Dog Days of Winter on Conklin Road (Bend)

Remember the dog days of summer? Those few weeks in August so hot that dogs seek any shade where they can sprawl out with their tongues lolling about? Winter’s got dog days as well – set apart by the unseasonably warm weather – but the dog days of winter are a bit more active.

These are the days that dogs live for, when the mid-40s temps melt the snow off the trails but the air stays cool enough to run long stretches in a fur coat, when dogs get a break from the ice balls that form and grow between their toes, when their families aren’t leaving them behind to go ski all day long. These are the days to head to the National Forest trails, where leash laws are lifted from mid-September to mid-May.

This past weekend we headed to Conklin Road, AKA Forest Road 41, just a few miles up Century Drive out of Bend. Recreations sites branch off Conklin like charms off a bracelet: short dirt roads leading to sweet spots along the Deschutes, including Big Eddy, Lava Island, Dillon Falls, and Benham Falls. These sites are lightly used most of the winter, but the afternoon sun drew out more than the usual numbers of hikers, bikers, and picnic-ers, and it was a real dog party. Chasing balls in the river, sprinting the straight-aways, and a million and one fascinating smells in the freshly thawed mud.

No doubt winter will soon be back and the Conklin Road recreation sites will be frosted with a thick layer of snow, and we’ll happily break out the skis again. But for the four-legged among us, the dogs days of winter have surely been a welcome treat.