Wolves II

Karina and I were picked up in Jackson Hole by Col. Sanders. His real name is Paul, but since the head wrangler is also Paul, most people identify the Col. by his mustache, beard, and hair. After almost two hours we got to the camp. All in all there were 22 guests on the day we arrived, and we were immediately matched to our horses or assigned our wagon for a trip into the countryside. I had a full-time horse named Rooster, a young horse; most of the horses were older, but they were all sure-footed and sound. And it's a good thing, because we went up steep slopes, down steep slopes, through the woods, and along the edge of huge drop-offs where I opted to keep my eyes on Rooster's ears. Each day we rode out of camp and along a new route through the countryside. We rested at noon at some idyllic spot where we ate our lunch, then back we rode to camp by yet another route. People in the wagons sometimes fell asleep because the ride was so smooth and the scenery so soothing. That's because they didn't teeter on the edge of cliffs, get smacked in the face by branches that the greenhorn in front of you allowed to swing free, didn't have the horses try to stop to snack every couple of minutes, nor did they arrive at the camp having to be hauled bodily out of the wagon the way some of the riders had to be lowered off their mounts.

There were people of all ages. There were children and elderly folks, and almost every one of them rode at least once a day. Our dear Mary (in the picture with Karina), a lady of some 71 summers, was there for six days and she rode every day but one. John and Pat, in their late 60s, were full-time riders. John had had a heart attack (though not during a ride...) and open heart surgery. He had to be put on his horse by three cowboys and lowered down the same way, but this was the fourth trip for John and Pat to Wagons West.

And the food! We were fed into a coma. At breakfast, the girls fired up the dutch ovens and the grills under the chuckwagon awning, and cowboy coffee was ready from around six in the morning. The recipe for cowboy coffee is simple:

3 huge coffee pots and a wood fire

water

a large amount of coffee

socks from the day before

Place all ingredients together and boil until the liquid in the coffee pots is totally opaque. Serve into a cup, preferibly stainless steel which can hold up to the coffee. You can either consume the coffee with knife and fork, or simply strain it through your teeth.

There was no such thing as a single-egg serving at breakfast. Eggs were poured onto the grill in batches of two. There were rolls and toast, biscuits and gravy, bacon, saugage, fruit, and pancakes. For lunch, we made our own and put it into a cooler that was taken in the wagon to our mid-day resting spot. Supper could have been anything from pot roast or turkey with vegetables and stuffing and rolls to giant burritos smothered in cheese. For dessert you could have spice cake and other good stuff. There seemed no way you could eat everything piled onto your tray, but we managed to do it. I ate things I wouldn't have touched with a barge pole because of their calorie content, such as biscuits and gravy, yet we always felt like the mountain air and the altitude (over 8,000 feet) were sucking the calories out of us. Whatever the reason, we were always hungry enough to clean our trays. We didn't lick them 'cause other people were watching. You could go back for seconds but shame kept us from eating another batch.

In the next blog, our sleeping quarters and the nights in the Grand Teton mountain range.