On Riding for the Hell of it in Unforgiving Mountains

We returned to the mountains that joined us, shaped us. We brought simple things: water, food, layers, and our horses. Saddle pads for both riding and sleeping on. Bells so we could hear the horses jingling outside our tent at night as they shifted with the breeze.

As we set out, there came a knowing that if a solution was needed, it would have to come from us. We were alone.

Always in life there has been someone else, something else. There had been rough times and things needing solving but always other people. Out here, it was the horses and us. In a way it was frightening but in a greater way still it was liberating. The kind of freedom that only comes from within.

Our plan was simple. Start and end in familiar territory and go where the land called us in between.

We were drawn to aspen groves, rolling hills that fell to rivers, once fire-swept oceans of rock and harrowed trees, and somewhere along the way we lost the urge to go at all. 

5 miles in the trouble began.

A cheekpiece snapped. As luck would have it, it had been the bridle of the mustang with 90 days of training. The bridle hung lifeless, with only the throat latch attached. Simple breaks like this could result in walking home. Without a horse.

Thankfully she had the heart and mind to stand while electrical tape was woven through buckles and around leather to bind the bridle back together. Some miles later it broke again, though the second fix held for the remaining 30 miles.

As day turned to night on that first day, we came to a thread of stream that unraveled in a song that let us know we were home.

We unsaddled, watered and fed the horses, and began to set up camp. I remember thinking I already didn’t want to leave, but the point of this trip was to wander without any set purpose other than to be where we were. My mind couldn’t help but rush ahead and I quieted it as best I could by admiring the setting sun painting shapes on the grass and tree tops.

The morning brought an ocean of dew and the kind of soft chill that makes you feel truly alive. With breakfast made, camp broken down, and the packs loaded on the horses, we followed the slope of the mountainside draw and curved with the stream.

Some 14 roaming miles later, we came to a basin and lake held by soaring mountains, a place we’d originally thought we might camp. Though stunning and a good source of water and life, something in the wind and vastness of the place left us both uneasy and we reentered the forest in search of a new place to stay.

We made a home for the night in a close knit valley, our tent set up on the edge of a stream under the cover of trees. It was here, at mile 26, that the mustang got loose again. We’d had her on a long lead to allow some freedom to graze. She became tangled and panicked, wrapping herself up and pulling back until the metal sheared and the buckle broke in a swinging arc.

She was free and she was worked up. But like many of the mustangs we’d come to know in our ranch work, she had a good mind and returned to grazing. We remained unsettled, as she was nearly impossible to catch in a small paddock, let alone the seemingly endless backcountry. Maybe because she was extra hungry from the days’ work, she approached us for grain, something she’d never done before. With a halter on again, we sat down to our own dinner on a rock bench by the water, thankful to still be a team of four.

Soon after we tied the horses for the night, a storm rolled in with flashes of lightning that turned night to day and thunder that drowned the sound of the water rushing by just feet from our heads. The bells on the halters rang all through the night this time.

Packing up took place the next day in a fine mist, warmed by cocoa and the knowing that we were heading into familiar land forever imprinted on our hearts, though years had passed since we’d last found ourselves amongst it.

We rode through those memories fondly and took cover when needed from the gentle mist that turned to pounding hail.

We had descended into a basin where we’d once taken turns wandering some days or moving cattle for a local ranch other days. The rain had persisted as much as we had and with it being a weekday deep in the wilderness, there wasn’t much chance of running into folks.

Yet two horses and dogs moved towards us briskly along the forest road, revealing two cowboys riding for straggling cattle. They asked if we too were working for a ranch or perhaps the forest service, because why else would we be out there. No, just on vacation. In the mountains, in an unforgiving storm, on an equally unforgiving old trail horse and a barely-trained mustang, riding for the hell of it. 

For the love of it.

They went their way and we went ours, winding further along our memories and favorite hillsides. We came to the topmost crest before we were to head back down towards the trailer, towards warmth, towards real life. We were high enough to see all the country we’d ridden and countless miles of wilderness still unexplored.

And because within us both there was something that would never, could never, leave those mountains, we turned and stood and took in the unbelievable vastness of the place. For a while we didn’t speak and sat staring into the expanse, with a deep knowing that we were amongst the only couple of human souls for unknowable miles. It arose within me one of the purest loves I’ve ever felt. To be in such a wild place that’s equal parts beauty and roughness. With a dear friend who truly is an extension of my very being, reflecting back into the wilderness that same duality. With horses willing to go with us into so many unknowns. With myself still, willing to go into so many unknowns.