The main attraction of the weekend at Silverton Sporting Ranch was our guided snowshoe walk. Denise said that our ultimate destination was a small hunting camp on her land. She had gone there on snow mobile earlier that morning to leave a cooler with some lunch for us. Venison stew sounded yummy, so we were looking forward to our promised hour and a half long appetite-creating walk.

We absolutely took the scenic route to that camp. (This is NOT a complaint.) We spent closer to two and a half hours winding through the woods and fields. This wasn’t off-road, bushwhacking stuff. The trails we used had been traveled by snow mobile, the machines compact the snow and that makes the snowshoeing super easy, so it was really just a nice walk in the woods. As we went along, we stopped frequently to look at animal tracks, to chat about the rigorous examination Denise passed to be certified by the State of Maine as a Maine Guide, or to ask questions about things we saw.

And where was Chico? Exploring, and sniffing, and running ahead and falling behind . . .

in the end going about three times as far as we did. He found many things worthy of investigation.

There was much digging in snow for unseen (to human eyes) things.

Hmmm, that looks pretty compelling. I wonder what he's stuck into. Something tells me it might be poop.

Yup. That's poop alright. Most likely coyote.

And what does any sensible dog do with coyote poop?

Stick out your tongue and roll in it! And no, his hind foot isn't that large, that's some interesting foreshortening caused by my camera angle.

After we had built up a serious appetite, Denise wound us around one or two more bends and suddenly we were at the hunting camp.

It's cute.

And it has a real outhouse. If you've never used a clean, well maintained outhouse be assured they are absolutely nothing like plastic, heavily scented with something gaggingly sweet meant to cover the smell, porta-potties.

While we lounged and ate and rested, as good clients ought to,

Denise built us a little camp fire.

By the time we finished lunch, it was mid-to-late afternoon and Denise had other guests arriving, so we headed back to the lodge by a much more direct route.  We three were all quite ready to go to our little cabin so we could shower and put our feet up.

A couple of us even took a nap. Chico was curled up like this until we went to the lodge for supper two or three hours later. K. . .well, truth is, she was more tired than hungry. She planned to leave quite early in the morning, so she stayed in the cabin when Chico and I went to dinner.

While it was a short weekend (both K and I had Sunday commitments) it was a total success. I’d say that the Silverton Sporting Ranch is a great place to go with your dog. In the interests of full disclosure, please note that neither K or I received any financial compensation or special treatment, this is just my enthusiastic post about a fun adventure with my dog.