Trip Report: The High Road

We got up at 4 a.m. and fed the horses so I could get to Navajo City with John. We arrived there about 6 and I had a few hours to kill before I could bother Billy about taking me to the Carrizo, so I spent some time trying to get a different printer hooked up to the credit card machine. Then Debbie, the waitress, casually mentioned that Billy and Vicky called early this morning on their way to town to go to the dentist on kind of an emergency basis.

This is when I knew things could go south without me and my mustang actually going south. I was a tish aggravated.

At about 9:30 a.m. the day was starting to warm up and it didn't bode well for road texture. There is 2 feet of snow out there in various states of packing, but the predicted high was 50°F. The best I could hope for was slop. I told John I should just call it off and he advised me to just be patient.

Finally Billy showed up and we headed to his place to hook on the trailer and saddle the mustang. I knew the moment I saw JD that I had no need to pack the helmet or his hackamore.... he was tense and worried, his head went up a foot when ever Billy came near. All the calmness I had worked into him was gone.

By the time the trailer was ready to load, the roads were turning to slop so we started in on the General American road and only went three miles before I suggested Billy just turn around and I would go from there. JD unloaded nice enough, and we started off on our trip. There were two penalties to a late start... I couldn't get hauled as far as I wanted and the road was a total mess.

But it was a lovely day. Before too many hours we were about to reach the Carrizo Creek, when I slipped on a patch of ice and landed on my side. JD panicked and jumped free of me. He started running south, but quickly turned and ran through a snow covered slope to get around me and head north. I watched him gallop out of sight with the saddle slipping to one side and the things falling out of the saddle bags.

I found the dry socks on a snow bank. I couldn't find the burrito or my extra rope. The grain stayed in the saddle bag. My coat stayed tied on as well.

A truck drove into view. A typical oil field truck hauling a trailer load of portable toilets. I stopped it and asked the driver if he had seen the mustang. Oh, yes, about a mile up the road. Then the nice man volunteered to turn around and take me to the horse. I was thinking about the poopy symbolism of it all, when we saw the mustang standing in a snowy sagebrush field. I got out and thanked the driver then went to see if Jemez would let me catch him. The lead rope had frayed in the run and become a giant snowball seed, so JD had a bowling ball sized chunk of snow tangled around his feet. He couldn't really do much about it, so I loosened the girth and pulled the saddle back straight. This fiasco set us back about an hour.

I decided that it wasn't safe to have my coat on the mustang, so I started carrying it. I had been sweating with it tied to the mustang, so now it was really miserable with my down jacket draped over one arm. The road was so sloppy that I couldn't help but have wet cuffs on my pants. I started getting worried when it was 2 o'clock and I was not yet at the Carrizo.

I called John back at the cafe. Our cell phone connection was bad, but I finally made him understand that I was in trouble and needed him to plan to come looking for me after work. Good hubby that he is, he made arrangements to get out of there early, and he headed home to take care of the other animals and make me a thermos of hot tea. The toilet-hauler came back by and offered me food: chicken wings to share with the dog and an apple turnover to share with the horse. He said he was worried about me. JD and I stopped at the Carrizo where a spring is burbling out from under the ice and creating this magical looking little pool. A peregrin falcon flew into a nearby tree and watched us walk by. I thought it was a good omen. Just knowing that John would be there sooner or later, lightened my heart a great deal.

At about 4:30, I entered Martinez canyon and two of the sloppiest miles on the whole road. The good thing was that the sun had already set in the canyon so we cooled down and things started gradually to ice up. At five, we had gained enough elevation that we were in the snow and the going was easier.

I would say that JD went through several mental states on the way. When we left he was in a good mood and enjoying my company, but after I fell down, I could no longer be trusted in his estimation. He didn't really want to follow me, but he had no idea how to get anywhere they would be serving alfalfa. He turned into a sluggard, following but on as much leadrope as I would allow. Then by sunset, he seemed to have reconciled with the epic journey and just got into following mode.

It was a stunning sunset, with Venus and Mercury on the horizon, the indigo blue sky giving way to a starry heaven where the milky way lit up the snowscape. As long as we were in open land with snow, we had plenty of light. John came rolling into the picture with a box of hay, a bucket of water, a thermos of tea and a burrito. I was so glad to see him, though his bumper was so muddy I had to put a plastic bag on it to sit.... I hadn't sat since I got out of Billys truck so my legs appreciated the rest. It didn't last long though, I knew everything would start to hurt if I didn't keep moving. The lead rope had frozen into a funny shape.

In the dark, I tried to keep right at the interface between ice and mud, so that I could keep the traction of a little frozen dirt. The mud made inky lines down the snowy roadway. JD would just follow in my footsteps since to stray too far from that meant slipping around.

What was kind of funny about this was that Andy Becks daily horse news message yesterday said "you should take a flash light when you go riding." I considered packing on, but it seemed so pointless at the time. By the time we were ready to go down Ice Canyon, I really wished we had.

John was driving one mile segments then waiting for us to catch up, but when we got to Ice Canyon, I asked him to just go really slow and let us follow in the light. That was working out pretty well until John started using the dog, Chica, to determine if we were close. Chica had no problem just running along side the vehicle, so they disappeared down the canyon for a while. Ice Canyon was icy and JD was the one doing the slipping this time, I thought he was learning to snowboard on his big fat hooves. Finally we caught up with John and Chica and asked if they could follow us in the vehicle instead. The head lights behind us doubled our rate of speed and it wasn't long before the lights of our house could be seen glowing in the canyon below.

Jemez Dancing started suspecting that we were actually in familiar territory as we entered Largo Canyon. No more pulling on the leadrope... he was keen to move out. We crossed the bridge and the three big dogs came out to escort us through the gate. JD started neighing to his old family and the herd just about crushed the pipe fence trying to reach him with their noses.

He is separated from them in the Ox Pen, with his own hay and water. I think he will be very very content to be home. Billy told JD before we left there that he was one lucky horse to not be going to the sale barn. I think the episode wasn't so lucky for JD but it did one thing for me... it gave me confidence that the reason that traditional horse training hadn't worked for me with JD was not that I had lost my skill, but rather that traditional horse training just doesn't work with that kind of horse. Billy, I am sure, did his best and then got very depressed that the trainee wasn't coming around as promised. He couldn't finish JD out because he was stymied by his inability to connect with this horse.

We are set back three months of training in addition to the two months JD has been over at Billy's , but now I have confidence that we can quickly change the equine attitude with some positive reinforcement. I have confidence that the only way is the slow way. This experience was lucky for me, despite the blisters on my heels and the fact that I probably am going to be very sore tomorrow. I really feel like I learned something.