As we descend to the creek, the trail is beautiful and mostly in the shade.
Creek and river crossings are the most dangerous thing we do while backpacking. All such events should employ the buddy system. One person crosses at a time so in the event of a problem, the other is available to help. I didn't weigh the "Monolith" (my pack) before throwing it in the car, but Andra's estimate is within a couple pounds of reality. Crossing under load requires a tremendous amount of care as your feet want to slide off slippery rocks with that much force on them. If you do go down, you now must free yourself of the pack as the water force on the pack can be deadly. This issue is compounded by the fact that I am not wearing sturdy hiking boots with gripping soles, but super light-weight water shoes with flat paper thin soles.
In order to improve safety, I take all the gear across on multiple trips as I have the extra body strength to make the trips with lower risk.
It is also incredible to see Dawg do his thing. The Australian Cattle Dog traits are on full display when he displays independent thought and stubbornness, turning back to reassess the situation.
After navigating the creek, we ran into another obstacle. This picture doesn't do the size of that tree justice. When standing next to it, the top was well over my head. We couldn't find anyway around it. The brush was too thick above it and the drop too steep below (left). We decided to remove debris from beneath, and then pushed/pulled our packs underneath. This was probably a 20 minute delay in total.