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.