The disappearing dude

So we just crossed the mighty river, and we enter into the Police Coulee. I learn that the coulee means canyon river, and that hoodoos mean sandstone rocks. Most of this area is a combination of sandstone and lime, which makes for super interesting rock formations.

The Police Coulee was named for the first Northwestern Mounted Police Outpost that was stationed between the river and the coulee, as an attempt to thwart bandits and smugglers entering the US/Canada border through these uninhabited badlands. There are no trails in this coulee. Just game tracks.

Game tracks are common paths that are used by mule deer, antelope, foxes and other wild animals. This is not a trail. In fact, I would come to learn that these game tracks often get eroded by winter, storms, etc, and so they essentially disappear year to year. 

We followed our two guides (father and son) as they would hunt for the best track on both sides of the stream, along the canyon walls. At first, I was a bit disconcerted at walking on the side slope of these canyons, with the outside leg in the air, and a deep drop below. Sometimes the horse in front of me would slip and loose its footing, which caused me great anxiety. But my Nippissi, was steady as a rock. Even if I did remind her from time to time with my downslope leg, to hug the hill.

We would often double back and try the other side when we would get to an impasse or a drop so steep that it would be dangerous. After 2 hours of this, I was becoming quite familiar with this type of very technical riding. The guides would often ask us to "wait here" while they ventured forward to check. These types of tracks did not allow for a herd of 9 to turn around if we needed to.

And then, as we were following the son, he stops mid cliff. We all stop. The son dismounts on the right, cliff high. The father calls out from behind and on the other side of the creek saying "can we pass?". The son says, in his laidback Alberta way: "umm, ... maybe?" We have no idea what he sees. The father beckons us to cross the canyon back to his side of the stream and we proceed. As we continue, we now see the son with his horse on the canyon floor, 15 feet below where he was. As we walk past him I look to see what he saw. Nothing, the slope had completely eroded and we would have all had to jump down 15 feet from where he was. And Im thinking "what's with the umm, maybe???". Is he kidding?

This little moment of nothingness put me on edge, because it truly hit me that we were not on trails and that our two guides were searching for a path without much clarity. Gone were my beautiful wide bridlepaths of home. This was smuggler country. And boy were there plenty of crevasses to hide in. We surprised quite a few mule deer that never see humans in this coulee.

We carried on, as I continued to be distracted by the gorgeous canyon, the golden eagles, and the stunning blue sky. I wasn't paying much attention to our path (did it even matter), and I was third in line behind the father guide and "the dude". The dude was so casual he just followed the guide everywhere, no questions asked. Me, I ask questions.

As we were going through some lush grass, I looked ahead and the dude disappeared. That caught my attention real fast. I looked below me and there he was, 10 feet down and I had no idea how we got there. As I noticed my grass was coming to an end at a little cliff, I figured he went down that way. I get to the edge of the cliff, stop my mare, look down, and say (to the hilarity of the girls behind me) F&CK! It was a 10 feet vertical slide on sand.

My Nippissi positioned her big front hooves on the sand, I layed back with my head on her ass and let the reins slip through my hands. She then slowly put her back hooves on the edge, and literally slid down like a toboggan on a snowy slope. We hit the bottom and she carried on walking as if it was nothing.

I was stunned.

At our next venture of "wait here while we figure this out", the father guide went up a cliff, turned into a bush, disappeared, and then reappeared 15 feet below as he said to me (next in line) "yep, its ok" ... I watched with my big eyes, and asked "are you sure?". And I did it, and survived, my beautiful Nippissi taking very cautious steps as we took the narrowest path with rocks and rolling stone into a bush of bear berries with thorns. I was glad to have my outback rugged coat on that day.

After our canyon adventures, I boldly drove into the deep and fast moving river on our way home feeling like I was the master of the wild universe of game tracks in canyon coulees.

The next day, I was confident and boldly went to the front of the line to be first through whatever craziness our guides threw at us. I was following the father guide with the "sleeper" behind me on her aggressive QH. The rest of the group was further behind. We were climbing a steep slope but I had no idea where we were going as there was no path. And then I look up and see the father guide sliding backwards on a sand cliff, sliding into my mare. He surprised me as this former military stoic man started yelling at his horse, and then I realized what we were doing. We were jumping a 10 foot cliff of sliding sand. It took my mare three leaps, with me gripping the mane behind her ears, and wrapping my legs around her sides. I was literally upright, as I yelled out encouragements. All three horses made it up the cliff, as the father yelled to the son "yeah, better take another way".

We made it to the top of the coulees and made fast pace for the next few hours as we were to meet up with the ground crew at a bridge quite a distance away. We got lost a few times, looking for gates to cross certain ranches, and had to double back. One path led us to a sliding slope of steep rock and had me wishing for a go-pro as I would never have thought to be doing something so crazy. The type of stuff you see on the demo videos for mules for sales.

The horses only had access to water when we crossed rivers, and my Nippissi was looking mighty interested in the river beside our path that had a ten foot drop into the water. I kept reminding her with my riverside leg to let it go, knowing we had a river crossing in 30 minutes. Sure enough, we aborted the bridge crossing to cross the river and my Nippissi drank like a camel. Good thing, as we still had 5 hours of riding in some of the hottest conditions of the week as we crossed a massive 80,000 acre cattle ranch before we got to our campsite for the night.