Homeward Bound

Part 5

Some time during the previous day we had left the Wind River Mountains Wilderness Area.    No early morning silence on Day Three.  Instead, a battered pickup truck roared into camp and out tumbled three more cowboys and a ten year old girl.  They were to help herd the horses to the outfitter’s corral, further down the mountains.

That 10-year-old put us all to shame — even our English equestrienne.  She was a fearless rider.   She joined the cowboys rounding up the loose horses.  It was almost as if she was part of her horse.  We learned that she had been riding for four or five years.

The horses–both the ones we adventurers were riding and the ones being herded unridden– knew they were on their way home.  They were more alert.  Plodding along gave way to brisk trotting.  At one point our trail led along a narrow ridge top.   The trail was about 5 or 6 feet wide and dropped off precipitously on both sides.  

Slowly, slowly I thought.  One false step and both horse and me would plunge downward hundreds of feet.

But my horse had other ideas.  He picked up his pace and began to leap across uneven patches of the trail.   Home was ahead and he knew it.

Whoa!  I reined him in.  He curbed his enthusiasm, but still kept up a lively pace until we arrived at the corral around lunchtime. 

We had reached the end of the trail.  I never rode on the wagons on my so-called Wagon Train adventure, but this had turned out to be much more fun. 

And who knows, maybe my great-great Grandma Mary Ann rode a horse all the way from upstate New York, too.  At least I had a motel room with hot water and a big soft bed waiting for me in Jackson.  When Mary Ann and her father, mother, and two sisters arrived at their destination on the Indiana frontier, what was waiting for them was virgin forests and rolling hills.  They had to build a house, starting with cutting down the trees.  I simply had to get in my car and drive on to Bozeman.

Riders in the Sky

Part 4

Day two began with a big breakfast.  Then onto our horses and out on the trail, which seemed almost always to be a gradual incline upward followed by a steep winding downward descent.   Our English equestrienne loved the steep parts and apparently her horse did, too. 

One utterly memorable moment came as we were riding slowly through a high mountain meadow in full bloom.  It looked exactly like a photo on a Sierra Club calendar.  Pinks and oranges and yellows and blues and purples — flowers all abloom in a field of green grasses.  At the far edge of the meadow, tall dark green pines pointing upward to a brilliant blue sky.

It had never occurred to me to think about altitude when I joined this adventure.  In my mind wagon trains rolled across the great American prairie, a golden sea of grass stretching to the horizon.  Maybe there was a stream or river to cross here and there.  But basically I had held a vision of wagons on relatively flat terrain.  (Which was ridiculous, considering I was born and raised in the West and knew the course of the Oregon Trail from the time I was a child.  But somehow I didn’t connect one to the other.)

We, however, were climbing ever higher in these mountains.

By mid-afternoon I had become giddy, laughing at inconsequential things.  By late afternoon it was difficult to keep my seat in the saddle.  It was as if I had lost my ability to grip the horse with my legs.   By the time we reached our evening campground I had began to develop a slight headache.   Many of the other adventurers were experiencing headaches, too. 

It turned out that we were at almost 11,000 feet.  Airplanes fly lower than that!  And our campsite was not pressurized.

Dinner that evening was more subdued.  Food helped the headaches some.  Coffee helped, too.  But not much.  We all went to bed early.  Riding in the sky has its challenges; altitude sickness is one of them.

(This post is part of an experimental memoir.  I teach memoir writing and will edit your memoir to make it better.  Learn more at www.onedaymemoir.com)

Do the bears come out at night?

Part 3

After a leisurely lunch in a clearing in the Wind River Mountains, we mounted our horses again and said farewell to the wagons, which had during lunch acquired even more riders.  They were going on a narrow paved road; we were headed up a steep dusty trail through the pines. 

We were actually in the Wind River Wilderness Area at this point.  All motorized vehicles of any sort are banned.  The only human-made noises were our own voices.

Occasionally, we would capture a full frontal view of the Tetons to the West.  Not only were they breathtakingly beautiful and snow-capped, they were also directly across from us at eye view.  No need to look up, as I did in Jackson.

Finally, after a few more hours of riding, we came to an open meadow where the wagons were.   We could smell it before we got there.  The stove/barbeque on the chuck wagon was fired up and dinner was cooking over hot coals. 

Bless the cowboy/guides/wranglers.  They took our horses away and did whatever horses need after a long day plodding up and down mountains carrying insecure riders  And the meadow was large enough that the horses were kept some ways from us.  We wouldn’t have to worry about stepping in horse droppings.

The “housemother” rang the dinner bell–it was an old fashioned school bell.   I don’t remember what dinner was–maybe grilled chicken and/or steaks and/or hamburgers.  We were all so hungry by this point that it could have been grilled jellyfish and we would have gobbled it down.  Riding horses works up an appetite.  It is not quite as passive as it looks.

While we were eating our cowboy/guides/wranglers set up tents for us.   The one for me was not far from a marsh-like area near a low point in the meadow.   And maybe 20 or 30 feet from the next tent.

The mid-summer sun was beginning to set.  Then, as darkness came upon us, we lounged around an open fire talking.  Someone asked about wildlife and the next thing we knew we were hearing from one of the cowboys about the deer and elk and bears which roamed these mountains.

Bears?    Bears?

Immediately I remembered every horrible story I had ever heard about bears attacking humans in campsites.  There went my adrenaline again. 

I don’t remember who talked about what after that.  Bears were on my mind. 

A little later we all headed for our tents for the night. ” Oh”, I thought, “my tent is at the edge of the group.  A bear would get me first.  It will come out of those reeds and slash through my little blue tent and — too horrible.  I can’t think about it.”   But think about it I did.

Fortunately, a long day’s ride not only builds a big appetite, it also makes one tired.  Thank goodness.  I fell asleep almost immediately and was not awakened by any marauding bears.  It was the smell of fresh coffee being brewed over the fire that woke me.

Tomorrow…what happens at 11,000 feet.

The Wagon Train Rolls Onward

Part 2

The Wind River Mountains are to the east of Jackson Hole, Wyoming.  They are part of the front range of  that group of mountain ranges which extend from Canada to Mexico that are generally known as the Rocky Mountains.  And the Wind River Mountains are only “front” if you are coming at them from the East, which my pioneering ancestors did.   The very photogenic Grand Tetons, by the way, are to the west of Jackson.

I came from the West (Los Angeles) to spend a few days on a wagon train adventure.   So there I was, seated on a horse for the first time since I was 8 years old.   I was  scared.  The horse was skittish for a little bit.  Then it calmly fell into the line of horses and we headed out on a dirt trail. 

The fear-generated adrenalin in my system began to dissipate.  While I still wasn’t all that confident I began to look around at some of the most beautiful scenery in the world.  The trail led along a stream lined with tall grasses and blooming wildflowers.  Towering trees marched up the steep mountainsides.  Ahead I could see a wide green meadow, washed with mid-July sunlight.  It was a picture postcard scene.

Then the trail got narrower and closer to the stream. Suddenly, a woman four ahead of me was thrown by her horse.  In a flash she tumbled down into the soft soil and tall grasses lining the stream bed.  Up went my adrenalin again.  Happily, she was one tough cookie and was scrambling back up to her horse by the time the cowboy guides reached her.  And we moved on again.

Was my body’s supply of adrenalin going to last for the next three days?

Before long we crossed the meadow, then headed into a trail winding upward through the pines.   None of the horses acted up again and my fellow travelers and I began to relax enough to carry on conversations. 

There were several teachers in the group.  One from Maryland had taken the same wagon train vacation  for the last 8 or 9 years.  It was the big event of her life–every time.  Several others had been on this wagon train before.  Some had taken wagon train vacations with other outfitters.  A few, like me, were first timers. 

It turned out that one English woman in our midst was a champion cross country rider.  In fact, she was one of the officials who determines courses for cross country horse races in Europe.  She had brought her own horse to Wyoming to try it out on these mountain trails.  Her horse was beautiful.  Ours were homely, but every summer our homely ones had probably plodded along more challenging routes than her horse ever would except for this trip.

Ahead we could see the wagons pulled off the road.  Ah, lunchtime.  If I remember correctly, it was sandwiches and chips and soft drinks.  It was a typical lunch that could be ordered at any neighborhood sandwich shop–but eaten while seated in a clearing at an altitude of about 9,000 feet. 

Two women who had ridden horseback during the morning decided to ride on the wagons for the afternoon.  (A little smile to myself;  I guess I wasn’t the only one who was surprised by the emphasis on riding the horses.)  The woman who seemed to be the housemother for the outfitter tried to convince the two women to stay on their horses, but they were decided.  It was a wagon ride for them.  There were, all in all, about 40 horses in the outfitter’s herd.  With 15 to 20 of us riding, that still left another 20 herded along behind us by three or four cowboy guides.

The leisurely lunch was followed by another leisurely ride along narrow dusty trails through pine forests and occasionally across dazzling green meadows.  

Dinner and bears tomorrow…