High above Treeline

Updrafts of warm winds whispered against sun-hot skin. The smell of horse sweat and leather. And mountains caressed with green and brown velvet textures that were outlined with cobalt blue highliner. Backcountry days like this you treasure for the memory of visual overload. Of views that start way down on the Jumping Pound Creek and then through thickly forested slopes of pines - lodgepole, jack and higher rarer examples of limber and whitebark. Tiny spruces as finally the trail goes into sub-alpine meadows that are what's known as 'kruppelholz' or 'crippled wood'. They may look like baby trees but are mature, sometimes ancient specimens. Hikers and mountain bikers had left their footprints and tracks but all, on this fragile terrain, were meticulously and carefuly on the trails here, sometimes of shale powder. And, once we heaved (on foot I was puffing like a steam train and personally producing enough steam myself, grin, at that........) to the summits, my, the panoramas up here are........well, simply, you can see for miles onto every terrain going. And the quiet. Absolute total aching silence through the trees, and even atop the ridgelines only mere whispers of wind. An incredible day along the Jumping Pound Summit Trail.

The Fox and Caroline and Little Elbow

Here's a few pics of the now go-to mountain horse The Fox. He's twelve now with literally thousands of hours under his cinch and flashy as ever with all those uncountable spots (!). An endurance girlfriend was asking the other day about sharing her horse with other riders and my take is, I don't. Kind of like sharing husbands really, they just don't come back the same. But, as one of about four people who've ridden him over his lifetime and to show the exception to the rule, here's the gelding with an English girlfriend and just amazing stalwart suppporter over years as we hit 'The Perfect Day' (mind, unlike Lou Reed no heroin needed, grin) at the Little Elbow. He liked the fact she wasn't as bossy as I am and, eeargh, lighter too. A true horsewoman she asked how he liked to be ridden, and about twenty seconds later we were splashing through the Little Elbow River heading out

- I don't know if I would be so trusting on a strange horse, in a different country and riding THROUGH different terrain to England's countryside and bridleways.

Equine Anatomy, big time!

The blog entry below has photographs of the winter white fluffy stuff and iron-hard temperatures but not this year (at least so far). Instead the 'iron-hard' refers to many people's lethal pasture conditions with ice pockets and ground ice slics. I know, my Cochise Apache I thought was a toast number on Boxing Day after a shoulder split, and after so many amazing coincidences, stunning veterinary care, acupuncture, physio and massage (my bills are truly eye watering, he feels great!), my knowledge input's yanked up yet again. And, given I'm boning up (sorry, very bad pun) on anatomy and horse physiology all over again, this website is terrific. Watch the video and you'll see what I mean - ! Link at http://www.horsesinsideout.com/

Winter - !

Here's a few pics that according to my, er, sometimes erratic filing system! suggest winter time aroundabouts this time of year back in 2010. One of Alberta's typical snow years that one and these were taken at Station Flats near Bragg Creek, one of my favourite schooling grounds for young and new-to-backcountry horses.

Why - ? Open meadows so if a mountain bike or human runner or hiker trots into the field of vision on a trail you can slide out of harms's way through its widely spread trees. There's a wooden bridge to practise over, with the hum of running water underneath. Helicopters, even, landing at the nearby ranger station!

These girls were out for a day that had started at around -10 C. and warmed up, if I remember, to around 0 or just a bit above. Fanny Barrette's the group captain! and took her map reading seriously in the trailhead before legging up onto her elegant grey. They're all wearing different gear, from trad. Western to more Mountain Equipment Co-op but layers work, so do saddlebags and soup-filled thermos containers in saddlebags as well as knives and hoofpicks and all the usual gear. Winter riding really can sing and if you're a photographer in the high wild places, oh yes!

As an extra warming tip, if you wear something around your neck (preferably silk) and ditto something around your wrists, you will be a ton warmer - it's a backcountry survival training tip that one. Socks, wear natural fibres or your feet will initially sweat and then get very very VERY cold (!). The 'Cloud' stirrups Fanny has on her saddle distribute weight load more evenly and no pressure points - a ton of range riders I know of, always practical in their thinking, are now absolute converts.

(Canyon) Creek Trail looped.....

(CANYON) CREEK TRAIL (parking at the west end of Prairie Creek Trail) and returning on the gravel POWDERFACE ROAD, mid-week (no traffic).


The fall colours when we arrived late, say around the 1 p.m. mark, were THE best I’ve ever ever seen. We parked on the side of the gravel Powderface Trail (by the west end of Prairie Creek Trail), snugged on the cinches and the safety gear and off, five minutes tops. A horse these days who knows his job and thoroughly enjoys the expectation of a ride well done.

I’d heard about this Creek Trail, heard even that years back an endurance race had taken place, started I think even, from this very point, and heard too it was a sod, of pure bog.

Well, long distance international equestrian horse races, the long milers, these days are won on flat or just rolling ground, deserts often as the Dubai sponsorships particularly have come into effect. Endurance rides in Alberta are still taking place in pure bog and muskeg. The finishing times for the Californian Tevis Cup, burningly hot terrain, have decreased fantastically this past decade.

Why?? are Canadian endurance race planners (and riders) still riding in bogs and muskeg??

Don’t get it. At all. Don't get why this trail is marked for equestrian users either, for 11/12ths of any rideable time - ??

So, I’d deliberately chosen CREEK TRAIL after five weeks of ferociously warm weather, no dew even, not a drop.

From the parking place, the maps are a bit deceptive as you have to climb the hillside to the right (east) of the gravel Powderface Trail first before, peering beadily, you’ll see a mostly overgrown entrance to a trail over the small hilltop, with a red diamond well tucked back in.

At day's end I agreed I was right (!). There’s no way I’d ever ride this trail in even ‘normal’ conditions but bone dry, like this glorious day, there were, say, still five bogged creek-type crossings. Some roots. One slatted lodgepole pine crossing, decaying and just about OK for hikers but, one foot into with a horse, a log flipped up so we backed up and bushwhacked around upwards and around and back onto the trail.

Fabulous forests and then dirt sections, the sky overhead cobalt blue, the odd chickadee and a ton of squirrel middens.

Yep, ideal bear country material and I know for a fact it’s a wildlife corridor, respect it too.

We saw a squirrel, another animal I never thought to see, ever, and in such amazing circumstances of just total grace you wonder if the moment, truly, ever happened.

The trail descends again after its mild elevation gain, hardly puff worthy, and then briefly swings right-handed along a creek based valley thick with willows swathing into crimsons. The afternoon light began to slant, just as we crossed Canyon Creek. There you hook westwards (left-handed), and it’s not well marked or well used. No horse shoe tracks, no hikers’ boot treads and one pretty elderly mountain bike’s marking that had gone through a long long time ago.

You kind of follow the very pretty valley, the creek singing its songs to your left, and then there’s a meadow. Don’t, as I did, continue to follow the trail closest to the river (one slightly scrambled rock climb, not difficult but if you’re not confident in your horse, nope) but instead take the higher trail out of the triangular meadow, which’ll end up taking you, about a mile up, to join again together.

Lovely surfaces for riding, dirt, open sections, meadow and soft turf, with some random campgrounds and fire circles.

Because it was a weekday and late and low traffic volume we returned back on the gravel Powderface Trail, the first part homewards back to the trailer a bit of a swinging circular climb that had been, just lovely, graded and not its usual corduroy that has your shock absorbers trembling. After that, there’s actually a good deal of side trails to either side that you spend, in fact, little time on the road itself.

The trees rustled and twirled their pinks, their fluorescent yellows and even touches of reds this year. Back at the trailer, The Fox munching his cubes and thinking pleasurably of his haynet for the homeward journey, and by now seriously almost dusk, two young men arrived, unloading backpacks. They chose the Prairie Creek Trail going eastwards, a valley that in five minutes would be in shadow and with a temperature dropping like crazy. Interesting.

Will We See Bears - ??????

Man, I've heard that comment as we set out from trailheads so many times if I charged $5 a time I'd be holidaying in Mexico. And, reading the Alberta Equestrian Federation's latest e-newsletter, with berries and lush raspberries gloriously thick and ripe, experts'advice on encountering bears is dutifully mentioned to their trail-riding members.

Well, with The Best I've stood downwind of a few bears so unbelievably rank my eyes stung and I seriously wondered what they had for breakfast earlier that morning. Carrion, prime carrion, had to be. And these were encounters in September and October, three different locations, one a just gorgeous silver tipped grizzly - actually, there were all grizzlies so special occasions there.

The Fox gets a tad twitchy without his cool-as-cucumber girlfriend but he's pretty OK, and the pinto couldn't give a damn.

Moose, though, ah, moose. And, pulling out of Mesa Butte and flicking on the CBC's 1010 AM program as the rig crunched through a few potholes, oh joy, the newscaster had on the world-renowned 'Dr Moose', handily live from a cellphone in northern Manitoba.

The man obviously adored moose. He told stories. Anecdotes. He mentioned the males' noses will be deepening, darkening now from the colour they've shared over the summer with Mrs Mooses, as their hormones prepare to open the floodgates. In three weeks, he remarked, velvet from the antlers will begin to be scraped off, the males will start to express opinions about territories even though their rut won't officially be in, er, full thrust for a few months yet.

A magnificent moose, in his prime, once fancied The Best and we darned near had a near-death experience, cascading down a scree slope in saner moments I would have described sincerely as absolutely unrideable. He really did have his antlers in a twist, I mean, have many pure white lady mooses have you seen in your lifetime?

Horses, you see, find it difficult to 'read' moose. Moose stand still, no body language to read, are they a threat, these large, almost black animals - ? Better to be safe, let's run-for-home and that nice-safe-trailer, eh? On foot, hiking, yes, I'm bear aware but having read a stack of park wardens and biologists' accounts, annoyed moose have stomped, chased and treed more than their fair share of humans. If you're riding along willows, muskeg, streams (West Bragg Creek, ah, has some wonderful areas of precisely these ingredients, another is the section by 'Moose Pond' before it elevates into the spectacular Eagle Hill Trail too), watch your horses' ears, perhaps a sudden 'dragon's snort' or a jolted halt, high headed. It's a great opportunity, too, to learn to read landscapes, practise developing the mountain people's amazing peripheral vision, drag your own vision away from tunnel vision on your trail line only, listen to ravens discussing the deal - then, as Andy Russell once described, each day in the mountains begins its moments of magic.

Scratches Update

I am very bored with scratches (also known as 'cracked heels' apparently in Ontario and as 'mud fever' in the UK and Ireland. The Best is EXTREMELY bored with them too. It's taken nearly two weeks, eventually ending up with a new application of veterinarians' Moore&Co 'Scratches Ointment', covered up with plastic, then padding, then a carefully applied bandage of equal pressure, both hind legs to level out any favouring of one leg (and its ligaments and tendons). Every day. Yawn. We almost got there, no puffiness (ie, no poulticing which went on for a whole darned week) and I left the bandages off for 14 hours and we were back to square one.

Eeeargh. So, we resumed. One hind leg (she's black skinned, as are all pure-bred and part-bred grey or white Arabians) has, guess, a white sock (hard black foot though) and that's the one that's cranked my back into major creak zones.

So, with the drier weather forecast for a week to come, do I or .......? ....... cross my fingers and hope, this time, we're OK - ? Decisions, decisions.