Wild Trails & Tall Tales

- by Roland Cheek

 

THE FIRST TIME

One of the paradoxes of horseback packtrips into mountain country is that the more proficient one becomes in the art of packing horses, the less memorable such adventures are.

The buzzword here might be "adventure." My first attempt at horsepacking the vitals for an overnight packtrip into mountain country took place nearly forty five years ago. It was such a fiasco that I shuddered every time I got close to a pony for a decade. Then I took another trial run. That time my nerves quit banjoing after only a year as a consequence of that drubbing. So I tried an extended packtrip into the middle of the Bob Marshall Wilderness. That took another year to get over. In time, though, the peaks got lower and the valleys shallower until I hardly remember later, easier excursions. But every single one of those earlier "adventures" are subject to total and vivid recall, even after decades and an aging memory.

There's a funny metabolic process that takes place if a fellow is a slow learner, though. By going back and going back, my horses got better and I got better. Our gear got refined. I grew my own helpers, trained a wife, and gained the confidence of most people who don't know me. My horses became resigned to their fate. Nowadays we can unload the ponies at the trailhead, hang a nosebag over their ear, brush 'em, saddle 'em, sling packs, and be on the trail before they come fully awake.

Eight hours later, we'll pull the packs, hang another nosebag, unsaddle and brush the creatures, turn 'em out to roll, send Jane out for water, gather a little campfire wood, set up our tents, and be relaxing with an evening cocktail before the sun moves toward the western horizon.

Once, t'was not so.

In the early stages of my horsepacking fetchin' up, we'd blow two trailer tires on the way to trailhead and get there long after lunch. One pony would ropeburn while backing out of the trailer and another would halter-gall while fighting the pine tree to which he was tied.

None of the saddles fit, no two packs weighed the same, we forgot one packpad, and two of the ladies picked up the dry heaves on the crooked road from civilization. The trail was muddy, I lost my sleeping bag somewhere between Black Bear and Independence Park, the heaviest packs rolled three times and one of the ponies learned how to shed his load from watching how it was done so many times before.

The trail we followed was full of windthrown trees and somebody was already camped where we'd planned. It was okay, though, because full dark came when we were halfway to our destination and we had to pitch our tent in the middle of the trail five minutes before two Forest Service mule trains happened along.

We were up at first light because nobody could sleep with all the strange noises coming from the brush that closed in around our tent when the moon went down. Joe forgot the whiskey and the extra I brought for medicinal purposes got broke the second time the damnfool mule rolled coming down Switchback Pass.

No wonder it took ten years to get over the first time.

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