The Best's Christmas gifting to you

Relationships with horses in my life have always been working affairs – partnerships that took me competing cross-country courses, slithering scree slopes researching or for whatever competition best suited that particular horse. 'The Best', the now pure-white mare who features on the front of the backcountry guidebook, is undeniably the most difficult horse I've ever re-started. Hot-headed, angry, she was probably the first horse that I couldn't 'see' where she was going to shine. At all.

The backcountry trails and something-to-do, a purpose, eventually changed her. Immeasurably. My idea of hell, right from when I first ever swung a leg over the back of a horse, has always been 'to go out for a ride.' I may school horses in arenas or those apparently pointless circles on wind-blown prairie wool pastures but in the back of the mindset is always something to be geared towards.

To my way of thinking my horses pick that up. Really! Flatwork to them, whether we're on a trail practising balanced transitions from trot to canter, or a still halt to pirouette around a gate fenceline, becomes a means to an end – they know the winter indoor arena work is only a phase, a partnership being fine tuned and then, oh joy! there are jumps or trails or fastwork.

Joy's an important number to horses. Spoken praise to young horses, neck rubs that, as relationships mature, become a sly scratch on the wither even in midst of a difficult dressage test as an acknowledgement, a thanks for a movement well executed.

Gratitude. Joy. The two trot together.

To 'The Best', carefully named as I was asking Fate to make sure she would be the best at something as yet unknown, I owe much. An equestrian column that ran for five years in which she often featured. A guidebook where her ears, often photographed from the saddle, are always pricked and where she even hammed up looking down a rock slide apparently horrified, that she'd nonchalently been down 20 times before.

She's been used in demo-work since for horse language simply because her face is unutterably expressive – 'I am happy,' 'I am darned annoyed,' 'this Small Person is standing in exactly the right place'........... there's never any doubt what mind-frame she's in and for that she's priceless.

And, on winter's night a few years back, she woke me up, so strong now is the telepathy between us. Personally I get a little tired of women romanticizing their relationships with their four-leggeds these days but the bond with the white mare and myself is not that.

It's a respect, a trust hard earned. So, here is her and my Christmas gifting to you – I wrote this small short story, that most difficult of writer's disciplines straightaway after, so almost surreal did it seem. No editing, just straight as it happened.

“Coyote teaching.........”
“Midnight, a whisker before. I wake up, the kind of wideawake with no dreams still lingering. The barn's yard light is on, casting shadows across the old Turkish rug. I fumble for spectacles, none that I can locate in the darkness and right now I want no turning on and off of electric lights.

Binoculars, from bird watching down to the water meadows, are on the old Victorian pine table. Gratefully I flip off their covers and focus through the window. The white mare, sharp as ever, has her head up and scanning; I follow her gaze and for the next five minutes there is enchantment.

Two coyotes dancing on the lawn. Feinting, circling, front paws asplay and crouching, a look cast sideways across a shoulder. The mare's head is up but I notice the frosted plumes of her breath are steady and slow. “No threat just right now,” drifts into my mind from hers and but I notice she has blocked her body between the coyotes and her stablemate appaloosa still picking at hay snippets from their late night feed.

The coyote pair slam dunk, roll over each over, then stand, face to face and noses a whisker apart. One leans forward and licks the top corner of her mate's mouth. They grin, panting foolishly, join shoulders and minds suddenly decided, trot briskly toward the darkness and the creek.

In the morning I stop on the way to the barn and there in the snow are their tracks, a dance still.”


Copyright Pam Asheton @2010

Just a quick scribble about Dawson....

A few blogs back artist Shannon Luyendyk hissed about the clear-cut from Dawson Equestrian Centre while heading for one of my favourite viewchick bliss points at Eagle Hill.

So, here's a photograph of WHERE the equestrian trail starts from Dawson's campground - if you go out onto the gravel Powderface Trail, then look for this squiggly yellow traffic sign (to the right of the trailer), on the left-hand side of the road - photograph next up - is where your equestrian trail slants across the clear-cut (top photographic image on the top right-hand side again for you, visual works for me every time - click, by the way, on the image and they enlarge like crazy - I just hope you're not on dial-up that's slower than smoke signals!), across Sibbald Flats and then either aim for Eagle Hill or adjoining rides. Frankly, absolutely one of my favourite areas.

So, hope these are helpful!

Down Jumpingpound Summit Trail....

Oh, and by the way, here's a pic of the exit onto the gravel Powderface Trail and the lay-by car parking. Looks nice and flat, doesn't it?! Well, that's the number that climbs up to stupendous viewpoints and Jumpingpound Mountain itself. This trailhead's located 17.1 kilometres from the turnoff off the #68 highway.

And, one final shot of The Fox, usually only a drinker-of-water-from-home, who guzzled half of the Jumpingpound Creek down as well as getting a good washdown and sweat scraped clean.

This area, by the way, is a definite wildlife corridor - the closest I've ever come to a magnificent grizzly (my eyes watered, the scent was THAT strong - really!) happened one earlier fall riding alphamare The Best. We were, say, 40 yards apart and both just sizing each other up with no particular hassle. Bear spray though recommended here, folks, and not tucked into your saddlebag either (!). Cougars too, up higher, black bears and in winter the tracking in snow are just amazing experiences, one after another - pine marten, snowshoe hares, the brush of a landing owl's wing. Magic.

From the Viewchick.......

Wow! to this gifting of Indian summer right now.

And. Here's a ride that certainly needs a mountain fit horse and also one where you need to be super-aware of weather conditions. Two weeks before The Fox and I clambered atop the Jumping Pound Ridgeline trail a disgruntled hiker had told me he'd have been better off with snowshoes.

“Eight inches of snow, the top crusted,” he grumped. A note down where the rig was parked mentioned on the 15th September a mountain bike race had been scheduled. Did it run? I wonder, because peddling up those steep climbs and slithering three back to one foot gained must have been, grin, a bit character forming.

So, here's a fabulous ride not mentioned in the guidebook, two trailer number if you can manage, are better than one – reasons why later, OK?

Take the #68 Highway (it's paved now until the K-Country entrance, lovely!) and then go along until you slide down the hill towards Sibbald Flats, golden too right now and with the grazing lease cattle due for their move towards home mid-October. Then turn south (or left) onto the gravel Powderface Trail. If you click your mileage timer on, it's 10.8 kilometres to a parking lay-by, where on your right hand side is the Lusk trail (where an obliging cyclist mentioned three horse riders were camped out at the little corrals there a couple of kilometres up through the old growth forests).

On the left (or east) side is the easily found start of Jumping Pound Ridge Trail. Pop over the stout wooden bridge, across a little meadow and then, it's climb. And climb and climb. It's switchbacked and initially underfoot is mostly dirt with the odd stone but as you hit the higher elevations, it's more rock than dirt; this is NOT a ride for barefoot.

I actually rode this with The Best in 2005, and up-here-high we hit shin deep crusted snow so I guess we didn't notice the rock outcroppings (the photograph opening this Tuesday's blog on the right-hand side was taken here). This is akin to riding the high backcountry in Banff and tough going - the map says 2.5 kilometres but it feels double that.


Then, magically, suddenly you're out in sub-alpine meadows, coming to a T-junction with a Kananaskis Country map. Hoik left and you're heading towards Cox Hill. Go right (or south if you've that kind of mind-set) and the 2.5 km section here runs along the base of Jumpingpound Mountain (2,240 metres or 7,349') with knockout views towards the Don Getty Wildland Provincial Park.

The Fox, not super-fit as I'm spending kind of a lot of time with money-making marketing and media consulting I'd reckoned would be ready to call it a day so we knocked down the Jumpingpound Summit Trail (more lookout points, yum) onto another parking lay-by area jammed with hikers' cars. Those little brown lines on the Gem-Trek map said, yep, it was steep in places, rocky too (these are places to check your saddle isn't edging forward or your saddleblankets haven't dropped off backwards miles back).

One group of efficient pole-wielding hikers just back down said they'd ascended to the mountain's summit easily in 50 minutes; heck if I managed that I'd think a gold medal was in order but just to give you a perspective on what two-leggeds can do.

Here's where the second trailer and a friend reading the Sunday papers, came in handy – it's exactly 6.4 kilometres back along the gravel Powderface Trail to where my rig was parked. Pretty much a single track deal with passing places, and on this Sunday a fair amount of traffic (those gold dusted poplars and aspens had every photographer in Alberta out, let alone the hiking and mountain bike crowd). Not much corduroyed, a lot of loose gravel on the edges with the road itself hard packed – to ride back on? Not much fun, no shoulders to ride away from gravel spray would be my take.

If my horse had been fitter, well, I'd have stayed high and continued southwards, past Canyon Creek (gorgeous too) and then hit another lay-by parking slot at the end of the Prairie Creek Trail, which adds another 10.2 kilometres to your ride time. (If, by the way, you want to do this trail combo going northwards, the Jumpingpound Ridgeline trail actually starts around the corner northwards by, say, 600 metres from where the little 'P' marker dots on the Gem-Trek map right by Prairie Creek Trail. There's a red diamond nailed up on a pine set backaways from the road, but once you find that, you're on your way!

POINT TO CONSIDER: The gravel Powderface Trail by the Mount McDougall Memorial, by the way, is steep. You need a powerful rig to power up its gradients (I once had to take horses out, tied them to trees, drove up the slope, legged down and then hiked back up to re-load before going on southwards. I was, I admit, seriously hot that day......)

Mud, rain and Snow forecast by this weekend .....!

It was a daisy of a ride.

Dirty clouds scudding eastwards for the last two days, slam-dunking into the Eastern Slopes and soaking up moisture like a sponge on overdrive. The Tank was in four-wheel drive from the beginning of the trail and it and the trailer slick cascaded with mud slurry. One pothole sucked us in and only just spat us out the other side.

The leopard-spotted appaloosa The Fox, saddled and bridled snugly inside, looked out from the trailer's back door vantage point and was noticeably unimpressed.

Mountain horse, fine. Mud slog, nope.

Tough.

Checked the safety gear, cinched up and swung on board with three layers inside the Drizabone coat that stretches down to your kneecaps. Moved on, our aim that day to confirm details on a trail that's “allegedly” (yep, you can tell I've had the formal legal journalism training!) had a bit of ATV and OHV use and riparian damage issues.

By mid-afternoon the heavens opened, the kind of rain you see Gene Kelly twirling his umbrella, you know, that infamous film sequence 'Dancing in the Rain' where the stunt-coordinators are sluicing water-on-a-serious-mission. From hosepipes.

Five miles still back to the trailer and the Drizabone began to leak, the way a cranky old Waterton outfitter'd told me it would years back (and whose pithy comments I remembered one after another, and he'd gone on, I remembered even more wryly, for paragraphs too) first at the shoulder seams and then spreading soggily, the three layers underneath gradually absorbing. Gloves saturated for the first time ever, rain dripping off the hat brim.........yeah, it was getting to the character forming stage.

The Fox, his spots now merging into mud splashes chest high, was cheerfully now on a mission to-get-back-to-that-trailer.

Until.

Mrs Grizzly sauntered left into view, saw 800 yards or so generously left handish of our route.

He's never been bear phobic before, aware yes, but definitely not thrilled as I velcroed in, yep, I remembered, he's always been with his girlfriend The Best who's not remotely interested, or with another pinto girl I had in one summer of a similar mind-frame. Veins standing up, the hair around his withers standing on end (yeah, really!) and of course it's the one time that special bit of his didn't have a curb chain on (which I'd taken off to use on another horse the day before, duh) so it was like trying to get the attention of a Spaceship Shuttle's pilot about to land by someone waving a headscarf somewhere to the right of centre.

Not cool.

We stood. She wandered off to stuff down her daily hibernation intake around now that equals about 64 BigMacs (I'm serious!) worth of berries, carrion and whatever's around.........and I was left with a horse running enough adrenalin win the Kentucky Derby just right then.

Another mile and he remembered to breathe again.

So, a tip for you riding backcountry – do your schooling and training at home (the nutcases that take a green horse backcountry, nope, not a cool deal.......!), make sure you're riding with a bit your horse respects when the pressure's on (some horses, sure, it might be a neckstrap, a snaffle, whatever works) so you can still engage in a horse-to-human communique...... and as for the Drizabone, well............ situation there definitely under review.

Head for the Hills!

Tons of new updated information on the 'Trail Updates' as trails are drying out and all those damned mosquitoes finally disappearing. Noted wildlife and equestrian artist Shannon Luyendyk poured over maps with me last week - the girl's determined to ride every single spare moment! She'd recently ridden southwards of the Little Elbow trailhead on the main cobbley exploration road (the Big Elbow Loop intro-section) and then up onto the Three Point Mountain Trail.

Steep that one, in places, and you need fittish horses but once you get high, well, even your horses admire the views. Seriously! Turning around after a lunch-break, and back at the valley's bottom floor, the girls took the softer-on-the-feet earth track that runs parallel back to Little Elbow.

Well, I rode it last year and the last section had a fair amount of deadfall with old growth forest all around. I had an experienced mountain horse and one who'd packed besides in his youth (they learn to go 'around' the tree and your kneecaps get to stay intact, nice) but if I'd be riding something a bit more skittish, well, it could have been interesting.

Shannon's comments were sharper, as now apparently part of that trail is undercut from the river running in sections underneath and definitely they felt adrenalin nasties negotiating some of the sections. Oops. From the southerly point descending from the Three Point Mountain trail, there was no indicating this could possibly be a not-safe trail - although there is, apparently, helpfully a notice at its northerly 4-way join up onto the Wildhorse Trail.

And, here's a photograph for the records. Safety means taking an up-to-date map and knowing how to read it besides! Here are the girls at decision time, saddlebags filled with lunch, safety first aid kits and waterproof layers. Perfect.

Stolen Horse protocol re-issued

The last ten days have seen three emails land on my computer detailing stolen horses. One's distressingly akin to the Okotoks 'Mandy' pony case of a few years back, this time though when a ranching family down south along the foothills had one of those super-special bombproof horses that are invaluable to kids learning, disappear – and their own suspicion – very possibly 'taken to order.'

Back in an earlier version of the Alberta Equestrian Federation's quarterly newsletter ALBERTA BITS back in January I wrote a piece entitled “Going, going, Gone.”

It was an information piece about procedures to take if you suspect your horse or pony has been stolen – from the initial stages of discovery, to contacting the RCMP, then LIS (Livestock Inspection Services).

As an article, it was one of those nightmares to write to a thousand-word deadline (three pages would have done just nicely!), but here, again, in PDF format, courtesy of the Alberta Equestrian Federation, is the methodology to set into action if you suspect theft. If you scan and click this into your address bar, you'll get the PDF (mind, if anyone knows a faster method,please, suggestions welcome! but yep, this does work, believe it or not, smile) - https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B9LFqcriXZCgZGY4NjA1ZDMtMmU4OS00ZjNlLWIxOWMtODZjYmQzODA2OTQ2&hl=en

And yep, the main key is knowing the steps, and then speed – really step on getting the information out to all sources – media, websites of any equestrian publication going, radio, the RCMP, LIS, the AEF and the Alberta Horse Board all have far-reaching, well constructed methodolgy developed over years and years.

Sunshine! and 2010 Trail Updates.........

This is The Cochise Apache, checking out my handbag hanging by the front door's spruce trees (he was on lawnmower duty that day) in case humans sensibly ever think of putting oats in there. And yes, doesn't he have a great metabolism!....more on that below.

Now, this is IMPORTANT! Trail Updates and Reports 2010 will be updated WEEKLY - either my own rides (this year heading south, often on undesignated trails, between the Sheep River and southwards of the Livingstone Gap), or through those being contributed in. So, not just the Kananaskis area but also the Ram, Hummingbird, Wilmore, Jasper and others - if you've ridden an area and there's knockout views, deadfall a giraffe would have problems hiking over, or your own special notes on river crossings, please.........share your treasures; they may be invaluable.

The Best and The Cochise Apache have the kind of metabolisms where one blade of grass translates into half the front field, devils to keep weight off. So, they are on starvation rations (their opinion) and the hotwired electric fencing moved in tiny increments each day. Cunning sods, they've learned to 'listen' for the electric 'click' and where it weakens on the far end of the current; she slides underneath and he jumps overtop - he also jumps over the corral fencing (4'6"), barbed wire (about the same) and also the cedar poling gate fencing when feeling grass deprived. Int-er-est-ing.

Dieting alone's not an option for these types, exercise has to factor in. So, they're both on grassed cutlines, mild slopes right now and long outline trots - where the topline muscles and diaphragm muscles work into lung expansions. Another month and they'll be ready for the backcountry, that's about the timeline I work on, hardening up muscles, respiration rates and rock-hard leg tendons and ligaments.

The muskeg, which is squelching well right now, should be drier then too. I had a report from one experienced backcountry couple who report the TOM SNOW TRAIL needs the equivalent of water wings. I'll give that one a try out with The Fox soon after next weekend, notebook stuffed into a pocket and camera gear for close-up details, so that'll be up on the TRAIL UPDATES - if it gets real interesting (!), the blog too.