About 3 months ago I was complaining to my sweetie about the lamented lost days of adventure. Ever since starting as a full-time family practice PA, the coveted Big Adventures have gone somewhere into deep hibernation and mostly are being replaced by Little Hikes and other underwhelming minutae.
Also — my work requires me to put in requests for time off 3 MONTHS in advance! Just to give you a frame of reference for what a last-minute traveler I am, a few years ago I embarked on a 1400 mile cross country motorcycle trip to launch pad LA where I then flew 3 leg flight to Indonesia. I spent 2 weeks in Indo before flying back to LA. Then I dragged my jetlagged butt back across the freeways another 1400 miles to New Mexico. A big undertaking…… which I packed for the night before I left.
So yeah…. planning isn’t a strong suit. But 3 months ago I gave it the ‘ole college try: I asked for a full, long weekend off in JULY (Thurs-Sunday) so I could go horse camping with the fam.
The Continental Divide Trail, which runs from Canada nearly down to Mexico, runs through the Carson National Forest, a beautiful peek of mountains to the west of us in Taos. So we set our compasses facing west and headed out!
PSYCH!!!!!
Prepping took FOREVER! It was absolutely NOT a footloose adventure. My sweetie took charge of navigating the recreation.gov website, which is no small feat on any day of the year and is particularly impressive during the waxing and waning covid19 restrictions.
He learned by calling and talking to a real person that there were only 2 horse campsites outfitted with paddocks. And of those, 1 was reservable (but not available– “seats taken”) and the other was first-come first-serve.
First come first serve is a pretty intense wager to gamble given the amount of prep work that inevitably goes into horse camping. If that spot isn’t available, you have to have some good coping mechanisms to make it work. Most importantly you’ll need to secure a water supply (all I have is an 8 gallon water jug which provides a mere SIP or two for Tracker), and 2nd most importantly, finding a place for the horse to sleep that is safe.
Oh. And to up the ante: the weather report stated a 40% chance of lightning storms at 7pm, and although it confidently stated a mere 10% chance at 1pm (when I was just entering the mountain range) we were driving through a veritable downpour. There were at least two inches of water accumulating on the boggy, potholed highway and I was afraid of hydroplaning my precious cargo. Not to mention I lost trust in the weatherman…. again…..
So I don’t want this post to get too boring or too long. I think its already becoming clear that significantly more time was spent prepping for this adventure than actually adventuring.
The first come first serve campsite got swooped out from under us by some horseless RV’ers and we were forced to expand our sprawl out into the actual national forest. Phil made a hilarious reenactment of my pleading with the campsite host: https://youtu.be/SxxfQsmu_wI
I’ve never camped out with the horse when there wasn’t a corrall so this was going to be fun. Believe it or not, we had prepared for the possibility of not having a corral and had some sturdy(ish) nylon rope to tie the horse up overnight on a highline.
Well, he kept wrapping himself around a tree, so to keep the damn fool in line, my sweetie built his first backcountry corral!
What a thing of beauty it was! Fine aspen and heavy, dead conifer. We kept Tracker on the highline but figured this would keep him from wrapping himself up around the trees in the night like a silly puppy.
And it did work.
A bit of our OCD came out and then we decided to carve out our initials to mark our territory.
By the time the corral was set up and our meager water supply refilled (via making the 2 mile drive back to the campsite for the spigot), and dinner in our bellies, it was time to go to bed.
The 9 year old boy passed out by 8pm. Snoring! I positioned myself closest to the tent door so I could peek out throughout the night. I anticipated a night of poor sleep and I underestimated it. Boy, it is impossible to sleep when you’re worried that your horse has figured out one of the millions of ways to lethally injure itself.
But rise n shine in the morning, we were all more or less in one piece, and had mutually agreed that last night was our FIRST and ONLY night camping.
So, we got the horse saddled and the boys spandexed. Ready to ride! Since there was a cattle guard between us and familiar territory, we turned 180Ā° opposite of the known and finally headed out!
The trail ended up being a steady, rocky descent that was too intense for Rowdy so we split up, and I continued down, down, down with hopes of finding water.
Its a dry year but we DID find water in one stream! A herd of cows lazily grazed nearby in total peace and bliss until Juneau the Terrorizing Heeler and her compatriot Tracker the Cow-Bred Maniac entered scene! I couldn’t keep them from harassing the wildlife.
Eventually we turned around and started to head back, up up up about 4 miles and 1000′ feet elevation. At one point a rickety, rough Toyota truck creeped up slowly behind us, jostling and bouncing up the rough road. I snickered and thought just how awesome it is to have the original 4WD. It makes for a smoother ride, and definitely a more interesting one, too.
Despite all the extra effort, planning, stress, confusion, sleeplessness, poo-picking and frustration, I still endorse the horse as THE superior mode of backcountry transportation. Try it, you might like it!
Thanks for reading! Below are a few more special photos from the adventure. Tune in and subscribe to the blog to get all future posts directly to your inbox– don’t you want to?!
Backcountry Cowgirl 