First, though, the eternal blurb, this was the email I sent out. If you did not get the email, then you can always read this if you have the patience! There ARE pictures further down! So, a rather eventful trip this year, but no one seriously injured. Did a couple of daytrip type activities this year and one short overnighter. That was the exciting one. Headed out to Cadomin, Alberta, south of Hinton, bordering the east side of Jasper National Park. Goal for this overnight daytrip - go for a swim at the Miette Hotsprings! Noble cause, eh? After you have done 40 km on the back of a horse, a nice soak in a natural hot spring is a pretty appealing carrot at the end of the trip. (and it was worth it) So, we headed out for Cadomin on a Tuesday morning, 40 km ahead of us was the Miette Hotsprings. Beautiful day, blue sky, fluffy clouds, not a hint of evil or tornado or snowstorm in sight. It is a pity that so few people get to see the back country of national parks like Jasper, it is gorgeous. Nothing you see while on a highway compares to what you see in the backcountry. But that would probably mean getting our fat butts off the couch and getting in to shape first, so not likely! So live vicariously through me, who got off the couch and got a horse so I could still sit and enjoy the scenery! Our total climb on this trip was around 3,000 feet getting to the high point of Whitehorse Pass at 2118m or about 7,000 feet. And horses are truly built for motoring on trails. It still amazes me when I see what these horses are capable of doing without breaking in to a sweat! I have to admit that my horse took the prize this year for the all- around bestest horsie in the group. Okay, it was a small group, but she was still number 1! And she earned it, as you shall see. This trip was supposed to be about 4-5 guys which slowly dwindled down to two of us, me and Jim, as a result of other family obligations and those dratted World Master Games. Seriously, how many people even know that the World Master Games are even in Edmonton? And although they will tell you that there are more contestants in these games than in the Olympics (over 20,000), seriously, how many would be here if they called them the World Geezer Games! Anyway, some of the people were involved in the Games so such is life. On the horse scene we were able to get away with only 3 horses, Jim rode Alaska and I rode R4, hereafter nicknamed Tugboat, and her daughter, Half Moon. So yup, it was a mother-daughter team on this outing. I am going to guess that R4 doesn't know that Half Moon is her baby anymore, since they have been separated for 2 years because she was downright snotty with her, kicking her now and then and laying her ears back all the time when she approached from the rear. And R4 doesn't really care about who is behind her for the most part. A small aside here, the naming of R4. I first chanced upon R4 in 2001 on a ride in the Willmore Wilderness Area by Grande Cache. She was a pack horse then and had no real name. Her registered name, go figure, is "Chu's Teenie Talkie". What kind of a name is that? Anyway, Star Wars was out that year and she has a brand on her, as you'll see in the pictures with an R4 designation on it. So she was R4-D4. And now this year in the last Star Wars installment there actually was an R4, so it's real! When I talk with little kids, telling them that my cute little horse is an alpha-numeric animal doesn't cut it, so then she becomes Artemis (variant of 'R4-mus'). She is one fast walker, let me tell you. And great at crossing rivers, which we hit many of in our trip. At one point Jim's horse, Alaska, would not cross a river so I had to go across the river, take the pack horse over, and then go back and take the lead rope and lead his horse through the river. A bitter blow for the two of them. So I have since nicknamed R4 as TUGBOAT in case anyone, like Jim, needs a tow upriver. Poor Jim will be shaking his head when he sees this. (sorry, guy!) Neat things found along the way? Marmot at the pass, lots of them. Furry little things in between the size of a badger and a weasel. We had a deer follow us on the trail for about a 1/4 mile. Pictures to prove it follow. We got to Miette in 8 hours of travel time. We really motored along. The horses did a great job. I forgot to take a picture of it but it was so cute at the cabins up at Miette because we stayed in the grouped cabins, not the individual cabins. So there we were in the U-shaped motel building with all the cars and SUV's parked inside the U at their respective cabins, and then these 3 horses parked in front of ours. It definitely got attention! I am now in cameras heading back to France and Germany that I know of. I have gone international! "Yes, son, that's a real cowboy!" Only thing I was missing was my guitar so I could sing to them from atop my splendiferous horse. Actually, there is a corral area that is set up for people like us that come in on horseback. So we plunked our horses down there, got in to our bathing suits and soaked in the pool. Dried off, had supper in the restaurant and then drifted off to sleep in the cabins in the comfort of a real bed and running water. Too soft! The next day is when things took their nasty turn. We headed out bright and perky in the morning, around ten. Hey, I had to have my morning eggs and sausage, do the swim thing again, have the restaurant make up sandwiches for us on the trail, get my picture taken some more, all that busy stuff! I sound so vain right now, don't I! Ha ha, I am! There are two ways down the side of the mountain that we wanted to traverse. We went the one way coming in, and decided to do the other way on the way out. Shouldn't be a problem, it's a marked trail, no problemo! Okay, again, no photo, but when you see a sign that has a huge red diagonal line going through it with the words NOT ADVISED on it, it should probably mean something. So Jim and I discussed this as we rode along, what was not advised for both hikers AND horseback riders. I personally think it was mostly for the hikers. In a 2 km stretch we did 8 river crossings in water that was up to my horse's chest, forced me to hike my legs up out of the stirrups and up on to her neck, and splashed my gorgeous curly locks! (will the vanity never end?) As a hiker that would have been miserable because this water was flowing at a pretty good rate also, just to add to the pleasure of it all. And slippery rocks - my goodness! Turns out there was this mis-placed trail marker that caused us some problem. Even for a hiker this would have been a wrong trail. At the time I was leading the pack, along with taking the packhorse. Jim was behind us. I ended up climbing around this mountain on a ledge that was probably about 2 feet wide when it finally ended at a cliff. No way we were going down there, I hoped the horse was of the same opinion and wouldn't do something stupid and jump. I tried to get off her on the high side of the cliff and attempt to get her to back up to a wider place on the cliff. Unfortunately, being a horse she really, really wanted to turn around. Backing up is not one of their favoured modes of transportation. And so it was that eventually she turned her back end out and lost her footing on the cliff and ended up falling down the 30 feet down the side of the mountain to the to the trees at the bottom. She actually did an honest to goodness back somersault! Imagine your kids doing a backwards somersault out on the lawn. A perfect one, no leaning to one side or the other, and now replace that with a horse and an incline greater than 45 degrees. She ended up coming up without even looking as frazzled as I would have been. But she did bruise her withers and flank area when she landed on the saddle's horn and cantle on her way around. What a trooper though, she still walked out another 30 km even in that condition. Fortunately Jim was far enough behind me to not get in to trouble and I had enough slack on the lead rope so that the packhorse was able to back up enough to get to some wider footings and Jim could deal with her. So that was the worst of the trip over, all in the first 2 hours of the day. The total trip on the way back took only 9 hours, so allowing for a horse with a sore back and already being weary from the first 40 km of the trail, I think they did a great job! Actually, I took 162 pictures when I finally finished everything off. Some of them even have Jim in them. A lot of them were garbage and a lot were duplicates. It is hard to really get steady shots on the back of a horse so I ended up taking several shots when it was a good picture. The ride back featured three rain storms that lasted for about a half hour or less each and came straight down. No wind, just a nice cool rain. Really looked nice and even felt good. And of course with all the really cool cowboy clothing I owned I finally realized the purpose of each of them. You know, the really cool cowboy slicker that you see in all the spaghetti westerns, chaps like the biker dudes wear after stealing the idea from us and the big cowboy hat. So Wednesday night we were back in camp and with an injured little pony we headed out Thursday morning since I obviously wasn't going to be riding her anymore. It is now Saturday and when I last checked her she seemed to be doing well. Swelling was down, she was running around like there was nothing wrong with her, so I think she is going to be okay. And this took a total 1868 words.
Here are the pictures of Whitehorse Pass at an elevantion of 2118m, or just under 7000 feet. It is a 3,000 foot climb that we did from the bottom of the Fiddle River to the summit.
Heading up to Whitehorse Pass on the way to the Fiddle River
My faithful little steed
Jim with Alaska and Half Moon in the background
