The weather was perfect. It was between 40 and 50 degrees depending on if the sun was out, and slightly windy. It had rained in the morning and it started raining during the ride about ten minutes before I got back to the truck, so I got to finally try out my rain slicker (worked great). It was also the first snow fall of the season in the mountains.
I had decided to bridle Smooch for this ride. It was an arbitrary decision as most decisions feel at this point in my experience. Mostly it was because I wanted the security and control of the bit in case I got into a situation.
We started out a bit rough. He had to get used to the bit once again and I worked some drills in the parking lot. Then we started down the trail and headed across a meadow where I saw what looked like a set of wolf tracks. Dang, left the camera in the truck. I also noticed that I left my Leather Man in the truck too.
Then there was a puddle in the trail and the rodeo began. I couldn't let him walk around the puddle like he wanted. Then I might never get him through puddles or anything that looks remotely like a puddle. It took a few minutes, but I got him straight and he walked through the puddle. And then more puddles (it had rained that morning). Puddles everywhere and each was becoming more of a battle until he just blew up and tried to throw me. He was completely broke down and wouldn't even move forward. I'm fairly sure at this point that he knew what I wanted, he knew what the cues meant, but he was just being a little rebel. So I moved him into a meadow away from trees or anything dangerous and proceeded to work through our drills again, starting with making him stand still (which he didn't want to do) and then bending him in both directions, working on leg cues, rein cues, etc. until he was working for me again. Then I took him back to that puddle and made him walk through it, and he never refused another puddle the rest of the day.
When we got to the canal, instead of crossing it like I usually do, I turned east down a trail that followed the canal for some distance. That's when Smooch started getting spooky. He had his head held high in the air. Then I saw an elk. I made sure Smooch saw it too and continued. We walked right up to it and there turned out to be a small nursery group of cows and calves. Once he saw what they were, he was fine. So we walked by them, and then turned around and walked back. I made him stand there watching them for about 5 minutes. They just sat there and ate grass. Both Smooch and the elk that is. Dang, the camera was in the truck. One of the cows even looked like she was in estrus already. These park elk are very much used to horses. I believe there are some outfitters that guide tourists on horse back here and they must work this heard every day in the summer. I was probably stopped about 15 feet from one of the cows. Continuing down the trial, it came down off the canal and headed east. It wasn't long before we came upon Lake Creek, crossed it, and found a larger herd of elk. There were a bunch of cows and a pretty decent looking bull along with some rag horns. Dang, camera still in the truck...so I went back for it.
On the way back to the truck, I took what I was hoping was a detour and came upon another, much larger herd of elk. This time there were several nice bulls (dang, still no camera). Again, I rode right through them. Some didn't even get up from laying down when I rode 20 feet from them. Smooch seemed to find all this interesting. He was a little apprehensive, which is understandable. After all, I haven't even introduced him to cattle yet.
We finally made it back to the truck where I picked up my camera and Leather Man.
The first stop on our way back was to take pictures of the wolf? tracks. It could be a large dog, I'm not completely sure, but it's unlikely because dogs are not allowed on these trails as far as I am aware. My Nalgene bottle is for reference. It is about 3.25 inches in diameter.
So then we headed back to find the elk herd. They weren't very hard to find. As I got close, I could hear them bugling. The large herd I saw on the way out was in the same place, so I just rode through them snapping photos at leisure. There were hundreds of them.
Then I spotted one of the big bulls. This guy is a nice 6x6.
He let me get pretty close before he got up. Sorry about the focus, it was hard riding through a herd of elk one handed while snapping photos on a colt that's never seen them before.
There was another bull that was a non-typical that I never found the second time. I did find this other nice bull that was from the Lake Creek group that had joined up with this group sometime while I was gone.
I crossed Lake Creek again and tried one of those between the ears shots. It didn't quite turn out like I had hoped.
On the other side of the creek I ran into yet another group. This gal had a radio collar.
We made the loop back to the truck and it started to rain. Smooch wasn't concerned at all about the slicker. It is one of those yellow cowboy slickers that are over sized to cover not only your legs when you are in the saddle, but the entire saddle as well. I was a little worried he might spook or be worried about it, but he was fine. So we finished off the ride in the rain, never even seeing a hiker or another rider the entire time.
It was a good day.
1 comment:
GREAT photos! Don't suppose you'd be willing to share them with an artist? Elbow, nudge... :-)
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