It had been a long week, and I was antsy, the way I am when I don't move enough. I had a solid two hours, which meant I could snowshoe on the Mt. Ripinsky trail for an hour and a half and have time for a quick shower before the next obligation. I think it was a policy committee meeting at the library, or maybe a date to bake cookies with my teacher daughter's second grade class. (I know, busy is relative, but still.)

I called two friends who were thrilled to join me. They waited in the driveway while I put on my almost worn-out hiking boots and nylon gaiters, filled a water bottle and grabbed the fanny pack I keep half-filled with emergency supplies like a compact space blanket, large leaf bag (you can make a shelter out of it) chemical hand warmers, headlamp, a knife, whistle, dry gloves, flagging tape, and a power bar.

I am a worst-case-scenario thinker.

With good reason. This time last year on a perfect winter morning, I hit my head so hard ice skating out on Chilkoot Lake that I lost a day and half. (Luckily they weren't big days. I'll wear a helmet this year.)

Three of my next-door neighbors have died in two small plane crashes. They were wonderful people and good pilots.

And I survived an accident where I was run over by a truck while riding my bicycle on a quiet street ten minutes from home on an otherwise bluebird-perfect spring day.

Ten months later was I was able to snowshoe, very slowly, and was so grateful for the companionship of the same two old friends who were coming with me today. They didn't mind that we were not exactly racing up the trail. They waited when I rested, or sometimes went ahead to the next rise, but always came back to check on me. If I got a little frustrated they kept a polite distance.

They never said anything about how I was slowing them down. Often that winter, and the next one, they broke the trail when my legs were weary. If I was sometimes a little lost on a snowy evening, they made sure we found our way back.

A big part of my emotional recovery was learning to enjoy the hike at whatever pace I could, and drop my own rigid distance and time goals. They helped me to do that. They never minded how far or fast we went, and after each outing they were as happy as if we'd summited, even if we never made it above tree-line.

I thought I had genuinely mellowed, and so was surprised when after about fifteen minutes of the first snowshoe of this year I was far ahead of my friends.

On the one hand I felt great, knowing I'd maybe, finally, gotten my old self back. On the other hand, I was alarmed for my companions. They were definitely winded and we'd hardly begun.

I waited for them on the first bridge. We drank some water and looked around at the snowy landscape that had replaced the familiar green vistas of summer and fall. This strange new place would require some getting used to.

I had hoped to climb to the microwave tower in a pretty fast forty minutes. And if I was alone, I could have, but my companions were really struggling. The year had not been kind to them. But then again, one year in my life equals seven in theirs.

You have probably figured out by now that they are dogs.

Soon, Merry was crying because she couldn't scramble up a steep section. The small, polite black lab-shepherd mix is almost all gray in the muzzle and chest. Her eyes reflect more light than they absorb and I'm pretty sure she is deaf. We adopted her from the pound twelve Christmases ago, when she was already about two or three. I doubled back and gave her a boost up to more even ground and waited while she caught her breath and ate some snow.

Forte, the happy big black flat-coated retriever from Skagway, collapsed with a groan at our feet, wheezing and panting like a White Pass locomotive. He came to live with us when he was four, and is now nine, or maybe ten. He lost a toe last year and we think he has cancer.

After the break, we went a little farther. I really wanted a workout, but they couldn't take another step. They both lay down again. I'm embarrassed to admit I almost ran up to the viewpoint alone, reckoning I'd meet them on the way back down anyway.