Bow Summit Lookout, Banff National Park

Continuing on after the doodle dog fiasco, we headed for the Bow Summit Lookout trail. 

Except I wouldn’t really call it a trail, considering the small path I’d just come from. This one was more like a road. And you’ll see it in the top corner of a picture or two, it looks like an old farm road! 

But we’ll take it, without complaints. Welcome it, in fact. 

The trail starts to climb upward, as the term Summit in the name would imply. I’m looking forward to getting my heart pumping from something other than a crazy deranged mountain-goat-dog.  Cool Whip, however, is having none of this. 

Work hard?! ‘Scuse me?! Um, no mom. Princesses do not work hard. 

​This uphill nonsense was definitely not her jam. She stopped walking. Yup, the standard unmovable Cool Whip stance: legs stiff, chin jutted out, eyes daring me to try to move her. 

Woman! I swear…! I had to coax her, plead with her, offer her snacks… 

It took us much longer than it should have, but we made it up. We ran into a few other hikers along the way and traded stories – where we were from, what else was in our plans, etc. One group even recognized us from the day before. Mostly because CW and Herc were the first “real” dogs they’d seen so far, meaning all other dogs were of the dainty fluffy ankle-biter sort. My chest puffed up a little and I gave the hounds a proud mama look.