What is up everyone? I’m back with another blog post for you today about the ride down the mountain we have been staying for weeks on. I know what I said in the last post about yesterday being the final hike down, but that was all walking down the mountain and not driving due to it being so long. Today, we just swiftly drove down and viewed the scenery all around us instead of hiking miserably and getting dirty. It was amazing after what we had just gone through😌. Our day thankfully started off differently than all of our other days. We put on our shoes(we were already dressed in our other clothes because it was so cold the other night. We slept at four thousand nine hundred meters(almost sixteen thousand feet in altitude) metres at the high base camp) and headed down to a nice, little cafe that was right next to our hotel. I forgot what it was called, but I had an awesome chocolate brownie there that filled me up from the start. After the meal, we acknowledged dearly how much of a good time we had and thought of how this moment changed our lives forever. Well, at least for Troy, Ella, and I because Ofer had already done it multiple times. For me, it made me experiment and embrace new challenges. We also said goodbye to Leia and her dad before we departed. They are really nice people and if you are reading this, then I want to thank you for being good friends on this trek and good luck for you. It really was fun to know and meet new people and it was arguably the best part of this whole thing. We all got into the car after Ella toke two books and started to read and we began the six hour drive, which turned into twelve. As I usually do, I will give my thoughts about this and then specifics. The drive was NOT horrible, but there were two major factors that made me not like it: The uncomfortable seats and the dust that kept getting in. I was switching seats whenever we stopped and I ended up in the worst postures. I was uncomfortable 80% of the way and secondly, the windows were open most of the time and thus dust flew in large clouds, causing us to cough and even got Troy sick😱😭!!! Evil dust! Aside from those two things however, the ride went pretty smooth aside from the bumpy road and the fact that it was double the time that it was supposed to be. We saw fantastic scenery including a really big waterfall that we took pictures at. We passed by many villages with happy people going through life. It looked very peaceful to just enjoy nature and each other. We stopped for lunch about half way in and I had a burger and fries that tasted nice. It was a lot better than Bob Marley because it was chicken and fresh. We drove for the next few hours until reaching Pokhara, the city where we would sleep for the first time in weeks. We went to a hotel called Snowland and finally got clean beds and rooms to ourselves😆👼🎶👏👏!!! It was great and after getting all settled in, we went to a restaurant called Roudhouse Cafe, where I had a pizza a million times greater than Bob Marley. Today was amazing and it was a good start after a long climb.

(markers left by Ganesh. See if you can spot them if you come do this!)

Hello everyone, I have some exciting news for you today. The news: It finally happened. We finished the Annapurna circuit today successfully. That’s right, on the tenth day of trekking, Annapurna has finally been completed by me and my family and I can now add another finished and extremely difficult mountain to my Infinity Gauntlet of Completion(Right next to Kilimanjaro(This is an Avengers: Infinity War reference for all those fans out there)). As implied in the title, today was a special day not only because it was the easiest day, but because it ended an 5-year old goal to successfully complete the Annapurna circuit. This was a huge moment for me and I am finally satisfied for the first time since Kilimanjaro. Anyways, enough about my bragging privileges and let me tell you about our last day at the Annapurna. During breakfast, we went to the kitchen and had some very tasty omelettes. We were seated next to a few other hikers, who included Leia and her dad(who left as we got there, but we thankfully saw them later) and a religious Jewish couple, one of which was doing ceremonial prayers and the other looked like she was going to pass out. After breakfast and careful preparations, we started our final ascent up the Annapurna circuit. As I mentioned earlier, the hike today was the easiest out of all of them due mostly to the fact that we only climbed a gradual uphill and the rest was downhill. It was chilly at the beginning and our path was constantly blocked by horses, other trekkers, and even cyclists😣🚵. This might sound painful, but this was all easy to handle compared to the fact that the altitude was crushing my lungs. It wasn’t intense, but it hurt a lot. It was long and tiring, but we finally reached that pass of the mountain and it was so, so satisfying to complete they ten day journey. Let’s give it up to us for completing this mountain👏👏😆😆😘🎺🎺🎸🎸🎸🎶🎶!!!!! There were other people there who also felt my pride and after for posing for many photos, we began a sweet decent down the mountain that took us so long to climb up. After walking for hours, we reached a tiny city within the bottom of the mountain where we stayed at a hotel called: Hotel Bob Marley. Yes, we actually slept at a hotel dedicated to Bob Marley. There was merch of him everywhere and I finally had meat for the first time in days. This meat was actually Yak meat and it tasted fantastic. After a refreshing meal, we found our room, which looked like a room from the Overlook Hotel from “The Shining”. Literally, there were red checkered mattresses and the wall color was exactly the same. The lights kept flickering as well, giving it a sense of horror and fright. I took a refreshing shower and a while afterwards, we met up with Leia and her dad and toured a small temple as well as the surrounding city. We saw a bunch of men get dipped in holy water and they were running around like crazy! We saw many cute kids and all the sites there were fascinating. We had pizza for dinner and we prepared for the long car ride down the Annapurna for the last time.

(Yay!!!! We did it!!!😆😌)

Hey hey hey! I’m back with another blog post for you today our what I consider to be the easiest climb up the Annapurna circuit yet. When I say easy, I mean that our actually was easy, like there were only a few things that were difficult. I woke up and did the daily routine as usual and had a delicious omelette for breakfast. The omelette was actually very good and after a refreshing and full breakfast, we started our daily climb. We hiked for a total of 3 hours before reaching the base camp. The climb there was surprisingly easy despite being cold for the first hour or so. We had a lot of fun conversations while we walked and we joked more about all the people in Tilicho base camp had to walk all that distance in the dark, cold morning. It was very fun to socialize with one another and I feel like we got to know each other more. We finally arrived at base camp #101,010,101,010,102,846,666,573,828,938,563,284,901(I lost count a while ago and I can’t remember, so I resorted to random numbers), where I had a cinnamon roll 4,900 meters above sea level! I didn’t finish our, but it was so, so good and I could really use a dessert like that at any time😙🍪🍫🍩. The high camp, where we would sleep later tonight, was directly above us… meaning that we would have to climb up steeply with a lot of other backpackers until reaching the camp. This was the most exhausting part of the day, but it was only 40 minutes long and we stopped occasionally, so it was pretty easy. When we finally got up there, I was so relieved despite going only a short distance. I felt relieved because this was our final uphill before the pass tomorrow and that we got a really long break😌🙅(dab emoji). After getting settled in, we went to lunch and played UNO with many other people. One of these other people was a very sweet traveler named Hui(pronounced “We”), who was from Vietnam. We actually first met him on our first climb up and we have been running into him ever since. Since we are also going to Vietnam, Ofer asked him about apartments there and many other things that probably will help us out while we are there. Another traveler we met was a woman named Leia and her dad, whose name I do not know(sorry if you’re reading this😐). They are both from Switzerland and Leia even made crafts with Ella they looked very cool. Our UNO games were very intense. The first 3 games were won by Leia, but the rest of them were gratefully win by non other than the spectacular and amazing Asher😆👏👏👏👼!!! The rest of the spots were taken by mostly Hui and Ella, with Ganesh and Troy kind of kicking the bucket, but they did occasionally get close… Anyways, my nice meal of vegetable fried rice came and it was super good as always. We relaxed for a few hours later until dinner arrived. I had spaghetti and French fries, which are always super good to eat. We had very interesting conversations together and made funny hour jokes. We had an awesome time talking until dinner was over and we had to stay up to 10:30 to go to sleep. It had something to do with the attitude, but I am so excited for tomorrow, where I’ll finally have meat and when the trek is over. It has been very fun for me and it was fun to meet me people and find similarities between ourselves.

Hi everyone! back with another blog post for you today about our very challenging hike up the Annapurna circuit. Again, we performed our boring routine and then embarked back to Sirikharka, where we slept before yesterday and had breakfast there. However, if you remember from my last post, there were many hikers sleeping in the kitchen(we slept in our own room) and they were all very noisy. Well, this morning we were treated with the sound of many hikers waking up at four in the morning in order to go to Tilicho lake. They all arrived late yesterday, so they had to go to the lake the next morning as a group. Because of this, they also had to sleep in the kitchen area because all the other rooms were taken😆. It was kind of funny to see them all get up so early and head to the lake and made me grateful that I wasn’t them😈. We woke up two hours later and after the usual routine, we left for Sirikharka in the cold, cold morning. The hike to the next place was all uphill, as it passed through the landslide territory that we went through yesterday (it wasn’t challenging this time around though and we had great conversations), and it was two hours long. It was only challenging at the beginning of the hike, but then it got better as the temperature got warmer and the trail gradually became downhill, which was awesome and comfortable. We got to Sirikharka and I had a fantastic potato dish. I have been having potatoes a lot lately because they are my favorite vegetable and they fill me up, which I need on this hike. After that delicious breakfast, we began our tiring and steep walk to the other base camp, Kharkha. This hike was hard on two different levels: There was extremely steep downhill and it was incredibly windy. Usually, I love going downhill and would do it at any chance I could, but the downhill here was so steep that I nearly fell off multiple times, hurt my knees, and killed my feet. It was extremely difficult to bear, but the scenery and snack break that followed were worth it. I ate a delicious apple with Oreos and then we hiked UPHILL until reaching the camp. When we finally got to the camp, guess what happened: They were out of rooms😱. We were discussing what to do when Ganesh found another camp fifteen minutes away and we went there instead. We got our own rooms and we had French fries 😙🍟!!! For dinner, I had spaghetti, which was very tasty and ultimately, our long day was over.

(Sorry! Some of these pictures cane out sideways)

The TREK day 7
Hi everyone! I’m back with another blog post for you today about our very challenging hike today up the Annapurna to the highest lake in the world: Lake Tilicho. Before I continue, you should know that today was a back and forth day, like we went from one location to another location and then back to the second location😵. Also being said, today was our steepest climb yet(aside from Kilimanjaro, obviously), even more than the pass, which is our final climb up! So, as you can see, today was very challenging, but ultimately was worth the tremendous effort. You probably know the schedule from my last six posts, so I’m not going to explain it because it was the same, boring routine as always. When we walked out of the Sheri Kara base camp, we embarked for 2 and a half hours until reaching where we would sleep tonight. This hike was mainly uphill and we reached our first obstacle of the day: Landslide territory😱! About two thirds of our first climb of the day was downhill AND on landslide territory, making our trek even more dangerous. Whenever we stepped on ground, dust flew all around us and the ground trembled. It was kind of scary way first, but it was easier as we progressed downwards. After we completed this first half of today, I felt a great feeling of accomplishment after what we did and made me believe in anything!!! Yeah, I am over exaggerating. But still, believe in yourself and follow your dreams😆😝🐴🌈!!!! Back on topic, we got to Tilicho base camp, where we would later sleep that night. I had pasta there and so did Ella. I love pasta and it actually was pretty good here. Anyways, we planned to visit the highest lake in the world, so we started to hike for the next 3 hours to what was one of the most awesome things we had seen on this trip. Let’s just get this out of the way, 98% of the three HOUR hike was uphill, steep, and dusty. You can imagine how hard it was, but also how beautiful the scenery was. It was absolutely extraordinary and the whole hike was plain awesome all the way, except for the massive uphill and the fact that my feet were dead when we got to the lake. However, the greatest part was at the end of the long journey. Just as I was about to fall down from exhaustion, we came across Lake Tilicho, the most beautiful lake in the world. It was all light blue and was massive. It was so rewarding to see and made that whole uphill trip worth it. We had tea next to it and after posing for photos, we went back to Tilicho base camp with a smooth downhill. However, something terrifying awaited us there. Once we got rested, got ready, and went to the bathroom(finally), we went to the kitchen to eat dinner and there was a cluster of some 40 hikers gathered around😱😦😥!!!! I was not expecting this. They came out of nowhere and were so loud! They used a jeep so the way to Manang and then hiked to here. Thankfully, we got a room first so we wouldn’t have to sleep with all of them. We ate our nice dinner and went to bed relieved and satisfied.

Hi everyone! I’m back with another blog post for you today about our very interesting hike up Annapurna. If you all remember from my last post, yesterday was my last rest day on the Annapurna circuit. It was very awesome, but today we were back to plain old hiking. Alas, goodbye precious rest day🎺😥😩😞🎺. We had to wake up at 6:45 am and do the same, boring routine we always do. It went by fast, but it was torture to go through. I know that we are on a strict schedule, but I do not like having to constantly wake up early and go through a painful routine. Anyways, we had an omelette and a jam sandwich before heading off on our 4 hour long hike. Before that, we said goodbye to a really cute puppy that was there. He is always very excited to see us and it was sad to leave him alone. Anyways, we hiked the four hours till our next village. It was very exhausting because it was very steep and uphill, with some dust and narrow roads on the side. It was worth it though, because once we got there, I was treated to a very special gift. We got to the village and I finally took a hot shower. I mean, this actually was a hot shower instead of luke warm like the other one. It was very refreshing after a long and sweaty hike and, sadly, it might be the last one. Afterwards, we just hung around for the rest of the day and we had a very good day today.

Hello everyone! I’m back again with yet another blog post on our spectacular journey up the Annapurna circuit! However, do note that today was a very, very different day than our other days climbing the pass. By different, I mean we actually had a rest day😇😆😄!!!! Yes we finally had a day to rest and not climb for 6 hours. Although it is very fun to hike a gorgeous place like the mountain, it was absolutely AMAZING to finally rest and do nothing. Maybe I’m over exaggerating this though, because we did hike a little bit but on only for about 30 minutes and then we toured the village for the rest of the day. Although resting for the whole day was awesome, do you know what was even better? Sleeping until 9:00!! It was so nice to sleep for so long and when I got up, we weren’t in any rush. After getting dressed and etc., we went to hike up to a very close by temple shop we could get our daily hiking out of the way. The trip up and down was very easy and we were treated with a spectacular view our the small village we were staying at. When we trekked downhill, we saw a Yak farm filled with very cute looking yaks! They looked like cows, but with fluffy tails and cute expressions. They were all hopping down the hill and made cute noises that were adorable. After that very interesting and thankfully short walk, we toured the and small village we were in. There were many different and old buildings there that were made centuries ago and there were also some old temples there as well. We passed by a group of people harvesting peas from the ground and a band of small children. The children were really happy to see us and even gave us fist bumps!!! Everyone in the village was so kind and they were very joyful despite their living conditions. They taught me that sometimes less is more and that you should always be content with what you have. We went to a nice bakery where I had a great brownie that filled me up and then we went back to our apartment and rested. Some hours later, we had a delicious dinner and I had potatoes that were very good. Ella got a black forest cake that looked good and my precious rest day was sadly over.

Chapter 10(The FINAL chapter) of “The Legendary Sandwich: A Trixie and Bruno Tail” :

What’s up, everybody? I’m back with another blog post for you today about our very interesting day of trekking the Annapurna circuit. We woke up at the usual time and then we got dressed, brushed teeth, and ate a delicious cheese omelet for breakfast. After all of these fancy preparations, we took off on an epic journey up the mountain. The schedule today was a little different than the other days, though. The first 2 hours were purely hiking uphill while the next few hours were a mix of uphill, downhill, and flat ground. This was an awesome schedule to go by because we could get all the hiking done immediately instead of having it constantly every few hours. Anyways, before we left, Ganesh found two very adorable kittens at breakfast that we got to hold🐈🐈! They were very cute and honestly I didn’t expect to see cats this high up, which added a new layer of entertainment to the climb. After the long 2 hour hike, we stopped to eat at a cozy tea house near the top of a peak. At this place, we got treated to a spectacular view of Annapurna 1,2,3,4! Annapurna 1,2,3, and 4 are the different peaks that Annapurna has, with 2 being the highest peak while we are passing through the range of mountains. Annapurna 2 looked very intimidating because it was so big and covered in sheets of snow. The scenery of the whole place was amazing though and the woman running the tea house was incredibly nice. She was 67 years old and she was still a very happy spirit. There was one tourist though that had a BB-8 figure that he took a picture of! I’m guessing that it was his version of a travel gnome and it was really creative. The people there were all very nice and after a refreshing stop, we continued forward. We reached a village where I had to go to the bathroom, but there wasn’t one that I could use, so we hiked for two more hours until reaching lunch. For lunch, I had a very good momo and I saw the biggest cabbage in existence🍈! It was bigger than Troy ‘s head and was very heavy.

After that, we played a delightful game of UNO that was very fun. We continued forward to a 600-year-old Buddhist temple! The town it was in was extremely colorful and was full of different people and animals. When we visited the temple, it was filled with ancient artifacts that were a combination of masks, Hindu philosophy, and Buddhist philosophy. It was very interesting to see their religion firsthand and the monk who showed us the temple was very nice! Afterward, we hiked to our next location where I finally went to the toilet and had an amazing dinner. This trip so far has been awesome!

(Aba with yak hair!)

Chapter 9 of, “The Legendary Sandwich: A Trixie and Bruno Tail” :

Chapter 9

Trixie and Bruno reached their house at sundown with Pierre and Boris waiting for them at the backyard glass door. “Well, well, well. If it isn’t our enemies, Bruno and Trixie. We know you know where the sandwich is, so why don’t you te-” Pierre said before being interrupted by Trixie.

“Whatever! I’m starving. Yahhh!” Trixie yelled and single-handedly took out both Pierre and Boris with Bruno watching. The two pets then went inside and Bruno locked all the doors so Pierre and Boris couldn’t come in. As Pierre and Boris begged to be let in, Bruno opened the cookie jar and took out The Legendary Sandwich. As the pets were about to bite into it and establish that they won, a hand snatched it out of the pets’ paws. The hand belonged to Racoon Raphael who snuck in through an open window.

“Haha! I’ve won now, pets!” Racoon Raphael bellowed. “The Legendary Sandwich is mine now and I’ve won this contest! There is nothing you can do now-” Racoon Raphael was abruptly interrupted as he was grabbed and the sandwich slipped from his grasp into the pets’ paws. It was Troy who grabbed Racoon Raphael and tossed him outside and closed all the windows so he couldn’t come in. Ofer, Asher, and Ella all came out of their hiding spots.

“Congratulations pets,” Ofer said. “We had a celebration ready, but those other two pets and that raccoon arrived first, so we hid when they came into the house. The sandwich is now finally yours. Feast away!”  Then, Trixie and Bruno had the greatest snack in their lives as the three saboteurs outside all wailed “NOOOOO!!” at the same time.

Hi you all!! I’m back with another blog post for you today about our COOL and exciting trip up the Annapurna! My day started off by waking up at 6:45 am and getting dressed/brushing teeth(you know, the usual, boring stuff). However, instead of starting to walk and going to breakfast two hours later, yesterday taught us a very important lesson: Be prepared! So we met with Ganesh and told us that the hike to our next destination was the same as day 1(spoiler alert: It actually was!) and that it shouldn’t be as difficult as the last two times. We ate our breakfast, which consisted of tasty Nepalese bread and an omelet, and started our hike for the third day in a row. Just so you know, I find this new method a lot easier than before because I felt rushed to the point where I couldn’t do much to prepare and felt like I always needed to move. Now though, I feel like I can enjoy breakfast in peace without being rushed or stressed, which is a very good way to start off a trek. We walked for two hours until reaching an apple orchard about one-third of the way to our destination. As I said in my last post, the apples here in Nepal taste amazing and the apples at the orchard were no exception to this sweet rule. Along our walk, we saw many cool things. There were many loose, iron bridges that we crossed. They were unstable and it added an extra sense of danger and excitement to the whole thing. Also, the wind was blowing very harshly to the point where I wore a sweatshirt because the wind kept giving me many goosebumps. Two hours later, we visited a small village that had a restaurant. We ate on the ROOF of the place where the view was amazing, but we got hit with a freezing cold😖❄. I forgot to tell you about one of the greatest foods we have had in Nepal: Nepalese bread. I can’t quite describe it, but it was like eating hardened Pita, which is a type of fried dough made usually in Israel. To give you a sense our how good it was, we are having it every day for breakfast! I ordered momos, a typical Nepalese dish, and once we were, we continued for another 2 hours. There was a group of hikers that are constantly playing loud music that disrupted the serenity of the mountain scene. It felt disrespectful to nature and the other hikers. We finally arrived at our destination and I ate rice🍚!!! We rested for the whole rest of the day and, personally, today was probably my favorite and most exciting day!

Chapter 8:

Chapter 8

It took Trixie and Bruno a long while to get to the top of Bear Peak, not because it was far away, but because they had to watch their backs to see if Pierre and Boris were following and because Trixie is very lazy and hates exercise. Once they finally reached the peak where Ella had left another hint that said, “It’s at the top. Get ready for the long climb!” Trixie started to sniffle and whine but Bruno poked her and she started to run up the mountain. It took them three hours to get to the top, but it was worth it as they got a spectacular view of Boulder and the fifth clue was stuck to a tree which read: “Yay! You did it! Now, look at your other clues and see if you can see the location of the sandwich!” The pets got the other four clues to decipher the secret. Bruno couldn’t find anything at first, but then he saw that the letters “c”, ”o”, ”o”, ”k”, ”i”, ”e”, ”j”, ”a”, and “r” were bolded. Wait, they spelled “cookie jar”!!! “That’s where it was located!” Bruno told Trixie and they rushed down the mountain toward their house.

Hello everyone! Today, I have hiked the second part of our Annapurna trip! Today our trip was more challenging, but there was also a lot of interesting stuff that happened, which made today even more special than yesterday. Our day began the same way as any other day; I woke up at 6:45 am and got dressed, brushed teeth, and put in my contacts. Ganesh met up with us and told us that the trek today should be as long as yesterday’s, 6 hours(Spoiler Alert! It was longer😖), and then we embarked on our long journey. Before I continue, you should know that our schedule didn’t exactly go as planned and was filled with a lot more activity. I will explain why and also keep this in mind when you get to the motorcycle part. The first two hours of the trek went the same as yesterday. We hiked up and down, saw many other people, and dogs were even following is everywhere!🏃🐕🐕🐄 We also saw a lot of cows when we were walking, so the roads were covered in dung!💩 This wasn’t terrible though, because we often avoided MOST of it. Anyways, our walk went as usual until we had breakfast. Breakfast was when our journey up the mountain took an unexpected and, in my opinion, bad turn. As usual, we ordered off the menu and waited for our food. But since there was only one chef and we ordered a medium amount of food, we waited for TWO WHOLE HOURS for the food to come. This meant that we were 2 hours behind schedule and that we were going to have to rush to get to where we needed to sleep tonight. The chef did send us a letter telling us he was sorry, but you can’t really blame him because cooking for two hours alone is hard work. It was 12 at this point, so we frantically tried to get to where we needed to stay tonight despite all the exhaustion we faced. We reached a small village a few minutes later that wasn’t as active as the last one. We tried to call a jeep because we were really behind schedule and we were exhausted but to no avail. There was only one option: climb up.😓 We started to climb up into the wilderness where we approached a mighty waterfall. The waterfall was very large, but thankfully Ganesh found a way to cross it, at the cost of our heavy shoes getting wet. We crossed it and began to climb further up the mountain. This was all very interesting to me since this has never happened before and I tried to keep a positive attitude towards it. We went up 500 meters to another village called Tinag. We didn’t do anything there except getting Snicker bars and Ella even saw a really cute brown puppy! We hiked down where we crossed a metal bridge…and then we climbed up again. We came across a road junction an hour after the river where Ganesh said there were two ways to Chame: The easy way and the hard way. Since we were running low on time, we went down the easy way. I was feeling very cold and I didn’t move well since we were walking for like, 8 hours, but then Ganesh called a motorcycle that led me to Chame in 5 minutes instead of 40. I was waiting for the others to arrive and they slowly came one by one. I took a shower shortly after that that wasn’t the best, but it still sufficed. At dinner, I ate a native apple, and it tasted delicious😋. Today was very interesting and taught me new ways to solve a problem.

(sorry, this was how the picture was taken!)

Chapter 7:

Chapter 7

The lake was only a few minutes away and was easy to find. Once Trixie and Bruno got there, Ella apparently had left them a hint on how to find the fourth clue: “Use these goggles to dive down and retrieve the yellow box containing clue #4 in it. Bruno put on his goggles but Trixie, with her goggles on, said, “Nuh-uh. Noooo way!  I’m not going down there. So long. Bye bye!” Bruno poked her with his claw and she yelped and jumped into the water. Bruno followed shortly after. Just as the pets went in, Pierre and Boris found the lake and read the instructions. They found a spare pair of goggles and dived in the water, not seeing where Bruno had safely hidden the first 3 clues.

Trixie and Bruno dived to the bottom of the lake. Trixie was digging in the mud on the bottom of the lake and eventually found the box containing clue #4 inside it. As Bruno grabbed it, he saw the shadow of Boris above him and Trixie unleashed a ferocious water-bark that blew away Boris and Pierre, who had almost reached Trixie. Bruno swam all the way to the top with the box while Trixie unleashed a massively disruptive water-fart that made her fly out of the water and blew Pierre and Boris down to the bottom of the lake. Once the pets were safe, Bruno put the first three clues, Asher’s eight sticky gloves, and the map that was left on the ground inside the box that contained the fourth clue. The fourth clue read: “Almost there! It’s just so high up!” The pets then left in a hurry toward the tallest mountain in Boulder, Bear Peak, where the fifth clue was located.

A minute later, Pierre and Boris climbed out of the lake gagging. Trixie and Bruno had gotten away for the fourth time and Pierre and Boris hadn’t even come close to acquiring a clue. Their rivals had also taken away the map and didn’t leave any trace of where they were heading. Boris couldn’t pick up their scent and the other pets left no trace or pawprints. “Boris, I’m calling the mission off,” Pierre said sadly. “We’ll wait by Trixie and Bruno’s house and confront them there. We can’t follow them anymore.” The two then headed for Trixie’s and Bruno’s house as a shady figure watched from the trees, hidden.

“Looks like I’ll be heading back with them,” Racoon Raphael said quietly. “The pets will come back to their house eventually.” Then, he stealthily followed Pierre and Boris to the house.