest

Well no rest for the weary!!!

This morning at 630am my phone rang, we had a missing hiker 3 hours east in Olive NY in Ulster County. The bad news, 7-10 inches of snow projected for this evening. We picked up Kara to be our flanker and headed right out. We were in the IC no more then 5 minutes before we had an search area, if only i had known what the area was!!!!!!!

We started up a jeep trail but quickly realized that Balsam Cap was a trail less climb and the area we were assigned was steep. Our goal was not to make it to the peek but to work the drainages up and down below it, where our missing hiker may have gotten stuck, lost, or hurt. 4 miles straight up and down worked us hard, including a few slips and slides down into the ravine. Abby worked like a pro and never tired out or gave up, she did everything i asked of her and more, i think the 15 miles a week of running may be paying off!!!!

The blue line is the tip of our path

The blue line above is just the tip of the path we took, most of it up and down steep inclines. Tonight will be a quite one, abby curled up asleep in whatever bed is closest to me and the rest of the dogs spread around happy mom is home!