Brie has been along for most of my “I’m scared of horses” journey and she has been a not-so-quiet “you can do this” voice for me over the years.
From going on little trail rides near where we lived, to loping my horse in the open field, she has been there to calm my fears. And yes, those were both things I was afraid to do on the best of days. On the worst of days? She couldn’t even get me to ride at all.
In 2017 she talked me into hauling to the Grand Tetons with her in Wyoming (not exactly with her as we lived quite far apart by then, but we met up there) to ride for a few days and that was both really challenging and really rewarding for me.
In 2018 we met up briefly in Oregon for a quick ride.
And last weekend we went to Idaho for what was supposed to be a two-day ride in and camp in the wilderness event but turned out to be a really long day-ride… it’s always an adventure!
First let me say that it’s never ideal to arrive at a trailhead/campsite after dark because you really can’t get the “lay of the land” and it’s hard to get horses settled (portable corrals/electric fence/highlines/whatever you use) and feel good about it after dark. What if you’re accidentally setting up right on the trailhead? Or in the only parking area?
So when we pulled into the horse trailhead and made our first loop around the area well after dark, things were looking pretty bleak as far as where to set our horses up. We had both worked that day and then spent the equivalent of another workday on the road and we were exhausted… and knew our horses must be, too!
But on our second loop around, we were beyond tickled to find two very large corrals in good repair and no other horses in sight (in our headlights). Nothing in our research had mentioned corrals at the trailhead so this was the very best surprise.
We quickly got everyone settled and scrambled into the nose of my horse trailer for some shut-eye.
The next morning we fed our ponies and ourselves and started getting Fred (Winnifred) and Wrangler loaded as they would be our pack horses for our over-night.
Then we hit the trail!
Our research had led us to believe that the water crossings would be “belly deep” and sounded fairly treacherous so we got a kick out of the water crossings we came across.
It’s always fun riding with Brie, for many, many reasons… one of which is she’s as photo-crazy as I am.
Our trail quickly climbed up and while it was rocky and full of switchbacks, the view was outstanding and the trail was not what I would call ‘scary’.
However, it was also full of hikers which Spur finds absolutely terrifying. Lakota (Brie’s dog) got to hitch a ride whenever we came upon hikers.
It felt like no time at all before we caught sight of our first lake.
In all actuality, we had been on the trail for a couple hours by that point and we were hungry so we started looking for a suitable place to a take a little break.
Little did we know this was probably the last camp spot we saw and the last break we took. Have I mentioned that things rarely go according to plan?
Our next stretch of trail was up and over a pass at 9,500 feet.
Spur didn’t really understand switchbacks and he spooked just about every time we came around one and saw Brie above or below us. He’s ridiculous.
We ran into so many hikers on this side of the pass it wasn’t even funny. At this point we were still somewhat optimistic that we would/could find a camp spot but it wasn’t long after where we both just felt the need to “get out”. Maybe it was when we passed the llamas?
We also reached a section of trail that was definitely not “cleared” like our research led us to believe it would be. While the majority of the trail, especially through an avalanche section, had been cleared recently there were three spots that took some determination to get through.
What was supposed to be two fairly easy ten-ish mile days turned into one 20 mile day. We still smiled through most of it… although those smiles may have been painful grimaces the last 2 miles or so. We also realized that we didn’t get one group photo all day so we set up the tripod and took a quick snapshot (as “quick” as it can be when you’re talking about 4 horses, 2 humans, and Lakota) before untacking.
We were also super stoked to see a water pump but we couldn’t get any water out of it so we had to unhook the pickup and drive to the nearby lake to fill our water containers for our thirsty horses.
Brie did all the hard work, I just took pictures of her and Lakota. Pretty typical and yet another reason why you probably don’t want to ride with me!
Not counting the water our horses drank on the trail from the many water crossings, they went through 36 gallons of water in camp.
By the time we got back to the trailhead, there was a notice that the hiker trailhead was full (this was a Friday afternoon) and the horse trailhead was open for “overflow” parking. We decided that we had made the right choice by not camping on the trail that night when we saw that!
Also, the vault toilet was right by the horse corrals so our little ‘camp spot’ was a flurry of activity… come Saturday morning we enjoyed the pretty light while the horses ate breakfast but we loaded up and hit the road for home right quick.
