Long Time No Blog....

I just couldn’t let this damn thing die.

I tried, during one of my last days at the ranch, to write a big “final blog” that would highlight some major events of the summer. Of course, just after I had made a list of things I wanted to cover, my boss knocked on my door and asked me if I could help break open the stallions’ water troughs with a shovel (it was winter in October… more to come on that). Needless to say, I didn’t finish that entry then… but I will now! While I’m sitting on a couch in southern California.... similar locations….

Alright so I’m not on a couch in southern California anymore…. I’m in a cabin at the Grand Canyon in Arizona in FEBRUARY (I was in CA in November)…. and I am STILL trying to write this blog. I’ve tried in Flagstaff, AZ. Back in southern California. On a plane someplace over the Midwest. Back in Leonia, NJ. In San Luis Obispo, CA. In Joshua Tree, CA. …..and now in Grand Canyon Village, AZ.

….and DAMMIT I AM GOING TO WRITE IT!!!!

I’ll start with an abbreviated version of my final ranch blog… and then fill you in about the 3 ½ months since in another blog.

First of all, I want to state the obvious: this past summer was one of the best of my entire life thus far. Hands down. Spectacular. I spent my days riding horses through one of those most beautiful places on earth, with some of the greatest people on earth.

Over the course of the summer there were many moments that I would’ve really liked to blog about, but when it came around to it I was either too busy, or too tired (or still rehashing the events of the day with the rest of the staff). Those were the moments that made me think “is this really my life right now??” Sometimes because the situation was so unbelievably incredible, and other times because the situation was so unbelievably ridiculous or dangerous.

Some of the most memorable: (perhaps I’ll write down the full stories later on…. Think of the odds)

-Walking a lame horse 10 miles out of the Washakie Wilderness on the 4th day of a 6 day pack trip… on my own. Getting to a campsite still 30+ miles from town and having no cell reception. Borrowing a phone from a homeless painter who lived in a van near the river. Waiting until well after dark for the horse trailer to pick me up and bring me back to the ranch.

-That time I got struck by lightning…. And then rode on top of a flatbed truck full of hay across the bench in the middle of a herd of 100+ galloping horses during the same thunderstorm.

-The day I did a 3 hour ride (cow camp) in an hour and a half, because I was showing 2 french guys and their father what going fast was really like. Similarly the day I took an extra hour and a half taking one women on buffalo draw, just because the conversation was so good.

-The day I got to lead my favorite ride, on one of my favorite horses, and I got the directions “just go as fast as you can and don’t look back.”

-Leading Hoodoo on Booker. Leading Diddie’s on DeWashoe.

-Any time I got to take guests on Buffalo Draw, or the Ridge Ride. Those never got old.

-All of the week long cattle roundup in the blizzard. Specifically after the guests left, riding Laredo—my boss’s horse—along the ridge above the bench in a full-on Wyoming blizzard… trying to bring down 6 cows. At that moment I decided I had finally earned enough cowgirl points to be considered a true cowgirl. Hell, I was cantering up a steep slope, chasing cows, in a blizzard, on my own, in the middle of Wyoming!! And I got the cows!



There were also those moments that were just so “Bitterroot” that they stick out in my head.

-The image of Lonesome Josh (maintenance man) walking away from me carrying his coffee cup in one hand and a dead chicken in the other.

-Riding through the sage on the back of a 4 wheeler with a bottle of wine.

–Playing scattegories or trivial pursuit in front of the fire in the lodge (once all the guests had left).

-Any time Mel got a group of staff to help her try to herd the poultry in for the night

-Any time I rode a young Arabian (4 to 6) at the back of a Bayard ride… and had my life flash before my eyes.

–Making a pbm cutback, or the now automatic motion of checked if a western saddle is pinching a horse’s shoulder.

-and so many more…



Over the course of the summer I learned how to knit, how to drive stick, how to start a young horse, and how to pack a pack horse. I fell off 5 times (Wajir, Seville, Sabaki, Danta, Acacia) the last of which caused a cattle stampede….. I came to love 100+ horses like family… (with my favorites being Booker, Talek, Commiphora , Alicante, Lullabye, Acacia, Charlie, and Buster. )

Driving up the switchbacks and away from the ranch for the last time, I looked in my rear view mirror… back at that remote little valley on the east fork wind river, surrounded by the snowy peaks of the Absaroka mountains… and it felt like I was driving away from home.

….but I get to go back and do it all again this summer!!!!!! and I couldn’t be more excited!