My worst hour

We were midway on what was to be our longest day. We had just met with the ground crew after a lovely swim across a river where my Nippissi greedily drank after four hours in the dry canyons. We dropped off one of our guides and switched it out to have one of the volunteers join us for the afternoon drive. We would be without help, water, or access to civilization for the next four hours.

I chose to carry on. One of the guests bowed out.

We followed our young intrepid guide up the road, and then crossed a gate. I remembered the stories told on the first night about accidents happening on this section. The gopher and badger holes create tripping hazards for the horses, and one very skilled rider and horse flipped over at a full gallop with the horse crushing the pelvis of the rider. The supposed lesson learned about this story is that we must pay attention, and if we feel ourselves fall to just let go. Other stories of rattlesnakes were told. 

So here we were, following our leader through what would be thousands of acres of grazing land. In this first hour, we landed in the middle of a very extensive herd of black Angus with babies in tow. Our path bisected the herd, often splitting the moms and babies, which made the cows scream bloody murder to their calfs to hurry home. 

The horses got tense and started bunching together. My Nippissi was at the back, and ears all a twitching, head up and ready to bolt. And then our guide started to shout warnings at us:

"Hole!" pointing down to what he saw.

Oh, wow. I didn't think they were going to be that big! Holes 6 inches wide and one foot deep, peppered our path on both sides. As I would look further out from side to side, I saw the holes were everywhere. Some times there were more holes than land. As we started to navigate the holes, we tried to work out a system where the front riders would point them out and weave through them. Some of the middle riders would falter (DUDE wake up!) and so the back riders would end up being surprised by a renegade trio of massive badger holes.

This is when I regretted my decision.

My mare, ready to bolt at the cantankerous cows, was in the middle of a minefield of gopher and badger holes. I was holding on tight to those reins ready for the catastrophe about to happen. I thought it was ridiculously dangerous to even bring riders through this mess. Where are the trails?????

And then the guide asked if we were ready to trot.

Um, what?

Yes, we trotted, weaved, occasionally tripped through those holes. I was tense, watching ahead, below, my mare, the guide. What a mess!

We stopped a few minutes later, and picked up the trot soon after. We would do this walk-trot-watch for holes for about an hour until we stopped at our lunch spot.

This spot was glorious. A big rock on a ledge overlooking the Milk River that we had already crossed so many times. 

Once we got back on, we were getting accustomed to the holes and started watching for tell tale signs of upcoming divets (mounds of earth on the side). It didn't warn us 100% but it became easier. And our crew got more systematic and attuned to communicating the holes. It also seemed like the herd was communicating to each other, as can be attested by the hundreds of near misses I had.

And then the guide asked if we were ready to canter. Holy shit.

But we did it, and we were fine. A few slight trips in the back legs. The dude, who was now behind me, had a full on massive trip in the front legs, with his horse dropping a full foot but pulling himself up and out of the hole within a stride. All I heard was the dude grunt behind me, and then a few seconds later as I inquired, telling me it was a close call but he was fine. We never broke stride.

By the end of the day, we were fricking hole masters. The gopher holes were relatively small (3-6 inches wide), but the badger holes were like explosions, often a foot wide or more. We carried on like this for several hours, doing many long stretches of canters and gallops. No doubt this was one of our fastest days, covering 40 km in 8.5 hours including breaks and lunch stops. Our slow morning pace in the canyons was easily compensated by our speed through the fields of holes.

The ground crew met up with us on horseback to cross the Milk River again and bring us to our campsite. It was our most remote campsite of the trip, on a river, between the Deer Creek Ranch and the Ross Ranch. Our next day would take us into the most extraordinary landscape I have ever seen (and only imagined) of the Pinhorn Ranch. 

We had an option to skip the day if we wanted, as it would be another 8 hour day with no ability to back out if we were in any physical discomfort. Having slept well, and feeling like I didn't want to miss anything, I ventured forward with only one guest aborting.

The next day started through the Ross Ranch, with more gopher and badger holes. But by this point we were feeling strong and confident. We got a chance to meet with one of the ranch hands on horseback and had a lovely chat with him. We talked about the ancient tipi circles we found on the ridges overlooking the hills and the Milk River.

For lunch we stopped at a gorgeous oasis that was at the border of the Ross Ranch to the Pinhorn Ranch. We slid off our saddles after four hours, and slinked into the wild grass growing under the trees. Our horses quickly got to work grazing as we emptied our saddle bags for our communal lunch only to discover ...

We forgot the lunch.

We had our water bottles, some clementines, and some trail mix. And honestly, it was just fine. We had a great time lounging around, and sharing the little food we had. It was one of our best days! The horses got their fill of water at the nearby Milk River. We then hopped back on.

The Pinhorn Ranch was stunning. Red rocks, flowing native grass, and a feeling of vast emptiness like it is almost impossible to find anymore. We trotted and cantered through this landscape for hours and I would have stayed there for days if I could. We saw many antelope  watching us over the ridges and bounce away. And our horses were spook free until we got into a canyon, and some evil bunny sent all of them charging.

We caught up with the ground crew at the end of the day, on horseback again, as they opened our last gates for us. We laughed at the forgotten lunches, and they had brought it with them, worried for us as they had realized what happened.

In fact, what happened was that the riders were anxious to get started on this epic day, the lunch was being kept in a different location (in the shade) so we didn't see it, we all assumed someone else had taken the main parts, and our chef-volunteer was busy taking an epic picture of us as we departed camp, crossing a bridge over the Milk River.

As far as I am concerned, the picture is worth the forgotten lunch. But Im still waiting for it.

Our final days were spent in the beautiful Cypress Hills interprovincial park of Alberta and Saskatchewan. Also used as grazing fields, this high altitude park had its fair share of black Angus. The weather was lovely, as we had mostly 10 days without rain or anything intemperate. We got a chance to have some proper gallops together in this park without gopher and badger holes. We were cautioned about bears and cougars, but we mostly just spent our final days enjoying ourselves, our horses, and the great company.

We eventually got back to the lodge for our final evening and quickly jumped into the showers for our first venture with soap in 6 days. It was glorious. We talked all evening and into the wee hours of the night about our trip, our lives, and what was coming next. On the next morning we left for the airport, hugging and crying and not wanting to leave behind our new best friends.

In conclusion we decided: LIFE IS ... galloping through a field of gopher holes.