Let’s be honest: our trail dogs do not carry their share of the load. They do not pitch a tent, filter water, or read a topo map. What they do is run three times the distance the rest of us cover, find every patch of snow to lie in, and remind everybody why we came out here in the first place.

There’s Juniper, the blue Australian shepherd who thinks every guest is her personal responsibility and herds stragglers back to the group with great seriousness. And there’s old Banjo, who has officially retired from herding and now specializes in supervising lunch from the nearest flat rock.

They’re trained, they’re friendly, and on the trips where they come along they have a way of loosening everyone up. A nervous first-time hiker relaxes the moment a happy dog leans against their leg at a rest stop.

Not every route is dog-appropriate, and we’ll always tell you up front. But when they can come, they do, and the trip is better for it. See where they roam over in the gallery.