sparrow horse: Hello Idaho

I made it to Idaho! And I can't say I wasn't sure that I would. For our first truly back country pack trip I am proud, not to mention humbled and a little bit awe-inspired. Sarah Hillary, a perfect stranger joined me for the two day forty mile ride. We both had no idea what we were getting into and when we lost the trail on a ten thousand foot knife edge I am pretty sure we became best friends. Of course I had bought maps for my back country leg. I even bought 7.5 minute quadrangles. But somehow there were gaps in my route planning. And then there were vanishing trails and trails that climbed a muddy mountain side at a 45 degree angle that a mountain goat might even frown at. There were signs that remorsefully laid there with their face down in the dirt. There were some signs that having been nailed to a tree were our saving grace to know that we were at least somewhere that someone had been before. We joked that Jim Bridger might have been the last person up "vacation canyon" because there were so many down trees. Every time we thought we were about to cross over the pass we would find the trail drop down into another saddle and then up again on the ridge. The sense of vertigo on horseback when you are looking down at a 60 degree angle on both sides for two thousand feet will if nothing else cause a non religious person to start praying. At one junction we found a sign post fallen over in a pile of rocks. We lifted it up and decided by the geography which trail was ours. But after ten minutes of walking in that direction we lost the trail again. So we turned back, went to the fallen sign, lifted it up again and turned it in another direction and decided that the other trail was the one we wanted. It couldn't have been more like a choose your own adventure moment. The views were astounding and we could see for hundreds of miles in every direction. The Grand Teton was like a beacon in a wild sea of wilderness even though it was a whole other range away. We rode 25 hard mountain miles in one day to make it to Victor. Perhaps we could have camped another night but there wasn't a flat spot or a meadow for 15 miles. We rode until 10:30 that night until we were picked up by Peter Linn who arrived with beer and pizza. We celebrated our victory in the parking lot of a chevron, loaded our tired ponies in trailers and Sarah drove with her cowboy back to Alpine and I went to the Linn Ranch. I couldn't be more grateful to have had Sarah's company over the Snake River Range and to have made it to Idaho and to have been picked up by another perfect stranger and to been brought to a beautiful ranch and to have slept in a bed and been graciously welcomed to one more place on this great pony ride. And here are some photos...(with more to come when Sarah shares hers wih me).

The view of the upper palisades lake. The lake is where we woke up this morning.