Our most recent pack trip was a rainy one and required navigating around afternoon rains to maximize ride time.
Here we’d made it a point to get out early(ish) and get back before the storm hit. We had enough time to untack our saddle horses, let them graze and have an early dinner before the floodgates opened.
With Wild Horse Outreach & Advocacy Ambassador Musgangs Lacy, Rock and Tiny back on the highlines, we sought shelter (and reading time) in our tents. It’s a different level of cozy for sure. To stay warm and get comfortable easily, it’s advisable to get inside the tent before everything and everyone is soaking wet.
Especially when sharing a tent with not one but two German Shepherds. They hold an impressive amount of dirt and water. And they’re sure to make my tent smell like a swamp.
The best part about Colorado summer rains is that they’re fleeting. Within an hour the storm had passed and we were putting books down, unzipping sleeping bags, and poking our noses out of our respective tents.
What happened next had me thinking I was hallucinating. “Do you want to do a bareback sunset ride?” asked Tay Martin . I don’t remember if I looked at her in shock and asked her to repeat herself or if the weight of that question actually sank in the first time around.
Never in what’s now years of riding together has she asked to ride bareback. While he’s built like a couch, Tiny isn’t a small horse and he’s the most opinionated couch I know.
I figured it’s best to make hay while the sun shines, and eagerly agreed. We each found a mounting rock and off we went, literally bareback into the setting sun.
We glassed for wildlife and spotted several elk, trotted and loped our saddle-less mounts down the trail, up hills and through the mountain meadow.
We turned around in time to watch a thick cloud move into the valley we call home on those trips, beneath golden mountain tops and just above camp. It was a dramatic, magical sight.
Sunset (and sunrise) bareback rides are the best. Enjoying them with good friends, good horses and good dogs in what looked like a Lord of the Rings scene is something I’ll never cease to be grateful for. That’s how memories are made and lives are changed, for the better.
#BLMmustang#horses#mountains#sunset#goldenhour#friends#friendship#memories
