The Trail Ride From Hell

By day four, most of us were finding insect bites we didn't know we had and bruises that seemed to spring from nowhere. Mary had developed a huge blister (fortunately she had been a nurse and knew what to do) and decided to stay in camp for a day. That morning I caught a glimpse of myself in the bottom of my coffee cup as I upended it to get the last dregs, and it was shocking enough to make me glad we had no mirrors.

After our usual monstrous breakfast, we headed out. I was glad to be on Rooster again. The day before, he had been returned to camp to be shod, and I had ridden Dodo, a less than wonderful experience. He was big and fat and I couldn't get a leg on him since my legs sort of stuck out at right angles to his fat belly. The saddle was listing to starboard too and I couldn't get it straightened out. Then as we traveled along a tiny path on the edge of a long, long drop, the amateurs at the back of the Indian file somehow managed to get their horses all pushed up against one another while they gawked at the wonderful view, and one horse tried to kick another one. His hoof landed on a lady's shin, and she howled out. It scared both me and Dodo, who shied violently. I managed to keep him away from the edge of the path and I let Craig, one of the cowboys, know I was having trouble with him. He helped me with Dodo while another wrangler checked out the situation at the back of the line. Then at another point as we crossed a small muddy stream, Dodo seemed to act like he didn't want to put his feet in the water. Before I could begin to handle him, though, he decided to cross and all was well during the rest of the ride except for the blasted saddle.

All was wonderful up to lunchtime. While we were out, the camp was packed up in record time, the chuckwagon folded and stowed, and "The Ladies" was emptied and transported to the new camp. God help whoever had to do that little job. If you are just dying to know about it, it seems that the tray is pulled out from under the potty seats, covered with a metal lid, and left in situ until it can be taken out and cleaned by a service that does that kind of thing. I asked Jack who got that particular duty, and he said whoever ran the slowest. Pick-up trucks pulled the chuchwagon and storage wagons to the next camp site, which was set up and ready to go by the time we got there after the post-lunch ride--tents and all, plus of course a clean "The Ladies".

During the afternoon ride, three people who had never ridden until then were hoisted onto their mounts: a little kid on Hammer, the fat mule everyone adored, a tall adolescent, and an overweight kid that Paul, the head wrangler, had his eye on for what can only be described as remedial activities. Paul made him help taking down the posts that held the chuckwagon awnings (that in itself deserves a blog!), corrected him every time he did something inconsiderate, and put him behind the Col.'s horse as we started out after lunch. These characters--the young people and Hammer--were responsible for the ensuing chaos.

The Kid, as he will be known from this point on, could do nothing with his horse. If it decided to wander over to the side of the path to snack, if it wanted to stop and poop or scratch, that's what happened. Each time the Kid's gentle mount came to a quiet halt, the Kid was helpless. He was holding the reins at the very end, for one thing. While others shouted instructions at him and his mother got desperate, the Col. would have to stop, ride over to the Kid, and get the horse back on the path and moving.

At first this didn't bother me or Karina, who was riding with us on her horse Cinder to the new camp. Cinder was huge, black, and gorgeous, a draft-horse cross-bred. The scenery was simply magnificent as we took a road along a rushing, icy stream that ran through wild flower fields and rock formations. At one point, the road was right up against the stream, and Hammer the mule, deciding that he was thirsty, wandered off for a drink. The little kid on him, brother of the Kid, panicked. I'm sure that Hammer seemed to him some kind of uncontrollable monster. The little boy pulled back on the reins, but he too had them by the very end and all he did was slowly slip back and sideways off the mule in a rather undramatic fall. As he reached the ground, he hit his head on one of Hammer's back hooves. The boy was not injured, but of course this brought the entire group to a halt as the boy was attended to, Hammer was pulled back from the stream, and the child was talked into getting back on him--which he did for a little while. The event seemed to strike panic into the heart of the adolescent, and he announced his intention of dismounting and walking to camp. Nothing his parents could say talked him out of it, so Paul asked me to hold his horse while he straightened the situation out. We now had one unridden mount.

A few yards more and the little boy on Hammer went into panic again as Hammer stopped to snack, and he had his feet out of the stirrups and was leaning back in the same position that caused his fall. I yelled at him to put his feet in the stirrups, which he did, but he simply refused to ride any longer. Paul had to ride ahead of us into camp in order to bring the van for the people on foot and a wrangler to take back the riderless mounts. By this time, we were hot, tired, sore, sunburned, and ready for the ride to end.

On we went for what seemed like forever. You can only walk on these trail rides because a trot or jog would get all the horses going and the inexperienced riders would be in jeopardy. John, who was behind me, kept saying that just around the next bend we would find the camp. At one point he said, "It's just up ahead, Karen!" "Do you promise?" I asked him. "Yes", he replied, so I told him that was a verbal contract and if it wasn't true I was going to sue him.

Fortunately he was right, even if only by accident. Karina and I would have liked to stay a night at the new camp. It was on a small field close to the stream, which ran through a gorge of wonderful rock formations. Not only that, but supper was under way and it was Tex Mex food. But Karina and I had to say goodbye to our dear cowboys, the cooking crew, and to Mary, who broke into tears. We looked forward to getting to our motel in Jackson Hole and having a shower, but once we were clean we could easily have gone straight back to the camp.

Darrel drove us into town in a van, and the family of the adolescent who chickened out was also in the vehicle, as were John and Pat. Several people were so sore it was painful getting out of the van.

Our bags and clothes were covered in dust, and it was a toss-up what the motel receptionist thought of us--jeans, hats, chaps, and we may have smelled in spite of layer upon layer of antiperspirant!!

But the Kid had stuck it out to the end, the one person we thought would throw in the towel immediately. Who knows what dose of self-esteem he gained by helping the crew to pack up the chuckwagon, by being the kid to persist to the end of the Trail Ride From Hell while a much older boy copped out. Some people are natural psychologists, and I suspect Paul is one of those.