If there is one thing nonprofit work and being part of the Mustang community has taught me, is that there is so much kindness, so many good people out there.
People who are willing to share and give so generously, be that knowledge, talents, encouragement, time, pasture land, equipment or money.
I have no family – well, no two-legged family anyway – in this country but what I do have are amazing friends from all different walks of life. Most of them I’ve met through the Mustangs. The ones I had before have since become involved with Wild Horse Outreach & Advocacy in one way or another.
I’ve witnessed and experienced more kindness since moving to the US than I did in the nearly 25 years of living in Germany. I know I have people here I can count on, no matter what. That’s something I’ll never take for granted.
When a good friend who has always been kind to me and the Mustangs was dealt a really rough hand some time ago (having the family ranch sold out from under him counts as a really, really rough hand I believe), I wanted to at least do something to show I cared.
I contacted Kaila Gallegos of Twisted Pine Arts and asked if she’d do a painting of him, his horse and his herd of registered Herefords surrounded by the land he loves and knows so well, loosely based on a photo I’d taken the year prior. She agreed.
I met Kaila a couple of years ago when she came out to meet a yearling Mustang I had up for adoption. Kaila has since adopted two wild ones. I respect her so much for the woman, wife, mother, artist, horsewoman, WHOA volunteer and wonderful friend she is.
Two days ago was the big day. The oil painting is done, it’s beautiful and is now hanging in his home.
He’s never been one to show big emotions but if the look in his eyes is any indication, I think we did alright.
It – life, nonprofit work, anything – takes a village and I’m proud to say I have a great one.
If you’re looking for a talented artist to do a custom painting or drawing for you or a loved one, I can’t recommend Kaila enough.
Have you ever felt like the universe is hitting you upside the head with a message until you finally listen? I have. So. Many. Times.
The one I’ve been getting and trying to respond to lately is less rigidity and more being in the moment, less aiming to control and more seeking to connect.
That doesn’t mean always going with the flow, bending until I break or letting others run over the top of me. It means dealing with horses, people and situations as they are, not as I had them painted in my head. It’s being present and flexible within my abilities and value systems, rather than getting angry because things aren’t the way I had planned.
For me, this applies to gentling wild horses, working with the ones that are no longer all that wild, and life all the same.
We have that conversation here all the time “But (s)he did it (insert leading, loading, picking up feet, not going haywire over some seemingly trivial thing, etc.) yesterday just fine.”, as one of the Mustangs is looking at us on an object bug-eyed, and not about to remember yesterday’s lesson. “Yep, but today’s a new day, and we get to deal with the horse(s)he is today and meet him/her where (s)he’s at.” Oh yes, that can be easier said than done. It’s also the only way to make progress, and not completely lose it in the process.
The other day it meant sending a 6am text to one of our volunteers: “How do you feel about moving some bulls today instead of our normal scheduled routine?And, yes, you’d be riding Tiny.” Of course that was the day after the post about him and his many idiosyncrasies. Bad timing, and my hopes for an affirmative response weren’t exactly high. “Sure, let’s do it!” came the reply, and I confirmed with my friend and favorite rancher that attempt #2 to find and bring home some wayward bulls was on for that day.
For me it was leaning into the discomfort of changing plans because a friend needed help and trusting my gut that McKenzie, whom I’d never ridden with, could handle Tiny, keep herself safe, and move cattle with me on a route I’d never been on without someone who knew it far better than I did. For McKenzie it meant trusting herself to take that on, and trusting me not to put her in harm’s way, knowing she needed to get home in one piece to her life and family that evening.
For both of us it meant riding Lacy and Tiny, two of our Wild Horse Outreach & Advocacy Ambassadors, independently while getting a job done for someone who trusted us to do it. Doing that sort of thing brings home ‘connection over control’ in horsemanship and riding too. We have no way of physically forcing a horse into being a solid working partner and not coming apart in a real life situation as we navigate new to us territory, sometimes iffy footing, downed barbed wire, opening and closing gates and bulls that are less than thrilled with the journey and each other.
There was a lot of one loping ahead while the other stayed behind the bulls, trotting in different directions to keep the big boys on track.
Tiny did try to take McKenzie for a bit of a bumpy ride. She was paying attention and helped him get his mind back to her rather than thinking about bucking because he didn’t appreciate Lacy leaving him. He did spook at his tail and got worried about some other invisible terrors behind him a few times. She was present and able to support and reassure him through it, so he settled down.
Lacy encouraged the bulls to keep going with her ears pinned, head low, biting the slowest one in the hind end a few times. She moved out without hesitation to open gates well ahead of the bulls getting to them, kept out of the way of the dragging wire of soft gates being opened and closed, and stood quietly for me to mount as McKenzie and Tiny kept the bulls moving once I got done fighting with yet another old wire gate or chain.
Yes, there’s training a horse to do a job and teaching them certain skills. At the end of the day though it’s the connection between horse and rider/handler that makes things work because there’s no bit in the world that can ‘control’ Salt Wells Mustang Tiny, a horse easily 10 times McKenzie’s weight if she can’t get to his mind. No amount of drilling will make a willing working partner who thinks for herself and about the job at hand out of Lacy. It’s her and me working together, listening to one another and giving each other feedback as we go.
It’s also McKenzie and me communicating and working together effectively, trusting rather than micromanaging one another, as we drove those bulls 2-1/2 hours one way to return them to their pasture and a very thankful rancher who is not yet riding after knee surgery, causing him to have to depend on others, and riding 1 1/2 hours back, marveling at the beauty around us, racing the Mustangs for a bit and switching horses just for fun along the way. The day went nothing like I had intended it to go the previous day, but it was beautiful and worth adapting for.
So much about life can feel “messy”, with its unplanned twists and turns. I’m making an effort to lean into and embrace it for its unexpected adventures, and am grateful for the horses and people I’m on this journey with, who undertake the half-sane work of gentling wild horses with me, and who are willing to throw a sense of security and control to the wind for the opportunity to drive cattle across mountains from the backs of Mustangs and ride to the top of rocky, unfamiliar ridges under the light of the full moon, just to see what’s on the other side.
This big guy, a teenage Salt Wells WY Mustang gelding, has been part of our Wild Horse Outreach & Advocacy Ambassador herd for a few years now. He came from Colorado Horse Rescue Network where he ended up because of some…errrr…. unique personality traits.
He joined us as a riding horse for a friend back then, and I said I’d care for him but wouldn’t ride him because I had enough horses to work and ride. So he mostly just sat because his owner had very little time for him.
Tiny is one or the most curious and affectionate horses I’ve ever met. He loves holding things in his mouth, even human hands which he will sneakily try to work into his mouth as he’s licking them (yep, he’s an odd one). He’s also a bit of a bully and food aggressive with other horses, and innately worried about life. Not the kind of horse I would pick but there he was, and as the months went by with Tiny patiently waiting for someone to make him a priority, I felt increasingly guilty.
When DG Littlefoot, a horse that could be trusted to do anything, anywhere, for anyone, got sick early last year, and it became apparent that he may not be able to go on long rides or pack trips, Tiny finally got his chance to shine.
He got worked and ridden more, and he got to prove himself as a pack horse under sometimes difficult conditions.
Is he my favorite horse to ride? No. I like fast, nimble, tough, opinionated mares and he’s a big, drafty guy with odd insecurities, who sometimes still spooks at his own tail. Is he particularly soft and responsive under saddle? Also no, he’s had too much dude string riding (before he came to us; he got fired from a dude ranch) and time off for that, so not his fault.
But is he a horse I can count on to hold it together in a pinch? Absolutely. Is he, even at his age, able to become a better riding horse with time put into him? Yes. He’s surefooted, he goes through any bog, he can be turned loose on iffy terrain and trusted to find his way through just fine. He doesn’t mind a clanky pack that’s leaning, is good with traffic, likes working cows and is cuddly and friendly through it all.
He had never packed – that I know of – until last year, and he took to it and to backcountry living like a fish to water. He’s grown on me over time, even his weird quirks. He’s got a sense of humor too. He can test new riders fiercely, to the point of unhorsing some of them. When someone asks “Do you have a horse for me to ride?”, I give him a sideways glance… I have a horse someone else can get on, that’s for sure. Whether they can stay on or not, that’s between them and Tiny.
I do a lot of backcountry riding far from groomed trails, exploring new-to-me country and difficult terrain, and “I just want to see what’s on the other side of that ridge”. That leads to many an unexpected adventure.
I’m also not, not even in the least little bit, a fearless rider, or a fearless person for that matter. Quite to the contrary. I’ve just learned – and am very much still learning – when to face my fears and reason my way through them, and when to listen to them and adjust what I’m doing. In life, on the trail and in the gentling pen.
We often talk about how horses can’t learn when they’re pushed so far out of their comfort zone that they are in survival mode (fight, flight or freeze). It’s not much different for humans.
I know that when I reach a certain point of discomfort, I become a liability to my horse and myself (and to others… don’t approach, will snap). I either freeze, tighten the reins too much or get angry. Neither of them are helpful and all can be dangerous in rough country.
So if things get too weird, I’m quick to get off my horse. Even if the horse could handle it. Yes, some might say that’s not safe either. Well, neither is getting in my horse’s way and getting all of us hurt or ruining their trust in me. I’ve sent my horses up and down steep terrain alone, in front, behind or beside me. We’re all still alive, stayed safe and were better off for the dismount.
This is not a clear-cut, black-and-white matter that’s the same for everyone. It’s not the same from year to year or horse to horse. I do things now that I wouldn’t have dreamed of taking on 5 years ago. I do things with Lacy that I wouldn’t do with Blanca. And vice versa. Same with Tiny. I imagine 5 years from now it’ll be entirely different again.
They all have different strengths and capabilities, both physically and mentally. Those also change and evolve as we grow together, they mature and then again as they age and need to take it a little easier.
There’s a lot of middle ground between living in a bubble and being reckless. Growth does happen at the edge of our comfort zone, no matter how big or small that comfort zone currently is. We owe it to ourselves and our horses to listen to ourselves and them, and to proceed accordingly.
You can totally feel like you’re a bit of a wimp and still experience and create epic adventures. I know because that’s what I did, and am still doing. Not by jumping off the cliff with my eyes closed but by putting in the work and one foot in front of the other, over and over, year after year. If I wanted to wait to get out until I’m not afraid, I’d die on my couch and that’s not happening.
Pictures are from this week’s ride (hint: there’s at least one Mustang in EVERY picture ). I got us in a bind again by thinking that riding down a different draw on the same ridge would be just as manageable as the draw we came up, just a few hundred feet over. Turns out that was flawed logic. The final few hundred feet of our descent involved some creative problem solving and colorful language.
This was not our first rodeo (metaphorically speaking, that is), and parking horses on their own is nothing new for me or them. Tiny has learned to play follow the leader when I turn him loose. It’s very much in line with his personality and he’s incredibly sure-footed. Lacy is no rookie anymore either. She patiently stood in between the rocks, waiting for me to scope things out and find a way down.
The last picture… That’s my I-think-I-can face. Not happy because of the drop off (don’t like those either) but not so far gone that I couldn’t get us through it. It’s a fine line and definitely a case-by-case decision how we get through what we get into out there.
3 Mustangs, same HMA, all geldings, got here the same day, have had the same number of sessions, all 3 very sane and very, very smart. Oh and handsome, let’s not forget that. We all spend a lot of time just drooling over them. Not ideal when it’s 20 degrees out.
These pictures are from their 3rd session (I think). 3 completely different approaches to accommodate for 3 totally different personalities.
Since everything in this post seems to come in 3s, here are what I find to be 3 of the most important things when gentling Mustangs, or doing anything with any horse for that matter:
Being able to read the horse. What is their emotional state, when can I ask for more, when do I need to back off? What is their personality, how do they view me?
Being able to be present in the moment, mindful of my own emotions and how I move my body. That includes breathing and actively seeking connection with the horse. This is not woo. It just doesn’t work when I’m thinking about what I need to add to my shopping list while expecting the horse to be totally tuned in to me. Connection is a two-way street, in any relationship.
Having tools in my toolbox that fit the situation at hand. That’s how it all comes together:
I need to figure out where the horse is at on any given day, I need to show up for the horse, and I need to know what to do about it.
Easier said than done sometimes? Of course. Still, I believe these are the ingredients for success. And why learning – not just about horses and training techniques, but also and especially ourselves – is so important.
Adjusting to the horse, to the situation at hand, adjusting our attitude… I often say to myself, and to our volunteers when we are working with the wild ones we are gentling “Is what you’re doing working [for you/the horse]?” If the answer is no then what’s more of the same going to do? Yes, that’s shrink talk, as is “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome.”
True though, isn’t it? I read so many posts along the lines of “I’ve had my Mustang for x many months, I’ve been doing x, and I still can’t x” That’s because one or more of the 3 aforementioned points aren’t there. This is not to shame anyone, but to encourage learning and reaching out for help when needed.
Also, if you’ve missed it, these 3 are our newest students, Sand Wash Basin Mustang geldings Cary (8yo grey), Schatzi (13yo dun) and Frank Stetson (3yo buckskin). They all have wonderful homes and are with Wild Horse Outreach & Advocacy for gentling before joining their adopters.
Here’s a post I’ve been dreading writing. A post about the word that starts with ‘ew’. Ew for vulnerability.
6 years ago gentling Mustangs started as a wild experiment (pun intended) after over 2 decades of working with domestics of all sizes, on 2 continents, with horses that had varying amounts of human-induced baggage.
As what is now Wild Horse Outreach & Advocacy (WHOA) morphed into a nonprofit organization, began to gain traction and literally develop a life and dynamic of its own, I pulled back and made our online presence less about me and more about our horses, our mission, about trying to help and inspire others.
That felt right at the time and for years after, until it didn’t. We’ve reached a point now where I go to an adoption event and complete strangers walk up to me and tell me that they’ve been following me on social media for however long and are so happy to meet me.
That feels humbling, flattering, terrifying and so, so strange. Because these people don’t know me. They don’t know the first thing about me, and I’ve made sure of that with every post and every word within each post being carefully calculated. Honest, yes, but meant to reveal only so much about who ‘I’ actually am.
There are multiple reasons for that:
For one, I didn’t think it mattered because I don’t consider this wild ride that is working with Mustangs, being part of the Mustang community and being the director of WHOA to be about me. It’s about learning, about showing up for the horses, about adopters and owners needing help, and about finding workable solutions in difficult, sometimes downright messy and dangerous territory.
Two, I’m German (yes, like actually from Germany) and we’re conditioned to hold our cards close, not to show emotions or talk about them in public. Preferably we don’t have them in the first place.
Finally, I have a parallel existence as a mental health counselor (yep, a shrink. I don’t actually say “How does that make you feel?” to anyone, ever. There’s also no red couch), and that’s where it gets especially exciting because you never know when you’ll have that one client that’ll stalk you, or be sitting in your house one night when you get home and turn the lights on. Being very careful with what you tell others about you is critical, and drilled into you from the minute you start seeing clients.
I believe that life is seasonal. That what holds true and works for us in one chapter of our lives may no longer do so in the next. We learn, we grow (hopefully), we change, people come and go, whether we like it or not. When something no longer works, it’s our right, and our obligation in a way to either change what we do or let it go, and find something, someone or a way of thinking and showing up in the world that’s different than before.
With that said, it feels right now to be a bit more transparent going forward, to let you all in a little closer so that at least you know who you are following, supporting or hating on, and to give you the information to either run away screaming or come along for the ride.
Just so you know, this is scary stuff for me. Circling back to the title of this post, that’s been my life motto for well over a decade now, at least since I decided to finally start living my own life, not someone else’s dream. All while dealing with the messiness of life that for me means autistic traits, anxiety, generational trauma, marriage and divorce, and having to reinvent myself, by myself, in a country I’m not even a citizen of yet.
I’m terrified of something, often lots of things, every day, and I’ve come to accept that if I want to get anywhere, do anything, experience joy and make any sort of progress, I have to experience the fear and do the thing regardless.
To hold myself accountable, here are some pictures where you can actually see my face. Yep, that scares me too. Not having a face, but showing it
Sometimes life happens and things don’t go as planned, right? That’s what happened to us this week when we realized, after hours of troubleshooting, emails and phone calls to the support team, that our account on the Colorado Gives Day page has glitched and won’t be operational for today’s giving event.
So, in the spirit of giving season, we’re posting our own fundraiser across our social media platforms and website instead. Your contribution, big or small, to Wild Horse Outreach & Advocacy is greatly appreciated.
What specifically are we fundraising for? A chute (used bucking chute). Ewww, why? No we’re not going to be bucking wild horses. Those chutes are tall and sturdy and will help us provide emergency medical care to Mustangs that are not yet ready to be approached by us and/or our vets. It will enable us to remove halters that are on too tight if a wild horse comes in with one, and to administer antibiotics and other needed medication to wild ones that won’t yet stand for an injection.
A chute will be a much needed asset to our program and another important step as we continue to strive for excellence in how we are able to care for the wild horses we take in for gentling. We would like to purchase a horse-safe used chute in 2023 and are starting to save up for it now. Have one or know of one for sale? Let us know!
If you shop on Amazon you can sign in via Amazon Smile and select Wild Horse Outreach & Advocacy as the charity you want to support. Amazon donates a portion of the proceeds at no cost to you!
2023 WHOA Calendars are in and ready to be shipped in time for the holidays. PM or email us at info@wildhorseoutreach.org to order yours. All proceeds go towards caring for the Mustangs.
Pictured: A tender moment captured between Ambassador Mustangs Tiny (left) and Lacy. Wild Horse Outreach & Advocacy is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, EIN #84-4045358.
My Thanksgiving week looked like this: A chilly, scenic and exhilarating pack trip into one of the magical canyons in the Colorado prairie, with Ambassador Mustangs Lacy (7yo, Divide Basin, WY) as my saddle horse and Tiny (15yo, Salt Wells, WY) packing camp in and out, and ponied during day rides out of camp. The Shepherd brothers Denali and Ranger were also along for the ride and enjoyed country that’s so different than what they are used to.
On each trip we meet people who inevitably ask about the horses, comment on how beautiful, friendly and well-behaved they are. Each time those asking are astonished when they hear that the horses they are petting are Mustangs, learn more about their stories and about the process of adopting and gentling once wild horses.
That, too, is advocacy. That, too, is outreach. We need to do more than just preach to the choir. I can tell Mustang lovers all day long that Mustangs are great. They’re going to nod and go pet the 5 they already own or look at the photo of a wild horse on the range they have hanging on their wall.
We need to reach people who don’t know about Mustangs and their potential as amazing partners, and help those who have doubts about the “broom-tailed, jug-headed range rats” we so love, see what these horses can look like and accomplish. We need to show the broader horse community and future horse people what they are missing by not having a once wild horse in their lives.
We also, desperately, need more than just homes for wild or barely gentled Mustangs. What we need more of are Mustangs that are out there being ambassadors for their kind, living testaments to what we are trying to explain, because words can only do so much.
That is one of the reasons we do what we do: Demos and workshops, teaching our volunteers how to understand and help gentle wild horses, hand pick adopters to match the personalities and talents of the Mustangs we gentle so that they can have a wonderful life together, and get our Ambassador Mustangs out there for people to see first-hand what a once wild horse is capable of.
Wild Horse Outreach & Advocacy is 100% committed to the Mustangs we take in. We give our very best to not just the big, colorful, young, easy, “desirable” ones. We work just as hard to support the “plain”, abused, “difficult”, small, and older wildies and the many, many Mustangs who do not carry the now so widely popular freezebrand.
Did you know that Forest Service and reservation Mustangs are usually not branded at all and therefore at greater risk of falling through the cracks if they end up in a bad spot? In our opinion, their lives and futures are just as important as those of the branded wild ones. Our newest Ambassador herd member is DG Petrie, not pictured here, a 2yo unbranded Devil’s Garden Mustang gathered last year from the Modoc National Forest in California. She is just as amazing as her freezebranded friends, and will help us increase awareness for unbranded Mustangs.
If this resonates with you and you want to support our mission:
It is Giving Tuesday, and it is giving season on Meta (Facebook, Instagram).
Meta is honoring recurring donations with their match this year. If you sign up for recurring donations between now and 12/31/22 (by clicking the Donate button on our Wild Horse Outreach & Advocacy (WHOA) page on Facebook or Instagram), they will match up to 100% of your donations after the second month. What a great opportunity to double your impact!
WHOA is a 501(c)3 charitable organization registered with the IRS and the Colorado Secretary of state.
If you’re shopping on Amazon this cyber week/holiday season (or anytime), you can sign in via Amazon Smile and select Wild Horse Outreach & Advocacy as the charity you want to support. Amazon donates a portion of the proceeds at no cost to you!
2023 WHOA Calendars are in and ready to be shipped in time for the holidays. Stay tuned for a post on those. All funds raised go directly to the Mustangs in our care.
We’re near the end of another crazy year (Where did the time go anyway?), an opportunity to reflect, to plan and, most importantly, to be grateful
Wild Horse Outreach & Advocacy (WHOA) obtained its 501(c)3 nonprofit status at the end of 2019, right before the start of COVID. We’ve been growing through a pandemic and everything the world has been facing since, through shutdowns and resource shortages, despite exploding fuel, feed and equipment prices.
It’s been scary and uncertain at times and yet here we are. A quick count last night showed that we have housed and helped 37 Mustangs so far this year. If the upcoming pick up from Cañon City still happens in 2022, that’ll make it an even 40. That is huge for our organization, and for each of the once wild horses we were lucky enough to get to know.
They were Mustangs we gentled through the TIP program, as well as on behalf of individuals and organizations. Nearly half of them WHOA took in at our own cost and risk, committed to doing what it would take to help them learn to no longer be afraid and to place them into loving, suitable, long-term homes.
Most of this year’s branded Mustangs had been (mis)handled before arriving here, then dumped at auction, sometimes passed around many times before coming to us. Some bounced back better than others from the trauma they had experienced. Most of them did come around.
We had some especially challenging TIP horses that we kept until just the right homes came along. We currently have a reservation Mustang here for gentling, recently gelded, who will be looking for a wonderful home very soon.
We adopted 10 Devils Garden Mustangs from our friends at Double Devil Wild Horse Corrals , a huge undertaking for us, both logistically and financially. They were Sale Authority horses who had been passed over at several adoption events. 10 unbranded (the Forest Service is not currently branding their Mustangs) mostly bay and brown horses, all on the smaller side. They deserved a chance to be gentled and find loving homes. 8 of them have successfully been placed already. DG Petrie has joined our Ambassador herd. 3yo DG Peanut, pictured, has been the most shy one of them all and will stay with us until she, too, is ready to find a home where she can thrive and feel safe with her person.
We taught workshops and did demos, all with the goal of helping people learn more about Mustangs in the wild, in holding, at the gentling stage and what they are capable of with continued training, and to empower participants to become better horsemen and -women.
Yesterday I wrote a check for over $11,000. The second one in 3 months. That’s what it currently costs us to bring in a semi load of high quality hay for the wild ones in our care. We all – our staff and dedicated volunteers , our donors, friends, partners and supporters – worked so hard to make this possible.
I’m proud of our organization, the many amazing people behind it, and the growth we have seen over even just the past year: More pens, two new round pens, bigger, taller and safer pens, more obstacles for the horses to learn on, wonderful volunteers who help with the care and training of the Mustangs, better, kinder, more effective training methods, and Tay Martin ‘s ever-increasing ability to efficiently manage feeding, watering, pen cleaning, repairs and improvements, work with other staff and volunteers, while somehow remaining cheerful and excited about everything we do, whether it’s 85 degrees or 10, 50mph winds or snowing a foot per hour. Her dedication frees me up to train, teach, create content, learn, and make and maintain important connections.
Tomorrow, 11/29/2022, is Giving Tuesday. It would mean the world to me personally, to our organization as a whole and to the horses we are responsible for and will be bringing in in the coming months, if you considered us in your year-end giving. We literally cannot do what we do without the support of kind and generous humans.
Links on how and where to donate and contribute will be posted here later today and again as as reminder tomorrow. Meta (Facebook, Instagram) is honoring recurring donations with their match this year. If you sign up for recurring donations between now and 12/31/22 (by clicking the Donate button on our WHOA page on Facebook or Instagram), they will match up to 100% of your donations after the second month. What a great opportunity to double your impact!
If you’re shopping on Amazon this cyber week/holiday season (or anytime), you can sign in via Amazon Smile and select Wild Horse Outreach & Advocacy as the charity you want to support. Amazon donates a portion of the proceeds at no cost to you!
2023 WHOA Calendars are in and ready to be shipped in time for the holidays. Stay tuned for a post on those. All funds raised go directly to the Mustangs in our care.*
Packing into the backcountry with horses is grounding, beautiful, exciting…and an entirely different way of life.
As a morning person, I wake up between 4 and 5am. At that time it’s dark and chilly in the high country, outside of my cocoon of sleeping bag liner, sleeping bag and sometimes lined duster for additional warmth.
So I lie there, enjoying the residual warmth of the previous night’s hand and toe warmers, listening to what’s going on outside the tent… Is it windy? Raining, snowing perhaps? Are the horses still sleeping? More often than not, the sound of nature at night is a fascinating, deep silence.
I contemplate reading for a bit and sometimes I do, depending on how early and how cold it is. I have a book, headlamp and a solar lamp always within reach. And a knife to cut rope if the horses were to get into a bind.
At first light – not sunrise, literally as soon as the sky turns from total darkness to pre-dawn grey – I extract myself from my sleeping bag, sometimes eagerly, other times less so, like when it’s 16 degrees (F) and my hands get cold just thinking about leaving my tent. The sound of me moving around wakes up first the dogs inside the tent, then the horses on the highline.
I put on my coat, dodging dog tails and wet noses, and pull on my boots before I open the tent flap. I assess weather conditions based on whether dew drops, rain or ice flakes fall from my tent as I open it and the dogs storm out to play. The horses are now starting to stomp, knowing they’re about to be turned loose to graze.
The next 20 minutes are consumed by releasing horses, feeding dogs, then getting the horses’ grain ready. They know the routine and, even hobbled, make a B-line for their nosebags. In between I take time to look around, ready for the sky to turn from grey to the subtle reds and blues indicating imminent sunrise, and waiting for the first light to hit the surrounding mountains.
Then it’s time to make coffee and wander around, admiring dewy or frosty plants and leaves. For the next few hours, it’s all about breakfast and warming up. During this slow part of the day, there’s ample opportunity to observe the animals and nature as it wakes up and the sun (hopefully) starts to warm the backs of horses, dogs and humans alike.
Sometimes there’s time before the day’s ride to watch marmots while drinking coffee and reading a book as the horses and dogs, content with their bellies filled, nap and soak in the warmth on a bright and now less crisp mountain morning. That’s what packing is all about.
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). I got us in a bind again by thinking that riding down a different draw on the same ridge would be just as manageable as the draw we came up, just a few hundred feet over. Turns out that was flawed logic. The final few hundred feet of our descent involved some creative problem solving and colorful language.
