How to start this blog? Why, the Big Horn 100, of course! There will be more random thoughts and things, but this is where I choose to start. An epic ride on an epic horse.
Where I rode SAR Tiki Eclipse, Lumpy, to an epic 3rd place finish!
Darlene & Lumpy do the Big Horn 100, 2010. Our Epic Adventure
Part I
This ride was 7 months in planning for me. My entire endurance season in 2010 was centered around preparing my Nero for the Big Horn 100 in Shell, WY. My friend, Max Merlich, with his mule, Junior, had attempted the ride in ’06, coming in 3 hours past the cut off time after spending a long night on a trail that had no markings or lights. He felt he had this monkey on his back, the Big Horn Monkey. He had slain a similar monkey when he completed the Tevis Cup last year after not being able to finish in ’08. He decided it was time to get the Big Horn Monkey off of his back. My boy, Nero, turned 8 in April, and I had completed 2 seasons of successful 50’s along with three 75’s. I had prepped him for the Mt Adams 100 miler with my mom riding him. I felt strongly that Nero needed a close 100 miler before I drug him 1000 miles to attempt one! That was the day that Nero found this first rock with his name on it. I spent the next several weeks trying to decide if he was lame or sound. It’s excruciating, this dance we do with our horses. I knew in my head that Nero wasn’t going to the Big Horn, but I took him to the Sunriver ride anyhow, hoping upon hope that this was all in my head. Nope…he was off at the vet in. No Sunriver, no Big Horn for Nero. All the hard work I’d put into him since January came crashing down and all I could do was hang onto his neck and cry. I must have been quite a sight, because Terry, who is ordinarily very protective of who rides his horse, Lumpy, came over, put his arm around me and told me he was sorry that Nero & I wouldn’t be joining he & Max the next day. That was a really big moment for me. Some of my friends told me I should ask Terry to use Lumpy at the Big Horn. Nope, I wasn’t going to do that. Earlier in the year I had made some crass joke about borrowing Lumpy if Nero didn’t make the grade for some reason. Terry gave me to understand that under no uncertain terms would Lumpy be going to Wyoming if Terry wasn’t going to be riding him and he saw no reason he should go to Wyoming to ride for any reason! I suggested he might come & crew & he stated that the only way he would be going to Wyoming was if he was riding. Well, I already knew where he stood on that point. I got it, if Nero couldn’t go to Wyoming, I’d be crewing for Max & Junior. Terry and I had differing views of the Big Horn ride. I think a man is surrounded by all that he *must* do in life and gets to focus very little on what he *wants* to do. Men are brought up to provide for their families, be the hunter & gatherer. There is no time for taking off willy nilly to drive 1000 miles and ride all day long. There is important stuff to be done, by golly! Terry even asked me, at one point, when I was going on and on about the Big Horn…again…if perhaps I hadn’t overstated my goals a bit. One thing about me, if I put my mind to something, I get possessed by it. Max and Lisa had made the offer to haul my horse & I to Wyoming to compete in the Big Horn ride, & by golly, that’s what I was going to do! So, no, I didn’t feel I had overstated my goals one bit. I finally had something meaty to sink my teeth into and prepare for. It’s been controlling every decision I’ve made for over 7 months. So, here I was, bawling on the fence holding my beloved and lame Nero at the Sunriver Ride. I was unabashed, inconsolable. I know, silly…taking things way too serious! In that moment, Terry told me I could take Lumpy to the Big Horn ride if he completed well at this one. Really? Unlike myself, Terry Ross doesn’t tend to “overstate his goals”. He’s spent a great deal of his life staring at his reality and doing what he could with it, which is quite a bit really.
Terry and Lumpy did have a great ride at Sunriver, as did Max and Junior, after suffering a sad pull at the Grizzly Mtn ride in April. So, wow, this Big Horn thing, it was really going to happen for me! I spent the next three weeks in a frenzy, getting Lumpy’s coggins and health papers together, arranging for him to be shod to his best advantage for the ride and worrying constantly if he was going to be able to handle the road trip. Lumpy has been a special horse for us, but he’s not been without his challenges. When he gets to worrying about things, he gets this wrinkle above his nose and over his eyes. He gets what I call, The Stares. He’ll stand at his fence and just stare into space. He won’t eat or attempt to take care of himself. He just stares. Lumpy hadn’t had a case of The Stares all season though. He finished the 75 at Home on the Range and also Mt Adams. He also finished the 50 at Klickitat Trek and Sunriver. Each ride that he completed, he amazed me in a different way. Lumpy was a different horse this season than he’s ever been since he started the sport.
When I started making Big Horn noises, my good friend, Patty Peck, offered to come out and crew for us. Then about a month before the ride, I received an email from Fish Creek’er, Kendall Bardsley, who asked to come & help us also. Are you kidding? Dory Jackson knows how to train a pit crew! Woop! Max and I had a first rate crew in Lisa, Patty & Kendall. Only later did I fully realize how much I loved this crew we had!
Last Tuesday, I got off work late. We were to head over to Sandy to stay the night with Max and Lisa before our 3 am departure for Wyoming. I started to get fussy, but realized this wasn’t a big deal. I had packed all of Lumpy’s gear into a large foot locker that Terry dug up for us. He labeled it “LUMPY” on top so we would know where to find Lumpy’s stuff. I had fixed up a “nighttime helmet” at Max’s suggestion so we could just change helmets when we headed out on our dark loops. This was a great idea. My own clothes & possibles were packed already as well, so off we went around 8 pm to Sandy. We put Lumpy & Junior together for the evening where Junior promptly let Lumpy know who was boss. Lumpy was actually quite tolerant of this considering he’s the top dog in our pasture and Junior is one of the bottom dogs in his. We found that rather entertaining. Perhaps Junior just saw the opportunity since Lumpy had the audacity to show up for a 100 mile ride dressed in foo foo. No, he didn’t ask for the wild colored slinky or the dreadful purple sheet I put on him. In fact, he reminded me that his brother, Stranger, also hates anything remotely foo foo. Hey, I really had a driving need to show up to the Big Horn ride with a clean and shiny horse! Lumpy wasn’t impressed.
2:30 am came REALLY early! Max, Lisa and I drug ourselves out of the rack and had the Boys loaded up and hit the road by 3:15 am. Things were really coming together so far. I decided a boring road trip with horses is an ideal road trip with horses. We stopped faithfully every 3-4 hours and unloaded the Boys. I’m sure now that Junior was back there giving Lumpy lessons in Mule Behavior 101 and Lumpy was an eager student. First time out of the rig around Heppner, OR, and Junior heads off over the mountain, towards Sandy. It’s like he knew where he was going or something! Lumpy, the eager student, proceeded to drag me off through the pucky brush after Junior. Fortunately, Max has a few moves of his own & soon reeled Junior in. Junior rolled, took care of some boy business and had a few bites of grass with Lumpy copying every move. This was great! No Stares, no stress, just a really cool grey horse who was eating like there was no tomorrow.
We hit Pasco & decided to have a Subway sandwich while Max filled the truck. Back onto 395 we went. Received a call from Lois Fox, who brought her Mocha horse and rode out to the ride with Tani Bates, Alyssa Marre and Marjan. They had left on Tuesday and wow, they were only in Ritzville about 50 miles in front of us! Lisa had taken over the back seat with her 5 books. I had gadget central set up in the front seat, playing the part of intrepid navigator. I took a Terry-esque ribbing about the amount of electronics that I drag along on road trips. Hey! I brought a couple of books too! I was shooting pictures, updating my Twitter and facebook accounts with the progress of our trip. Our last Washington stop was in Sprague, outside of Spokane, where we found plentiful grass, which the Boys ate with enthusiasm. Around 4 pm, our time, we pulled into Bill Brown’s veterinary clinic, near Missoula, Montana, where we were to spend the night and let the Boys rest. There was a small lean to shelter and a large paddock with an automatic waterer for the Boys. Lumpy was very mistrustful of the automatic waterer, but he got over it by morning. We took the Boys out for a 5 mile stroll to loosen up their traveling muscles. Both felt limber and ready for a 100 mile ride. Max nearly had a stroke when he saw how much mash I made for the Boys. He was convinced that Junior was going to blow up before we ever hit the Wyoming state line! Lumpy though…he never quit eating, finishing bowl after bowl of mash all weekend long. I was still marveling at just how lucky a girl I was to get to participate in this Epic Adventure with Max and Lisa! Patty & Kendall caught up with us in Missoula and we were all ready to hit the road again by 6:30 the next morning. This was beginning to feel real for me!
Lumpy looks darling in his “clothes”, but Max finally shamed me into taking them off because Lumpy looked so humiliated. 😉
Darlene & Lumpy do Big Horn 2010, our Epic Adventure, part II
Part II, The road trip continues…
As we departed from Missoula with our crew following behind us, the reality of my undertaking was grabbing hold of my conscience. This was a 1000 mile road trip to ride 100 miles! There wasn’t any room for mistakes as far as I was concerned. I’d been going over this ride in my head for months. Max could recall the trail with alarming clarity. We went over certain portions over and over. His main concern, however, was leaving Jack Creek for the second time. Would they mark it properly this time? Would there be glow sticks? One thing that was nagging at me the entire way was *the* one nagging thing…Max and I had trained for this ride together. Granted, much of that time I had been riding Nero. But we had trained, planned and put together a strategy. Any little thing could unravel the strategy. I was very thankful for Lisa at this point because she let me vent and offered valuable advice, which was not to put too much stock into “having to ride someone else’s ride”. Max assured me that we had a plan and as long as we didn’t deviate for any reason other than that which we had no control over, we were going to do just fine…and we did.
We arrived in Shell, Wyoming around 3:30 pm on Thursday. As we sat in a line of vehicles, waiting for road construction crews, Max pointed out the local flora & fauna, including the *giant* ridge of mountains in front of us. For the first time in 15 years of riding endurance, I felt butterflies in my stomach! I sat in the truck the remainder of the trip wondering if Terry had been right. Maybe I HAD overstated my goals! What if Lumpy wasn’t up to it? What if this, what if that?? Max finally had to ask me to pipe down with all that stuff. He assured me that we were going to do just fine. No matter though, I had the butterflies right up until we started the ride at 4 am on Saturday.
Ridecamp was located at Mel & Sharon Picht’s place just outside of town. Great people. Mel has fixed up their garage with a shower and flushing toilet, which was appreciated by many! Both Mel & Sharon made several rounds through camp making sure everyone was comfortable and had all they needed in terms of amenities.
It was SO warm out! I had been watching the weather religiously, as if that would make it ideal in some way, and it had said mid 80’s with a 20% chance of showers. YEA RIGHT!! It was over 90 and we were on this little dusty patch of ground covered in pickers! So much for sandals! Ona Lawrence, Queen of the Bad Girls, was there and came over with a lawn mower & promptly mowed all the little pickers away from our camp spot. Patty & Kendall set their tents up on Mel & Sharon’s patio, away from the pickers and ants. They were really happy until they got virtually surrounded by riders getting their rigs as close to being inside the house as they could get! It all worked out fine that way.
We let the boys just rest the remainder of Thursday, with Patty & Kendall taking them for a long walk down the road. We discovered in Missoula that the mosquitos in the mountains had a particular love for Lumpy and virtually no love for Junior. How fair is that? Lumpy practically begged to have his sheet on at dusk to keep the little buggers at bay. So glad we brought a full bottle of bug juice!
Thursday night was festive in our camp. There was a strong contingent of NW riders at the Big Horn this year, including Pat Murray, Lois Fox, Layne Simmons, Tani Bates, Tom Noll and of course Max and myself as riders. Our crews were also full of NW riders. It was so great to see Ona & Dale Lawrence after a few years of missing them. They had come from Minnesota for Ona to have a Bad Girl reunion. And a reunion it was! After a dinner of Chuck Burgers and Lois’ homemade potato salad, Lois and Ona conducted a ceremony of sorts, recognizing the Bad Girls in attendance, past, present, & wannabes. Guess which group I ended up in! We were given Bad Girl attire, made up of tiaras and garters. We were to wear these during the ride on Saturday to signify our “Badness”. Gulp! I’ve always been just too naughty to be a Bad Girl! Those are such big shoes to fill! Lois came over to our camp on Friday and made sure that Max and I had properly affixed our tiaras onto our helmets. Guess this was really gonna happen! I got to be a Bad Girl for a Day! I did my best to make the team proud. 😉
Early Friday dawned with Max and I deciding to take the Boys for a short ride. Since there weren’t any markings of any use (we did find a bunch of the same sort of orange flags on wires that said, “Buried Cable” on them.) We went up the road to the pavement one direction and then down the road to the pavement the other direction. This entire time I was worrying about those shoes that Leanne had put on Lumpy. She said this was a great way to go, but the shoes were *so* light that they only had about 100 miles on them. Terry was so concerned about this that he refused to go ride with me the weekend before our trip because he didn’t want to bend Lumpy’s shoes? WTH? Really? Even though I knew better, this was enough to give me a bad dream or two during the course of the following week and certainly some hairy thoughts as we were trotting down that gravel road! In fact, I was so concerned with getting jinxed somehow that I didn’t even look at Lumpy’s shoes the entire 100 mile ride! I know! Bad! But if he’d lost a shoe, I figured I’d packed along 3 easyboots. Things would be alright.
We hung around ridecamp the rest of the day, expecting riders to be showing up in droves, like they do here in the NW, but it was more like a trickle. Lisa decided we should walk down the road to a creek that looked promising and take a swim. I think that girl would swim in a mud puddle if it was deep enough & didn’t have a gooey bottom! 😉 That water was COLD!! Lisa was playing in the water and having a good time, so it was worth the hike. I dipped in once & stood there with my teeth chattering! While we were cooling off in the creek we saw a few rigs headed towards ridecamp and then a vet’s truck! So, we dried off & hiked back to camp. Vetting in didn’t start until after 5 pm! I had began to wonder if a vet was going to show up at all! Wouldn’t have mattered because ride management didn’t show up with our registration stuff until after 4 pm anyhow. This I heard, was because ride management was out marking the trail! Hmmm, out marking a hundred mile loop the day before the 100? Seems like it would have been more efficient to mark as much trail as possible before this point, but I had blind faith in ride management because I knew they wanted this particular ride to be a success. They had made that abundantly clear. I was chuckling with some of the other NW riders about how there would be a small riot if things didn’t get rolling at some of our rides until after 5 pm. Ok, probably not, but I was surprised at the relaxed atmosphere and truthfully, it helped me out tremendously. What I learned here is that pre-registration wasn’t really that big of a bonus. The RM had a handful of pre-regisrations and they took about as long to process as the ones done right there. They hadn’t fixed up any sort of packet or filled out our vet cards in advance. That’s ok though, it had given me a sense of, “This is really going to happen” when I had sent off my entry two weeks before the ride. Registration done, we went to vet our horses in. By this time there were 3 vets out processing horses.
Vetting in with Max and Junior is always entertaining for one big reason. Junior is a minor celebrity wherever he goes. People are just naturally enamored with an ill mannered mule with a pretty paint job! People oooh and awww over Junior to a point that it becomes quite humorous. I think he likes it because he can then drag Max off to eat a weed or something, just to demonstrate who he thinks is in charge of the relationship between he and Max. On this day, however, he and Lumpy stood quietly waiting their turn. I know lots of people take one look at Junior and then actually have the audacity to ask Max if that mule can do a hundred miles being that fat! Really? Just watch him. I’ve watched that mule complete many 100’s looking more portly than this! It’s an optical illusion folks! Junior is TUFF. He will just keep chugging along where mere horses have to just stop and rest. Junior does seem to have a philosophy about life though and he really tries to live on his own terms. This really works for him because Max rarely gets mad at him & does his best to accommodate Junior’s aspirations in life, which seems to include finding the most direct route back to Sandy, OR on some days. Both horse and mule vetted in fantastic, Lumpy complete with his number done in pink…mostly because that’s what the vet put on him and secondly because I knew it would make his dad cringe & because the last time Lumpy wore pink, he brought home a high vet score with one certain pink helmet wearing rider on top. It seemed like good mojo.
The Boys went back to their pens where I gave them what had to have been their 4th pan of mash for the day. Max was beginning to wonder if he’d packed enough beet pulp and he was convinced I was trying to blow up his mule, via beet pulp overload! These Boys ate every single bite of mash put in front of them all week long, which can be unusual for both of them! Kendall braided up Lumpy’s mane to help him disperse heat, and well, it looked nice too.
We all cleaned up a bit and headed on over to the ride meeting, which was held about 5 miles away at the Shell Grange hall. It was mighty cozy in Patty’s little VW Jetta, but we liked it that way. There was a local band playing that had the grace to play Johnny Cash as I entered the building. That was cool! I wonder how they knew that Johnny Cash is my favorite in the entire world! There was one older gal in there raising a fuss, “Turn that damn music down! How can a person hold a conversation in here with all that loud music playing?!” I turned to her & said she could always go outside, it was cooler out there anyways. She wasn’t impressed with my suggestion. We did end up going outside however, the music was just perfect out there and so was the weather. Max was re-connecting with friends he’d made at the last Big Horn he did. There was much discussion about whether the trail was actually going to be marked this time. What?? Of course the trail is going to be marked, it’s an endurance ride for heaven’s sake! Everyone knows the average endurance rider couldn’t find their way out of a paper bag without some pink & white on the right! Everyone knows that! And there was a big fiasco in ’06 because of scant markings, so of course the trail is going to be marked! They would have done everything possible to prevent another fiasco, I’m sure of it.
Dinner was pretty good and we got to see many riders we hadn’t seen in ages, including Kevin Myers and Rusty Toth. I’ll tell ya, no one delivers a better hug than Kevin. He can make you feel like you’re the only person in the room he came to see. That’s a gift. As we waited in the dinner line, we met Dr. Quentin Llop, who was the treatment vet, and we said hello to Laura Hayes and many other riders, both familiar and not so familiar.
After eating outside under a wonderful old tree, our group returned inside for the RM to start the ride meeting. She had been out marking trail all day long and gave us a description of what we would see. I asked her how far it was between the vet checks and she thought a minute and said, “Well, it’s about 24 miles to the first VC.” “24”, I repeat back to her? “Well, around 18,” she says. What? So I let her finish her descriptions and ask her again, “So how far is it to the first VC?” She answered, “Well, it’s somewhere around 16-20 miles”. WHAT?? Wait a minute, you’re messin’ up my notes here! She goes on to finish up the ride meeting. Someone asked how the trail was going to be marked. She holds up a pink ribbon and a small square flag marked “Big Horn 100″ attached to an 18” wire that goes into the ground. “There will be these flags on the trail with ribbon just like this”, holding up the pink ribbon, “only in orange” Flashbacks is what I’m having now! It’s ok, Max will be with us and he has done the trail, I’m going to be ok, I am! She goes on to explain, when asked, that the last 30 miles isn’t quite marked yet because they’re foregoing ribbon to hang up nifty little red flashers, like the one she’s holding up. “See?” I say to Max, “flashers!”. “Uh Huh, we’ll see” is all he’ll say back to me. ‘Scuse me? She then goes on and introduces the vets where the head vet announces the pulse criteria is 68. WHAT?? Man, I don’t think I’ve ever ridden under a 68 pulse, ever! I guess that shows how young I really am in this sport…either that or the NW is just adamant about using the 60 pulse, with an occasional 64. Ok, we can deal with that, no problem. After they release us, I get up and try to the RM’s undivided attention for a minute. “Sorry to be a pest, but exactly how far do you think it is between VC’s?” She thinks a bit and then pulls this outta her hat, “Somewhere between 16 and 24 miles to the first VC, about 14 to the next VC, approximately 20 to the next VC, I think around 14 around back to Jack Creek and then 25 in.” I repeat back to her and now she’s getting a little annoyed with the blonde from Washington State who has the unmitigated gall to ride a horse named, Lumpy and ask far too many questions! “Something like that,” she says and dismissed me and the rest of the class.
We head back to camp, make last minute preparations and get in bed. Visions of little red flashers in my mind, I roll around, toss & turn and barely sleep a wink the entire night. I got up 10 minutes before the 2 am alarm went off & went out to feed the Boys. They eat eagerly, again…I electrolyte them and go inside to have some breakfast and get dressed. Max is stirring by this time and we make a little small talk as we get ready. My heart is beating so fast as I go out to saddle up Lumpy that I have to breathe deeply so I don’t set him off. This is REALLY happening!
Darlene & Lumpy do Big Horn 2010, our Epic Adventure, part III
Darlene & Lumpy do Big Horn 2010, our Epic Adventure, part III
The Ride Begins!
After having a good breakfast of Big Horn Wheaties, Shagnasty yogurt and a bottle of water, I went outside to saddle up Lumpy. It was still way early, like 3:15 in the morning. The Boys, however, were anticipating us with bright expectant eyes. Max made an interesting observation right then. He said you could tell this was a camp full of 100 milers because there wasn’t this tension filled atmosphere that we see at most rides, where horses start whinnying the moment a person stirs. There was an erie calm in the dark of the early morning. We turned on the trailer lights (yay for modern technology!) and pulled out the gear we had carefully prepared the day before. I could see a little red flasher blinking away off in the distance, the direction that the ride started. Lumpy was calm and collected, standing quietly when I got up on him. This is a different Lumpy than can start some rides, where he makes Terry do a one rein stop with his nose at his shoulder for a minute before he can even put a foot in his stirrup. I settled in my saddle…I love my saddle and it has never been more comfortable and secure than it felt at that moment. Riders would trot by us, warming up their horses, headlamps lit up bouncing along. There were some glowsticks cracked as well. I joked with Max about us needing our night time helmets. He scoffed at me for that. The calm that was fallen over camp as we saddled our ponies was replaced by the anticipatory tension that is present at the start of most rides. There was a mule braying pitifully beside his trailer. His pal was saddled up to carry Marirose Six through the ride that day. Max watches that particular mule very closely because she had won and taken the best condition at this ride in a previous year. Riding with Max can be like riding with a junior rider at times. He is acutely aware of any and all mules on the endurance circuit and if one is at a ride he’s at, he’s well aware of where that mule is in the pack and he seems to always be surmising if he can catch said mule or not. He had no aspirations of catching the one and only Lucky Six Nellie, ridden by Marirose Six on this day. The ride management gave us a controlled start, bringing us at a nice walk for about 3/4 of a mile down the road to the turn into the desert and on our way. As soon as they turned us loose, I hear this voice screeching, “Who has that light on, turn that light off!!” It sounded eerily like the same cranky voice going off about the music the night before! She had her horse going sideways in front of me, which Lumpy wasn’t liking at all. I barked at her, I admit I did…”Hey, try going forward and quit looking backwards, your horse will be just fine!” I tried to say it nicely, honest I did! The horses were all moving forward nicely except for this one. This gal was just having a “fitlet” about someone having their headlamp on. I know this is a polarizing subject, but people with their headlamps on honestly do not bother me and my horse just wanted to go forward. I checked for Max, who was right at Lumpy’s right flank. I urged him to get in front and just set a pace, but he informed me that he had his goggles on & couldn’t see a damn thing! Ok then…I can do this! I set Lumpy in what must have been about a 7 mph trot. I couldn’t tell because it was dark & we were just going from flasher to flasher. We were in a cluster of horses, but both Lumpy & Junior were trotting along calmly, happy to do whatever we asked. Lumpy was in his bit (S hackamore really), but not pulling on me, not tossing his head and not demanding I let him drive, like I’ve seen him do with Terry from time to time. The trail was marked just beautifully at this point, a whole 3 miles into the ride! A good omen as far as I was concerned! We got passed by a few riders, Marirose Six & Nellie, among them. Max conceded to riding the 2nd place mule with grace at this point. Soon it was him and I out there trotting softly over the desert, which strongly resembled the desert in and around Mountain Home, ID, where I had grown up racing around the deserts on my ponies. One noticeable exception to the landscape was that there aren’t any badger holes! The badgers must prefer Idaho winters to Wyoming winters and I think I can relate to that a little! Soon we heard a familiar voice behind us and Max was happy to see that Tom Noll and Frank had come in behind us. Frank was in fine form, with his head high in the air, sniffing to see how many more horses he had to pass before he could be sure he was on his was on his way to a 2nd Big Horn win. I think that Frank and Tom had differing opinions of how this day would end for them, but at this point, Frank was pretty sure he was here to win and show the world how an old 20 something horse can get this job done with flair. He never looked much different than that to me all day long. Frank is a handful of a horse with a clear disdain for anything named “bit” or “hackamore”. He has his own ideas of how a ride should be done and he’s had the privilege of having a dad who has indulged him for a long time. It is a marriage that seems to work. It was a cool thing to get to share the trail with a horse who started his 100 mile career on this trail and would be finishing his 100 mile career on the same trail. I don’t think there was ever any question as to whether Frank would finish or not. That’s a cool thing from a rider’s perspective. I really admire that horse’s tenacity, he’s an enigma.
Soon enough we were emerging from a moonlike desert landscape through several creek crossings, which were refreshing in what was promising to be a warm day down there. We sponged the Boys and let them eat a bite or 3 of grass, and let them move on. Neither horse, nor mule had to be urged along. It was if they too had waited all year for this moment and it was breathtaking. Lumpy had to have been channeling his friend, Nero, left at home, because he was such a delight to me, giving me confidence that he was on his A Game and would not let me down on this day. We cleared the last creek crossing down on the flats and hit a really nice jeep road that came alongside a man made trout pond at what appeared to be one of those fancy Wyoming “ranches” where people with lots more money than me, pay a ton to come and catch a Wyoming trout and go hunt deer and elk, living the Wyoming life for a week. That gave Max and I a chuckle for quite awhile. We turned away from the ranch, and then saw our head vet and the RM’s daughter, conducting a trot by of sorts. We were about 6 or 7 miles into the ride and the first of MANY climbs was about to commence for us! Lumpy took the right turn and hit a stride that made me breathless with delight. I LOVE THIS HORSE and I’M DOING THE BIG HORN ENDURANCE RIDE!! Max just laughed at me, knowingly. I think he only brought me along for some comic relief. By this time, Tom and Frank had dropped back a bit. I know that Tom knew what was in front of us and wanted to maximize on Frank’s strengths. Lumpy and Junior hit about a 6 mph jog going up this long hill and even dropped to a walk when the going got steep and rocky. It was in one of those places where we had swung off our ponies to do a downhill on foot that we were passed by a contingent of Really Bad Girls, being led by the indomitable Ona Lawrence on her Fabulous Fin horse. Moods were light and we exchanged pleasantries with Baddest Girls, Ona, Pat Murray, Lois Fox and Layne Simmons. Their horses looked fresh and happy. The trip trapped on up the hill, soon disappearing from view. Junior was unconcerned, so Lumpy decided it wasn’t such a big deal either, which was a relief to me! Oh wow, the crest of this first climb brought a view of the valley and the trout pond we had just passed through! I was speechless, which had to have been a relief to Max, so soon in our day. One of the many photo ops that I took. I had to comment that my camera was never going to fully appreciate the vistas I took in that day. It was gosh danged gorgeous an here I was on a fine horse, in fine company, on a really fine day for riding! Who could ask for better? The first 55 miler caught us on this climb an stuck with us for awhile. She was a local, who only does a ride or two a year. She was riding a very nice looking Morab mare who brought memories of my FeatherB to mind. My tough little mare who could. Our trail markings were plentiful, the grass even more so and the views were to die for. A late spring did wonders for our ride. Every time our ponies slowed from a jog to a walk, their heads were in the grass, taking in as much as they could. I was really glad I had decided to start Lumpy in his hackamore, rather than his bit. It made him happy. The trail went up up up, rolling along nicely. The Boys didn’t care. Soon, our GPS’s read 18 miles (hmmm, VC one NOT at 16 miles!) and we decided that even though we weren’t at a water spot, we would give the Boys a spot of electrolytes. This threw them off their grass eating for all of a half mile or so, when Junior couldn’t stand it any longer and began eating again. Lumpy followed suit, glaring at me balefully, for ruining his morning snack time. We crested another hill and headed down into a beautiful little valley that had flowers all over and a nice spring flowing through it. Lumpy drank like crazy! Happy me!! Junior even wetted his lips, disregarding that his general rule is to not drink for 37 miles. Both ate some of the lush grass and off we went. We momentarily caught those Bad Girls and watched them trot off again. Tom and Frank soon caught up with us again and we shared a few more good miles together. Two guys both named, Bill, also caught up and we rode together for quite awhile. One Bill had mules so he and Max had a few things to chat about. The other Bill boarded his horse at Kevin & Rusty’s place in Scottsdale. It was nice getting to meet new people and compare notes on life. We went through 3 HUGE canyons, down on foot, which Lumpy loved, and walking up the other side. On the upside of one of these canyons, we again caught the BG’s, with Layne bringing up the rear. She was on her feet, helping out her horse by tailing up the hill. Max yelled at her to watch that stuff when riding with Bad Girls, cause they tend to take off at the trot when you’re at your most vulnerable. No sooner than the words were out of his mouth, than they did just that! We nearly fell off our horses in something akin to fear and amazement, while watching Layne bobbing along behind her horse, arm flailing, legs taking these enormous strides, which Max said could spell the beginning of the end for a tailer…to me she looked like a pinwheel caught in her horse’s tail. If she had let go she would have done a colossal flying face plant! But no, the lead horse slowed to a walk near the top and Layne was able to recover herself gracefully. Score one for Layne! All Max could say was, “Told ya to watch for those Bad Girls!”. We didn’t see the BG’s again til our first VC at 28 miles. Yup, nearly 30 miles (and could have been with the margin of error that can be accounted for in our wrist worn GPS’s). The boy had had a nice lope on a long and windy road, with the Two Bills coming along with us, and then one last climb into our VC. The Boys came in down to pulse criteria. According to my heart rate monitor, Lumpy was at 60 coming in and was at a 48 by the time we got to the vet. Yayy!! There was our crew, all smiles, outfitted with coolers and wet oats for the Boys. They took over and for the second time in my life (The first was at the Arabian Nights 100 mile Ride in ’05, riding Sue, who belongs to Ron Sproat) I got totally pampered in a vet check. Patty took over Lumpy, taking off his boot and washing them, hand feeding the Boy and just taking really good care of him! Lisa had sandwiches ready, filled our water bottles, and kept us hydrated while there. Kendall? She had the special pleasure of handling Junior in a vet check. Junior was on his A Game though and didn’t really put Kendall through too much trauma. I figured he was saving himself for later so he could catch Kendall in a weak moment. It never happened!
We had an hour hold and when it was finished we got up on the Boys and left the VC like there was a fire under our tails. Lumpy loves this and leaped out there and just ate up the trail for a good mile with Junior matching him stride for stride. I cannot properly articulate how good it feels to ride a horse who is as eager as I am to attack the trail and see what’s around the next bend! The Boys settled into a nice 8.5 mph trot and just ate up the trail for several miles. Our crew was waiting at the top of one of the terrific climbs and took some really nice pictures of us coming up out of the valley and heading down into the next one. It was so cool to get some hoorahs from them as we went by. I’M DOING THE BIG HORN RIDE!! That’s all I could keep telling myself, over and over. We did many miles of downhill on our feet, with our Boys jogging quietly at our sides, then Max would tail up the next incline and Lumpy would implore me to do the same. Sorry Dude, I do the downhill, you do the uphill. He wasn’t impressed by my logic, but I let him stop and eat frequently so he didn’t hold it against me. We came to the top of this particularly huge hill and Max pointed down to the bottom, “See those ski runs down there, that’s our next vet check,” What? Already? Wow…it was wayyyyy down there though and still took quite awhile to get there. I will never forget the amount of wildflowers on this ride. They were everywhere and they were beautiful. Some clouds were rolling around and as we came into our 2nd VC, it began to rain a little. Patty asked us if we had gotten rained on, “Nope!” we said happily. Well, our luck was through, it rained through most of the VC and lightened up as we left. There had been a terrific little thunder storm that had passed through before we got there though and the girls assured us we might get wet, so they would get back to basecamp and get us some dry clothes in case we got wet. Bah…we’ll be fine, I thought to myself. Everything is going to be ok. This is my mantra, by the way. I can get through all of life’s trials if I just repeat to myself, Everything is going to be ok, this is temporary. I told myself that A LOT during that *really long loop*! The earlier rain had loosened up the trails and we had to go very carefully in places because it had gotten slick and you could see the slip marks of the horses gone before us. I know that these sorts of slips can tear suspensory ligaments, and other important structures that Lumpy would need to finish this ride, so we took it really carefully. Soon enough, it began to rain lightly. We had gotten off and were jogging, with Max explaining that this was a long downhill into the Shell Ranger Station. Thunder and lightening crackled around us and I was thankful for having a cover of trees, meaning NOT being the tallest thing on the landscape. That is, until Max told me about being out on a back country trip with other riders and watching as lightening literally blew up a tree in front of them. Wow, thanks Max! I needed that visual! We jogged on into the bottom, with the rain getting heavier. I was thinking, gee, that wool seat saver of mine is going to feel really good when I finally get back in the saddle. Ack! We caught up Scott Sansome and Dorothy Sue Phillips, who’s voice had a familiar ring (ring?) to it. They were all walking with their horses slipping a little, like ours. We jogged on by them and hit a single track trail. Any thought of treading lightly to keep my feet somewhat dry in my lightweight Asics was dashed when my feet became instantly soggy going through the tallish grass. So much for that! We hit the bottom, got back on, and yea, my trusty seat saver was REALLY squishy by this time. Double Ack…oh well, things warmed up quickly and we headed up the next hill, in the rain. It was a mixed granite base so we could get a nice jog on. We hit a single track trail that cut off a switchback. I suggested to Max that we hold up under a tree for a bit to let the rain & thunder go by. Nope, not stopping! I had vetoed us slowing down way earlier in the first 5 miles of the ride and now it was Max’s turn to return the favor. We popped up onto a road and the first thing we saw was a way baby moose. So cute! Except that I know instinctually that where there is a baby moose, generally a mama moose can be found, and yup! There she was lurking in the brush off the side of the road. She came up onto the road, gave Max and I a hard look, and decided to take off down the road, baby moose in tow. She took off one direction and we turned in another, heading up another long climb. It rained harder, the thunder boomed closer and we pressed on, keeping the Boys moving before the trails became a complete quagmire. It was slow going up that hill, but near the top, behind this fantastic huge rock facing, the sun started a battle to shine, eventually winning out over the thunder and rain. We came out of a single track trail at a careful jog, passing through a gate, completely amazed at the view. No riders in front of or behind us as far as the eye could see. We figured we were solidly in the middle of the pack by this time. The Boys loved all the grass on these trails. I think there was green grass on over 95% of the trail! The Boys jogged and munched their way across a large mountain meadow. Max figured we were less than 5 miles out of the VC at this point which had us pretty happy, because it meant that this loop was a little short after having the first loop be way long, the second be right on and now this. We jogged our way up a long road, eyeing a truck parked at the top. It was the crew chief for a set of riders behind us. We joked with him about meeting us out there for comfort. He offered us a shot of anything he had, which we happily took him up on. Some sort of vanilla schnapps which he cracked open just for us really hit the spot! Max said his knees immediately went to jello, so figured he might have been a little dehydrated. Man, that stuff tasted good! We were concerned about our crew getting to this VC because we knew the roads were going to be hairy traveling and we had good cause. Patty drives a VW Jetta. We came around the bend to the VC and nope, no crew! That turned out ok, because Layne Simmon’s crew was there and had plenty for all the BG’s & me too. We ate, drank, had blankies for the Boys and plenty of mash for them, which they ate eagerly. No time to be picky! About the time we settled in after a really great vet exam for the Boys, Max says, “Hey, isn’t that Kendall?” and sure ’nuff, coming down the hill we’d just descended, comes our crew! The Jetta was parked on top with our gear in it! Kendall turned on all the charm she has and one of the other crew dudes cleared out his truck and went off to get our gear. This only took about 5 minutes total since they were about 1/2 mile from the VC. The story from Patty and Lisa was that at the bottom of the climb, near the Shell Ranger Station, they ran into a good ole Wyoming Boy, who claimed he’d been 4 wheelin’ in these parts for over 20 years and there was NO WAY Patty was going to get “that thing”, referring to her cute lil Jetta, up THAT hill. Patty said thank you kindly, closed the door and FLOORED IT! She made it all the way to the top, with Lisa considering the best possible escape route from the backseat if necessary. At the top they thought twice about taking the Jetta on down into the VC, thinking they *might* not get back out again, hence Kendall’s jogging in. They got the gear there, the weather cleared, making them decide to go back up for the Jetta and finish waiting for us to return to Jack Creek for our 4th VC.
Darlene & Lumpy do Big Horn 2010, our Epic Adventure, part IV. The Final Installment!
Darlene & Lumpy do Big Horn 2010, our Epic Adventure, part IV
Our previous two vet checks had been hour holds. At that wonderful ride meeting, I had been given another reason to gape in awe when the RM said that we would have an “option” at this vet check. We could take an hour hold before the Shagnasty, and do a trot by for VC 4, OR we could go through VC 3 w/a trot by and take the hour hold at VC4, OR, we could take a half hour on each end. I admit, from an ride manager’s perspective, this seemed like a situation that was potentially going to cause ride management a ton of grief if they didn’t have someone out there, like say…Anna Sampson, who could keep track of who was doing what. But I imagined that Anna would have had a fit if she was told what we were going to be deciding for ourselves. Max and I decided immediately that we were giving our Boys the half hr on each end. This seemed to be in the best interest of our Boys. Either of the other two ways was going to give them a loooong ways between breaks. And so we took our half hour hold, ate a sammich and had our water bottles filled and were generally well taken care of by Team Bad Girls. Thank you!! We left Jack Creek at the canter, once again, with the boys feeling fresh. The rain had stopped and even though every single part of us was damp, the Boys were dry and warm, and eager to find more green grass. We started to climb what I learned was the Shagnasty and Boulder Basin. A loooong and steady climb up trail that Max had navigated in the reverse direction, in the complete dark, back in ’06. He was reliving much of that loop as we went, marveling at how pretty it was in the daylight! We hit Boulder Basin, and continued to climb and climb. By this time, when Max said, “See the top of that mtn over there, we’ll go right through that spot a little to the right of the saddle, by that big rock,”…Really? Another big climb over another HUGE mountain? Why isn’t Lumpy doggin’ on me yet? Why hasn’t he passed a single bowl of wet oats or patch of green grass? Why isn’t he moping about being the one tagged for this ride, cursing Nero’s name under his breath? How can he be so fresh after 60 miles of the toughest terrain we’ve ever ridden through? Why am I questioning this? Oh crumb, the mosquitoes are out again, little bastards! I was swatting and batting them off of Lumpy as we climbed up the Shagnasty because I felt he might appreciate it in some horse way. I hope he did anyhow.
As we neared the top of this slow climb, with Max recalling his friend, Tracy Blue, getting a nasty blow to the face by low hanging branches they couldn’t see back in ’06. We climbed on, slow and steady. At the top, the trail curved and we could see the Adelaide lakes far below us. “That’s where we’re going!” Max told me. Wow, that’s a LONG ways down, I thought, and off I jogged with Lumpy jogging easily behind me, stopping to snatch mouthfuls of grass as we went. Eventually it leveled out and what seemed like hours later we came to a water crossing that was about 2′ deep and you could see baby trout swimming around! Max recalled stopping near here and letting the horses graze for about a half hour on his last trip through this piece of wilderness. Today it was beautiful, grassy and the Boys took a long drink out of the clear water before pressing on to the Lakes. As we came into the bottoms near Adelaide Lake, Lumpy just threw his head up, and took off at this amazing canter! He felt so free and happy at that moment that I just about cried. Ok, I did cry a little. That was a banner moment in my life. I was riding an incredible horse, through incredible country and I had never been anywhere near this free and happy inside my heart. I’ll always be thankful to the Incredible Lumpy for that moment. Max and Junior kept time behind us, never complaining, never chastising and always encouraging. Soon enough we began to climb out of the lake bottom and begin an ascent that would bring us back to Jack Creek…just over this mountain we’re about to go over, and then down the other side, and maybe over one more little “hill”…during this climb Tom Noll and Dorothy Sue’s party caught up with us again, passing us by with a cheery hello & see ya later. It was good to see Frank looking like he was getting through this, his last 100 miler, in fine form. About a mile or so later, we came around a bend, doing about a 7 mph jog, when we see their party of riders stopped & grazing while one of the riders took a “pit stop”. Frank looked longingly at Junior as we jogged on by. We figured we’d see them again before this climb was over. Dorothy Sue made some comment about hoping it wouldn’t rain in earnest again, making Max laugh and tell her, “You’re gonna get wet Dorothy Sue!” As we crested that climb it did rain, and it did sleet and hail…some more. My wonderfully dry shirt and jacket that I’d changed into prior to starting out on this wonderful loop were soon soaking wet. This confirmed without a doubt that the bright green/yellow jacket I’d so proudly paid $13 for at the Bi-Mart store, thinking it would be a nice waterproof addition to Nero’s ensemble, was sadly, not one bit waterproof, or even water resistant, not even a little. Dorothy trotted by Lumpy and I, taking a position directly in front of us. Earlier I had mentioned to Max that it gave me great comfort having so many people who had finished this ride, within the time limit no less, were so close around us! But her horse soon slowed up, trying to get his face out of the wind and rain. Lumpy wasn’t ready to slow yet, so I dodged to the left and kicked him on by her, picking up a fast lope, finishing off the hill with a vengeance. Looking over my shoulder, I saw Max and Junior right at our flank. All I wanted to do was get this loop finished and get these boys under dry blankets! We’re loping along with Lumpy trying to get his face somehow out of the sleet and rain that was like a wall in our faces. Quickly, I realized we were on a road that Max had pointed out out to me much earlier as the one we’d be coming down into VC4!! I didn’t have to urge Lumpy on one bit, he saw the road for what it was and came roaring into the VC, quickly meeting the pulse criteria with a 60 pulse.
As I had expected, we got questioned thoroughly as to whether we had been seen by a vet on our first trip through the VC and we got questioned a few times as to what we had decided on our last visit to this VC. Time and again, we said we had chosen the half hour on each end. It was raining steadily, but our A Team crew had brought dry socks, boots and pants for me! Oh dang, I’d never been so happy to see dry clothes in my life! I peeled off the wet ones in the front seat of Patty’s car and drug the dry ones on, with Patty telling us it hadn’t rained in Shell and was easily 20-30 degrees warmer down there. Lisa gave up her beautiful rain proof jacket, mostly because I looked so pitiful, I think. I can’t say I’d have been as generous, but I was SO thankful to her at that moment! The vets didn’t want us to tary here, potentially letting our horses cramp up, so up we climbed onto our Brave Boys, and off we went, dark helmets securely in place, with fresh batteries in my bag, just in case. I was crowing to Max about how great the trail had been marked to this point. We had done plenty of walking by this time, both on and off the Boys, so Max’s hip was giving him fits. He was off again, trailing Junior down a long slippery slope, reminding me that we still had somewhere near 25 miles left in this ride and it wasn’t dark yet, but would soon be. It was after 7 pm and the rain was lightening up steadily. On and on we trudged to the bottom of a very long and slippery hill. We saw the Bad Girls, way out in front of us, climbing a side hill, getting ever closer to being out of the mountains and back into the Badlands. That was a long ways off though. More walking. At the top the trail went back down, but we saw that it had dried out enough to get on and do some trotting. I had felt a sense of urgency all day, wanting to get as much trail done in the daylight as possible. We had made several decisions based on this urgency. We had left people we would have been happy to spend a pleasant day with and we had trotted some downhill that neither of us would ordinarily go so fast on. Max had held a constant skepticism about whether the trail would be properly marked once we hit the dark section and he didn’t want to be caught somewhere totally unfamiliar. I scoffed at him again, pointing out how great the marking had been! They were on top of things! Really! We descended into this gorgeous little valley where cattle were grazing. There was a darling little cabin near some pens and while we were marveling at seeing cars coming from the Jack Creek road, Max suddenly stopped and said, “There’s no hoofprints!” EEK!! We immediately began backtracking and quickly found where we had gone wrong. There was a pitiful orange flag ground into the mud and off in some tall grass, blinking merrily, even though it was still too light to really see it well, was a red flasher on a stick! “Max! Look, I told you!” I yelled as I headed up the hill, seeing another flasher at the top of the hill. Max just grunted, happy to concede the point to me. I think he was in too much pain to put up too much of a fight, but I know he might have been thinking we had dodged the Big Horn Bullet and “everything was going to be ok”! We started another climb where we could see the slip marks of the horses in front of us, their feet going this way and that. We took extra care going up this gooey black clay stuff. We came to the top and the middle of the road was just nasty. I tried popping up on the side to see if the footing was better and to check for badger or prairie dog holes. Nothing! It was clear sailing as far as the eye could see….for now. Max had to drag Junior up over that bank because Junior didn’t trust the Arab to get him to any place safe in this muck. Max mentioned that his boots each felt like they weighed 20 lbs. He was happy to get on Junior and do some trotting. A little later, with the sun setting behind some low clouds we passed through a gate and were amazed to see that the ground was all but dry here. Up ahead of us was a grey horse with a rider who looked suspiciously like Lois Fox! As we came up on her, I said, “Hey Lois, how ya doin?” “Not so good,” she replied. She told us that Mocha was acting colicky, pawing the ground and trying to lay down. She had urged her Bad Girl friends to go on and not hold up on her account after awhile. We walked along with her for a bit, taking note of Mocha’s behavior. When we stopped for a moment to discuss our next course of action, Lumpy took the opportunity to eat more grass, as did Junior, but Mocha just pawed the ground impatiently. Lois loves her critters more than just about anyone I know and I could tell this was really taking a toll on her. My heart went out out to her because I knew as well as she did that we were WAY OUT IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE, WYOMING! Max gave Mocha a tube of some good stuff and Lois urged us to go on. I told her we’d try to get someone sent out to help her. Little did I know what was in front of us when I said that. We jogged on in the waning daylight. Soon we caught up with Ona, Pat Murray and Layne. Pat sent Ona on with us after a brief discussion. Pat wasn’t feeling too hot, so she and Layne had decided to just keep going but not at a hard trot. Riding with Ona was nice. I felt secure riding with two people who had done the ride before, because we very quickly realized….um, there’s NO MORE FLASHERS on this trail and the only ribbons were ones thrown in the trail, Teeteresque like…only the Teeters put ribbons on the sagebrush and throw glowsticks on the ground, which is actually quite handy. This method was anything but handy. Daylight is barely there now and we go carefully along watching closely for footprints and the VERY occasional flag ground into the dirt. We saw a headlamp, like a giant beacon in the quickly approaching dark, swinging to and fro. Max commented that it appeared that someone was looking for the trail? He gave me a pointed look. Ok, you were right!! Dang I’m glad you’re along for this ride! As we approached the riders, we saw that it was Tani Bates on her Marjan horse, with Clydea Hastie, indeed looking for the trail. Tani was thinking she wasn’t on the right trail and had begun to to backtrack her way down the hill. This was understandable because…well, THERE WEREN’T ANY MARKINGS ON THE TRAIL!! I began to worry about Lois now because she can get herself off trail at times. It was too late to go back and it was getting too dark to waste much daylight discussing where the trail might lie. I followed Max and Junior on up the hill, with Ona, Tani and Clydea following us. We came to a gate and there was a flag in the dirt nearby! Max got off, and stuck the flag into the top of the gate post, in the hope that the riders behind us would make it this far with what we now knew to be way poor night time trail markings. As we jog trotted along, I could hear Max’s voice in my conscience, regaling he and Tom’s last time on this really dark trail with no ribbons and nothing to guide their way but Tom’s GPS tracks. Oh man…I SO didn’t want to have to resort to that! I SO wanted to just find our way off this dang hill and back to camp! Many thoughts crossed my mind as we came upon split after split in the trail, trying to decide what was road (since they told us we’d follow a “road” all the way in and not a trail!) and what was trail. At one gate we fanned out and were looking fruitlessly for any sort of ribbon or flag. I’m sure the cows ate it, wire and all, because cows and elk are just spiteful creatures, determined to see us fail in our endurance pursuits. I think they heard the rumor that we endurance riders are idiots and rely heavily on markings to get us anywhere outside of that paper bag. Dumb cows…I had my headlamp trained on the ground in beside me looking for anything that resembled something besides a cowprint. “I FOUND A PRINT!” I yelled. I was sure I was looking at a very small hoofprint in the dirt. It had only rained lightly here, so when the riders before us went through, their hoofprints left dry spots on the ground. Max confirmed that this was indeed one of Nellie’s hoofprints. He didn’t even get off to smell it, but I trusted him anyhow. Off we trotted, into the dark, to the next split in the trail. It was so imperative to me that we just keep on trotting where we could at this point! The trail was solid, dry and rock free, so trot we did. Tani’s beacon was behind me casting a shadow of Lumpy and I, so I moved aside and let her pass. She, Ona, and Clydea moved ahead of us, with Tani lighting the way. I turned off my light and just followed along for awhile. Gate after gate, we sought out the elusive flags, coming down a road where a set of cattle tanks loomed to our left. Max confirmed that we were on the right trail, based on the location of the tanks. Yayyy!! Tani picked her way to the tanks, where Marjan regarded them with suspicion. Junior had no such issues and dropped his nose into the water and drank deeply. Lumpy was also mistrustful of the tank, but did dip his lips in briefly. Clydea’s horse wasn’t having any of it and I was only peripherally aware of a scuffle resulting in Clydea falling off of her horse. She and Tani took a minute to regroup. Ona, who didn’t have a light or glowsticks, started to move off slowly. Junior took in behind Fin and Lumpy, not to be left behind, followed Junior. I looked back to see that Tani and Clydea were ok, with their horses standing quietly. Perhaps Clydea’s horse just needed the peace for a moment. They caught up with us quickly and we let them pass again. The 3 girls trotted on down the road. I wasn’t entirely comfortable trotting on ground that was looking to me like it was deteriorating to a base more rocky. Around this time, I saw some sort of vehicle in front of us and a red flasher! They were marking the trail backwards! Those riders behind us would be ok! I could tell them to go find Lois and make sure that Mocha was ok! I was happy to see that quad, for sure. It was Jeannette Tolman, the ride manager that we had come upon. She had cut the engine to her quad and was sitting there quietly, holding a flasher over her head. We stopped and told her that she had a ton of riders behind us, with no good markings to follow, AND she had a sick horse out there to find! She repeated these things, giving me the feeling she was going to head on down the trail, leaving a trail of flashers for those riders behind us. I felt comforted by this thought, because after all, that’s what I would do! I’ve managed a ride or two and having trail that has been sabotaged is a reality, be it by crummy humans or spiteful bovine. We trotted on, not even able to see the three girls in front of us now. We figured we wouldn’t see them again until we finished, IF we finished! I was now the skeptical one and Max kept reassuring me that he was familiar with this portion of the trail, IN THE DARK! We were going to be ok. We had the occasional flasher to lead us in now but we had hit the “slippy rock” that Pat had warned me about. Lumpy was slipping and sliding. We got off the Boys and led them along. I stayed close behind Junior so I could leave my light off and let Max find the best possible trail. We came around a corner and WTH? There were the Girls! Ona’s horse had slipped and fell on that nasty slippery granite. They appeared to be ok, Ona was walking on the ground. Clydea and Tani were picking their way along through this section, taking great care. Lumpy was getting impatient by this time, amazing me with his energy and drive to go forward. I asked Max if we could slip by them and move on down the trail. He gave the ok after making sure that Ona was ok. He had put an easyboot on Fin awhile back and we would see long slip tracks on some of the rock by the boot and shoes as well. The rock was lightening up though, and I let Lumpy move on past the Girls and pick up a very light trot, barely 6 mph. Oh man…I can’t even tell you what a rush it was to feel THIS HORSE, LUMPY, feeling SO DANG GOOD at this point in the ride! Crumb! More downhill and this section was WAY BAD! Max had warned me about this section of trail. It was a long, windy, extremely rocky section of downhill. We were both off the Boys again, picking our way deftly down the trail. Max and Junior did a great job of leading us down that thing. A few times I could see over the edge, and wow! Way scary! The only problem with Max leading with his headlamp on is that he looks at the trail, then he looks to his right, then his left, then on the trail, then behind him…I don’t know now Junior didn’t fall off that trail a few times! He must be used to it though because he never missed a step. Max’s headlamp made me just laugh. I was actually thinking I might finish the BIG HORN RIDE! It was past 11 pm and I knew Max was in pain, but not whining. My boots I had been so thankful for were now hot on my feet, with those fat socks insulating my feet! I had tied Lisa’s jacket onto the back of my saddle and was down to a t shirt again. Who woulda thunk that? After all the rain we had gone through, we were getting warm, it was warm out! And dark, beautifully dark. There is something that happens between a horse and rider when they ride together in the dark. The burden of responsibility for the well being of the team is on the rider in the daylight, more with some horses than others, but in the dark, I’ve always let my horse pick the way. I’ve never been let down. I’ve heard hairy stories, but my FeatherB taught me to just trust her and she would get me through. I was thinking all these thoughts, watching Lumpy follow along behind me, grabbing bites of grass off the side of the trail as we went. All of a sudden Max said, “That’s it, we’re down off that one!”. WHAT? Wow!! We made it! Up we went, back on our Boys, and picked up a brisk trot on a lovely road. We trotted on and on, with the Boys not missing a step. The flashers were visible and I remember thinking how great the riders behind us were going to have it, what with the RM out there getting the trail marked for them. Things were going to be ok for everyone! We slowed up again when we came to a spot where the road became nothing but white bentonite, with a flasher that I had long been considering. Max had brought us out here after the ride meeting on Friday. He had pointed to a formidable drop off, telling us how the ride “used to” come down that way, but in ’06, it wound around and came down a road…way down here, as he drove to a road crossing. This is where we could be coming down and hitting the road we were on at that moment, and then continue on to what used to be the old ride camp at the Trapper Creek Ranch. That drop off was scary looking! I was considering all this in silence as I contemplated that flasher in the distance. Was it down on the road Max had taken us on the previous evening, was it right in front of us? In the dark, it’s hard to tell how far it is to those handy little flashers. Your depth perception gets screwy and well, you’re just plain tired. Then it was right in front of us! We were heading down THAT DROP OFF!! When Junior realized what was about to happen, he cut left and said, “Screw this! I’m outta here!”, towing Max along behind feebly trying to dissuade Junior from dragging him back up that bentonite! As we descended the drop off, I seem to recall there were 3 big steps we went down, we saw the faint lights of crew vehicles in a designated pit stop area! We were almost done with the Big Horn Ride!! It wasn’t far now! The Boys seemed to pick up on our excitement because when Max got back on Junior, and I was firmly seated on Lumpy, they took off at the high trot. Behind me I cold just see Tani’s beacon starting the descent down the giant steps. The Girls were ok too! This was going to be so good!!
We came trotting along the crew vehicles, with me whooping loudly, bringing our crew flying out of the Jetta. Lisa had declined this stop, and who could blame her! But Patty, Kendall, and Tani’s crew chief, a fellow Trail Raider, Alyssa Marre were laughing and cheering us on! They gave the Boys a dose of electrolytes, some welcome bites of alfalfa and mash. We threw hot coats at them, and had our water bottles quickly filled. We were nearly done! We were giddy with excitement. Well, I was anyhow, I can’t speak for Max, but I do know he was bent on going forward! Now! Off we went, jubilant, into the night and into Trapper Creek, where the Boys drank and drank! I thought Junior was going to suck that creek dry! There were several crew vehicles parked along the road for about a half mile and the crews were cheering us on and urging us forward. It didn’t seem possible for our Boys to even need a second wind, but Lumpy picked up what had to have been an 8.5 mph trot and away we went, through another gate and off into the desert Badlands, red flashers marking our way. Lumpy attacked that hill with a vengeance, never flagging all the way to the top. We slowed so Junior could catch up and then picked up a 6.5 mph trot across the desert. I could now hear my mom’s voice in my head, describing her ’07 National Championship experience at the Teeter Ranch, riding her last 8 mile loop out there w/our Awesome Isaac horse, calling that trail the Baton Death March. It just went on and on. Here I was, in the dark, in the desert, wondering if we were ever going to get back to that road crossing. The trail just went on and on. It was good footing and the Boys would dive off the trail from time to time to grab a bite of dusty dry yellow grass. Their appetite hadn’t changed one bit all day. They ate with a passion reserved for good endurance horses all day long. I nearly cried again, with appreciation for all that Lumpy had “endured” for me on this day. I also wondered, wistfully, if Nero had been able to take this trail on with the strength that Lumpy had done? These and many other things were racing quietly through my mind as Max and I turned off our lights and just marveled at the sheer darkness of the night. The Boys were moving with confidence and we were feeling pretty good. Max had taken some pain meds so wasn’t quite as visibly miserable as he had tried not to look earlier. This version of the BDM was taking a toll on all of us though and we were ready to hit that highway and finish the last 2 miles of the BIG HORN RIDE! Coming through what appeared to be giant clay dunes, we cleared the last one, saw a little house on the hillside to our left and the highway!! We had made it! Max informed me that the 7 mile ride from Trapper Creek was reading more like 9 miles on his GPS. Ack, no wonder we were feeling so worn out! We crossed the highway with the Boys eating bite after bite of fresh green grass. We hit the final gravel road into camp and picked up a light jog trot. It didn’t seem worthwhile to push these Amazing Boys any harder than that after all they had been through on this day. We rounded the last corner and heard our WONDERFUL CREW cheering us on! It was nearly 1:30 am and here we were at the finish of the Big Horn Ride! I got choked up, I broke out in goosebumps all over, and I had trouble breathing from the sheer enormity of what Lumpy and I had just done! I love Nero, you know I do, but I couldn’t have loved any horse more than I loved Lumpy in that moment. He had just carried me through one of the tuffest 100 mile rides in the entire USA! We had survived that last 25 miles and stayed on trail only because Max had such good recall from ’06. We did this thing. We crossed the finish line where Patty told us that we were 3rd and 4th!! WHAT THE HELL??? How the hell did that happen? Are you sure, we were running mid pack of 34 starters all day long and passed no one who hadn’t passed us again? Are you sure? We were asked if we wanted to show for BC, but we declined. Oh no, you can’t decline, we’re just going to do it right now with your completion exam. Oh what the hell, we’ve done 100 miles of tuff damn trail, we’re less than an hour behind the leaders (Really? Really…how the hell DID that happen?). I stood on the rickety scale, while my weight was recorded, then went to the vet with the Wonderful Lumpy. His pulse had already been down to 56 according to my heart rate monitor when I took his saddle off. No problem making that pulse criteria! The vet put his hand on my shoulder and explained his protocol to me. “What I’m gonna do is trot along ‘side of ya, with my light on your horse, and I’m goin’ to listen to his hoofbeats as we go” (And in my mind, while I felt like chattering endlessly, I heard him silently say, “So hush, so I can hear your horse trot!”) Got it! Lumpy trotted out like he had when we left in the morning and when he was finished and we had returned to the finish line, he stretched out and peed. I held my breath, because, well you know why. We endurance riders are just fascinated by a horse peeing. It’s silly, but there I was studying it in the dark, what color is it? Light? Dark? Yippeee, it looked great. I held back tears as I hugged Lumpy as fiercely as I could. He doesn’t cotton to such behavior and he was plenty happy about the BC judging being done because he hates foo foo and being fooified as much as his brother , Stranger (Ridden by Carol Giles). We were done, we had a completion and a BC exam in the bag!! I had just followed a dream that my mom lit inside of me when I was 12 years old. I know she was living vicariously through me this day, because she had told me so. She had passed on the ride for a variety of reason, but directed me to get this done for her.
Max was nearly delirious. Asked if he was going to show for BC, he also declined, but they tried to explain the protocol to him while gently pushing him onto that rickety scale. He started to tip backwards so I just placed my index finger pointing into his back, propping him up slightly. This made me laugh, but they recorded his weight and then the vet explained what the trot out was going to consist of to Max. I’m not sure he heard much because Junior was trying, in vain, to tow him away. The vet lit his light and trotted down the lane with Junior and Max, and then back, all the while with Junior trying to drag Max off into the pucky brush. After they were given their completion, Junior finally got his way and drug Max over to the water tank and nearly dunked him in it! Junior was thirsty! What crummy mule whisperers we all were! Junior and Lumpy drank with fervor and when they were finished, our crew had our gear loaded up in the cart, heading back, with us following, basking in the enormity of it all. I had finished Big Horn. Max had shucked that Big Horn Monkey off his back. We did it! And we did it in fine style! We finished with HOURS TO SPARE! How dang cool was that?
Patty and Kendall tended carefully to our Brave Boys, while Lisa busied herself making Swedish Meatballs in the camper! Tani came in through camp nearly an hour later, with her completion nailed down, looking as tired as we were. She asked about Lois. I hadn’t heard a thing, so I headed on back to the finish line to find LOIS there already, along with Kevin, Rusty and Tom! Tom’s GPS had saved the day for them. Turns out the RM didn’t go out and finish marking the trail after all. She had sat there, probably in stunned shock with less than 4 hours of sleep in the last 4 days, under that power line, fruitlessly holding that red flasher for all the riders who wouldn’t get there to see. Lois had been wandering out in the desert, when she came upon Tom, Kevin and Rusty, doing much the same thing. They all hooked up and turned to Tom and his GPS tracks to lead them in. He did, and he did it well. They finished with plenty of time, as opposed to ’06 when he, Max, Tracy Blue, and Chris Yost had finally returned to camp at 7 am, to find they were 3 hrs overdue. That day they had conquered a trail with no markings and gotten no completion. On this day, Tom and Frank beat the trail and earned Franks Final 100 Mile Completion. Congratulations Frank. You’re one tuff horse and I admire you.
Pat and Layne weren’t so lucky, but they managed to make it back to camp in time to get their completions, giving the Bad Girls, Past, Present, and WannaBe’s a 100% completion rate. Way to go Girls, and Max, you’re all my Heroes, and you let me be a Cool Kid and one Bad Ass Girl for a day. I love you all and I hope we get to do it all again some day. I know…sick! I know! But after the pain of childbirth, many women go on to do it again…and again! It’s that sort of sickness.
On Monday we made the trip to Bozeman, unloaded those Boys and watched them eat with enthusiasm. We did the same and then sat and enjoyed a gorgeous Montana sunset. In Spokane, Washington, the next evening, we met up with Tani, Lois, and Alyssa. All 4 ponies out in that arena was an amazing sight. I was just floored that these amazing animals carried us through 100 miles of dang tough trail, stood in a trailer for 1600 miles, and were racing around that arena like colts!
Patty and Kendall had roadtripped home back to Washington, north of Seattle a few miles, with smiles on their faces, I hope. We couldn’t have done this ride without their help. They never whined, they never got short tempered and they gave their all to us. I hope I can repay that in kind some day. Love these Girls.
And now, after 2000 miles of roadtrip, 100 miles of dang tough trail, Lumpy unloaded out the trailer and trotted up the hill, nonplussed about the entire experience. I went out to brush out my beloved Nero today and breathe him in. Lumpy saw me coming with brushes and Cowboy Magic…and turned heel and left! “No way, NO FOO FOO!! Geez, how many times do I have to tell you woman?” I brushed out a most appreciative Nero, and marveled at how much I love these ponies.
I can never thank Max and Lisa enough for letting me and Lumpy accompany them to Wyoming, sharing their space, and experiencing a generosity I’ve only experienced from my dear friend, Ina.
My faith in human kind was renewed time and again on this trip, starting with the Good Samaritan who turned my misplaced wallet into the Connell PD, to Max and Lisa, who calmed my nerves and jitters resulting from losing my wallet, taking in an eyeful of those huge mountains and realizing we were pretty much on our own for over 20 miles of that last loop. I met some really great people, some really not so great people, and all people in between and I’m glad for the experience. I’m also happy that I get to share it with friends, both those I’ve laid eyes on and hugged, and those I’ve only met online and well, hugged virtually. Thank you all. My life is richer because of you.
Darlene M Anderson
and SAR Tiki Eclipse, who we just call Lumpy.
What Darlene Says... 