Kittens With A Bad Sense Of Direction - Oh And Camp Muir

We'll get to the kittens later. It's like on the news when they start with "Woman chases grizzly up a tree.", but they don't do that story until the very end of the show.

Yesterday Pam, Emily, Natalie, Phyllis, Tom and I hiked up to Camp Muir on Mt. Rainier. It was a spectacular day that started out fairly windy but became quite calm after a couple of hours. Muir is a worthy endeavor at 4.33 miles each way with more than 4500 feet of elevation gain. It was nearly half in the snow which we are very used to this year. The top elevation was 10075 or so.

Here are the pictures and then the kitten bit.

We were able to glissade a bit on the way down, but not as much or as fast as Pam and I did on Mt St Helens earlier in the year.

In the middle of the night Athena was up and shaking her head so her tags make noise so I was an obedient pops and let her out. She was in no way interested in anything but hunting whatever was under the deck. I made her come in and went back to bed.

First thing in the morning she was back barking and scratching - insisting there was something there. I looked under and didn't see anything. I thought maybe whatever it was had chosen wisely and left.

I geared up and took her for our normal 6.7 mile route while Pam rested her sore foot by swimming a mile at the health club. We got back and Athena was back hunting whatever was under the deck. This time when I looked I spied a cat walking around under there. I am NOT a cat guy, but this was a great looking kitten. She was white with tan, grey and even a little black and had a mini lioness face.

Pam was able to coax her out and we set out looking for her home. We were unable to get any hints from a couple of neighbors so we headed home to call some of our "cat people" to try and find her a home. While we were doing that we also took a try to see if maybe we could ease Athena into socializing with another animal. That was a total disaster! She actually attempted to chomp the little thing while Pam was holding it!

We left her inside and went out back where Pam heard more meowing under the deck! It seems our little female friend has a brother. He was hungry and the milk we put out coaxed him out. Now we had 2 kittens to try to find homes for. While they don't kill dogs at the Tacoma pound, they DO kill cats. Again, I am NOT a cat guy, but they were good looking.

We redoubled our efforts and talked to more neighbors, and as we were getting ready to head somewhere with lots of people to try to find them a home a couple of kids from the next block over were coming down the street looking for them. Whew!

So Roy and Lila hadn't travelled too far. They were from directly across the alley. I am confident that they won't make that mistake again, but if they do we know where to take them. I only wish I had taken a picture for you guys. Oh well. That was our good deed for the day.

More soon.