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.