Shouldn't a Cowboy Go With Ya? (part 1)

I love horses.  I didn't grow up with them, but people will ask me if I did.  Of course my response is yes.  Heaven forbid anyone thinks I would attempt to ride such large animals without some experience.  Sometimes I wonder if the people asking me about my past experience have actually seen me ride and know the truth.

One lesson I have learned in life is to act like you know what you're doing even if you don't.  Sometimes I can sell it, but most of the time I look like a fool.  This leads me to the next thing I've learned about life:  the older I get, the less I care about what people think.  This philosophy about life has caused me to enjoy it more.

A couple of weeks ago, some friends and I went on an overnight horse trip near Huntington, Utah.  The ride was to Virgin Spring Canyon in the San Rafael River Gorge.

On a Friday morning, we packed up the trucks and loaded the horses into our trailers.  This is an experience in itself.  Horses hate to be separated from their stable buddies.  The horse(s) left behind will cry for days.  The horse you take will be anxious.  Her ears will go up and there will be a fire in her eyes that makes her unrecognizable.  She'll paw at the ground and cry out to the horse(s) left behind as if to say; "I think he's taking me to slaughter.  Kill the next human you see and I'll make every attempt to kill the one who took me away from you.  I'll then make my escape and return."

Once the horses are on the trailer, I like to talk to them and remind them I'm aware of their plot against me.  This will usually shut them up and I give them an apple treat and all is well again.  Or at least that's what they lead me to believe.

As my travel companion, Eric, got into the truck he told me his wife was concerned we may not make it back alive.  She implored with him to find a "real" cowboy to go with us; or in other words, someone who knew what he was doing.  I guess the four of us on this trip didn't provide much comfort or confidence for our wives.

We stopped in Price for some lunch and then continued on our journey.  Once reaching the primitive camp site, we decided to forgo setting up so we could get the horses out and explore some of the trail prior to the ride we were planning for Saturday morning.  The horses had been on the trailer for a little over four hours.

The wind was really blowing and things looked a bit ominous.  Combine a long trailer ride, an environment the horses aren't familiar with and a potential storm blowing in and these horses weren't exactly in the best spirits for riding.  It probably didn't help that I had been eating beef jerky and was about to throw dead animal skins (saddle) on the horse's back.

This is my horse, Ebony, just prior to Friday night's ride.  She was nervous and had scratched a pretty good hole in the ground where she was tied up.  You can see she is pawing the ground as I took this picture.

Immediately leaving the campsite, we crossed a small stream.  This is the first of many river crossings we would do the following day.  We then followed a jeep trail for the next couple of miles until we get to where the trail descends into the Gorge.  We were all a bit anxious about where the trail actually began and where we dropped into the Gorge that we were taking all kinds of cattle trails in an effort to get to the river.  This made for an interesting adventure that left me and Ebony (my horse) frustrated.  I was frustrated because she was misbehaving.  She was frustrated because I was asking her to do everything she didn't want to do.

At one point, we needed to cross a downed barbed wire fence.  Ebony could see what we were about to do from several yards up the hill.  She made up her mind she was not going over that fence.  The other three horses ahead of me all crossed with no problems.  My horse pranced back and forth, not only upset about the fence but her three horse companions were now over the ridge and out of sight.  I had her approach the fence a few different times, but each time I thought we'd get through it, she would quickly spin on her haunches and try to get as far from the fence as she could.  I finally calmed her down enough I could dismount and my plan was to lead her over the fence.

When Ebony gets nervous about something, her instinct is to run through, or over, the obstacle that concerns her.  This includes me.  As much as I have worked with her in getting her attention on me and to respect my space, she will convert back to herd animal behavior and forget all of her instruction.

I knew I didn't want to walk directly in front of her, because if I could convince her to go over that fence she was going to run over it and not step gently through it.  The other challenge was the narrow passage with a steep drop off to the river on one side which happened to be the only area for me to lead her over.

After backing her up and leading her back to the downed fence several times, she finally decided she was ready to get past it.  As I suspected, she moved past it quickly and fortunately I was able to keep my balance on the trail's edge.

We spent a good hour trying to figure out where the trail was.  Finally, we decided to call it for the night and headed back to the trailers so we could set up camp.  Since Ebony had gone over the downed fence once, she figured she was an old pro and had no problem going over it on the way back.

When we arrived at the trailers, a couple of us were frustrated enough with our horses behavior that we spent the next hour lunging them and doing other ground work with them to get their heads back in the game.

Before we set up the tents, we secured a high line to the trees adjacent to where we would be sleeping.  This is where the horses spent the night.  We packed plenty of hay cubes and water for them.

We secured the horses to a high line.  This is where they spent the night.

The next morning, the horses had settled down nicely and were in a much better disposition for riding.  I loaded up the saddle bags with plenty of water, a flashlight, a rain jacket and few goodies including the jerky.  I told Ebony it was the remains of the last horse who thought she was in charge.  I waved it in front of her nose.  She ate it as a statement to me that she's a cannibal.

Check out the picture of me below wearing chaps.  Don't I look cool?  With my western style shirt, the wranglers, chaps and boots I was showing the others that I was the cowboy their wives hoped was on the trip.

This is me wearing chaps and just about to hit the trail head.  I honestly don't know what chaps are for.  I've been told they grip the saddle really well and make the overall experience more comfortable.  I'm only wearing them because they make me look more like a cowboy.  It also makes me look like I know what I'm doing.

By about 10:30 we were completely saddled up and ready to go.  It turned out the jeep path eventually lead to the main trail that we had been looking for the night before.  We just hadn't been patient enough, and guess what?  There were no barbed wire fences to cross.

After departing the jeep path, the trail descends quickly to the river bottom.  The picture below shows one of the first ledges we stepped off of on our way down the canyon.  This is looking back.  Coming up to this ledge from the high side it seemed the trail would end with nowhere to go but straight down.  It wasn't until the final approach that you could see the continuation of the trail and the big step down the horses would make.

Ebony, still upset about my jerky lecture, decided to jump down instead of step.  I thought my life was over because the sure footed horses had all been slipping a little on the shale along the path.  Ebony has too much of an adventurous spirit to obey the rules.  The shale were her roller blades.  I guess she made enough noise about it that everyone turned around to see what happened.  I just tipped my cap and spat on the ground to show how manly I was.

This is the first descent from the jeep trail.  Eric didn't like how his horse, Ruby,  came down the first ledge, so he led her back up  and had her try it again.  I should have done the same thing with Ebony, but my life was in danger the first time she came down so I wasn't willing to risk my life a second time.

To be continued......