Day 4: June 20, 2000
All-day right and overnight camping trip (at Laramie River Ranch)

Walendo and Ellen on Cheyenne & Flax

Today was the all-day ride and overnight camping. It turned out that it was just Walendo and me with Miah as the guide. We'd meet Jeff and Chad up at the campsight, but for the riding it was just us. It turned out to be a glorious day, nice and sunny but not too hot with a bit of a breeze at times. The sky was completely clear, a crisp blue with just a few clouds here and there. Perfect!

I had thought we'd take a meandering route to the campsite, but instead, we just rode all around the valley, back and forth (and up and down) to different areas and eventually headed to the campsite, which wasn't far at all from the ranch. In the morning, we rode across some open plains and then went all the way up to a peak (not sure which) to take in the view and just to take a break. We had a 360 degree view of the whole valley, looking out to Laramie in the north, and back to the Raywah mountains to the southeast and the Snowy mountains to the west. It really clears your mind.

Walendo looking at view from morning break spot

I was surprised at how steep the horses could go, both up and down. They went up reasonably easily, although you could tell they didn't love it, but they didn't like going down. Especially when it was rocky, they really wanted to stay as parallel as possible. Cheyenne especially didn't like going down, so he would end up taking very wide switchbacks to get down, and even then, Walendo would have to urge him to turn. When we weren't on downhills, the usual pattern was that Walendo would ride pretty close to Miah (Handsome was his horse), and I'd be lagging behind. Flax seems to have a much slower walking pace and I didn't want to keep trotting him to catch up. So Walendo chatted with Miah a lot, and I usually couldn't hear what they were saying because I was further behind. That was fine with me, because I liked just letting my mind go and enjoying the scenery and the weather and the feeling of being on Flax. Every now and then, Walendo would reach back his hand without looking back, just as a way of saying hi, and then I'd say "hi" so he could hear me. It made me feel happy. He later said every time he did turn back I had a big smile on my face, so I guess it showed.

Walendo & Jeremiah at lunch spot

On our way to our lunch spot, we stopped at a big vat of water near a windmill where there were lots of cows sitting around. Cheyenne and Flax drank, though it took a little coaxing, and Handsome didn't drink at all. (You know what they say about leading horses to water...) I was really surprised at how little they seemed to need water. (Grass, on the other hand, was another story -- they'd eat any chance they got.) Later, Penny said they get a lot of moisture from the grass too. For part of the way toward lunch, we trotted and that felt pretty good, I felt like I'd gotten the hang of it pretty well. Walendo said he felt okay but was still bouncing around a bit. Eventually, we stopped for lunch at the top of Red Mountain after a fairly long climb up a rocky slope.

View from lunch spot

Again, the view was lovely. I wasn't really all that hungry, but Walendo was starving and he ate half my sandwich. We chatted more with Miah and I started to feel more comfortable with him. I took one picture of the two of them on the ledge we were sitting on at lunch. Then I went off to take some pictures of the aspen trees nearby. Apparently, the elk rub their antlers on the trunks so they can rub off the bark to eat. Then the tree grows bark back around the damaged area but it grows in black instead of white. The result is some really interesting patterns from about 2 feet to 6 feet up the trunk. I took a bunch of pictures of it, though I'm not sure how well I captured it. As I was getting ready to go, I heard my wide angle lens drop. I was in a foresty area in the bushes and I couldn't see where it went. It turned out the bushes had prickly branches so it was hard to move them to see underneath. I looked and looked and was ready to give up in frustration when I turned to go and saw it on the ground. What a relief. Meanwhile, Walendo and Miah had gotten ready to go and had been waiting for me.

Cheyenne, Handsome & Flax doing what they do best

We got back on the horses, and then climbed back down the other side of the mountain, also pretty steep and rocky. We made it all the way down to the valley, and it was amazing to look up where we had just been. Even though the horses don't go that fast, they can sure cover a lot more ground than we can on foot. After a ways, both Walendo's and my legs were starting to get achy, so we stopped for a break and sat in the middle of the valley. It was just the right thing, because once we got back on again, we felt much better. During that break, we asked Miah a little bit about the life of the wranglers on the ranch and about the running of the ranch. He told us the wranglers don't have any common room and they're not allowed to dominate the lounge, so they tend to socialize in each other's rooms. Bill & Krista plan to make a common room for them, but they don't have the money yet -- seems like a nice thing to do for them. We asked if anyone had ever been asked to leave and he said one person had, it had been clear that he wasn't happy there. Everyone else ended up picking up his work. I liked learning more about what it's like to work there. Walendo told me later that Miah had said the employees weren't allowed to gossip about the guests, especially to say bad things. (Earlier, Walendo and I had mused that the wranglers must have fun laughing about our spectacular riding skills and pointing out the quirks of all the guests.) Apparently, Bill & Krista figured if they gossip about us, their attitude may show through. They're told "all guests are great guests." Also, the employees can't wear t-shirts, they have to wear button down shirts, I guess to keep up the western feel. Interesting how much control Bill & Krista hold over their crew and how much they think about the experience they want to create for the guests.

Trunks of Aspen trees

Throughout the afternoon, we kept meandering our way along, and I was surprised at how often Miah would take a less than direct route that made the horses go up higher than necessary. I was concerned that Flax was getting tired and Walendo was also concerned about Cheyenne, but Miah thought they were fine; I guess we're just softies. Again we stopped at a big vat of water with cows around it, and this time Handsome did drink but he did it by standing as far away as he could leaning back as much as he could, just barely dipping his mouth in. He really didn't seem to like those vats. Odd. After that we went all the way to the top of a peak that was really rocky and had very little space at the top. The horses just stood at the peak and couldn't really move, because it was a steep drop in any direction. Miah said he'd never been up there and he didn't think anyone else from the ranch had. He was having fun exploring new spots.

Twising Aspen trunks

Again, we climbed down, this time the steepest slope we'd been on. At one point, Flax wound up in a spot that dropped down about a foot and he couldn't really go right or left because of bushes and it was too steep to back up, so he jumped down. I saw it coming and it wasn't hard to stay on, but it was a bit of a thrill. In general, I thought both Walendo and I were handling the terrain pretty well. By this time, I was getting pretty tired though and was ready to get to the campsite. Miah pointed out where it was and said it wasn't far. We walked right through a grove of aspen trees (bugs attacking us), which was kind of interesting. At one point, Cheyenne tried to walk through two trees that were just wide enough for him to fit but not for Walendo to get through. Walendo figured he thought it was about time to ditch his rider. He backed up though and went another way. We went way up along the trees, and then I realized that this was another exploration, that we weren't going for the campsite. By now my legs were jelly and I thought Flax was pretty tired, so I was really happy when Miah said it was about 20 minutes more, that we were heading in. Sure enough, twenty minutes later, we came around a bend to see the campsite with Chad and Jeff waiting for us. What a wonderful sight and a wonderful feeling to get off the horses. It was 6pm and we'd been going since 9:30, with a few breaks along the way. Quite a day.

The campsite Main tent on left, Ours on right

The campsite turned out to be the most luxurious version of camping we'd ever experienced. They had already set up our little tent off to the side, and had put our stuff in along with a granola bar each on our stuff, a nice touch. Meanwhile, Chad was busy cooking up a dinner for us. It turns out that he's this amazing mountain cook and he takes pride in being able to cook anything over a campfire that you can make in a kitchen. He was sauteeing onions and potatoes and celerey for a hashbrown-type dish, and he even baked fresh rolls in a dutch oven, can you imagine! It was interesting how he did it. He had a big dutch oven pot that sat on three small legs that raised it up a half inch or so. He put some hot coals underneath it and a bunch of coals on the top, which was designed to hold them. The food baked inside from the heat above and below. He'd periodically turn the pot and the top in separate directions to even out the heat. (And because it gives you something to do, he explained. :-) ) The rolls came out nicely baked and browned.

Relaxing at the campsite

We had steaks and corn and the hashbrowns and the rolls. It was delicious. For dessert, he had pineapple upside down cake, which I think he makes just to prove the point that you can make anything. It's not my favorite dessert, but still it was impressive. The setup was also amazing. The thing that really got me was that they actually had a latrine tent set up. Inside a bottomless tent was a toilet seat on a wood structure over a deep hole, and, believe it or not, it even had a little magazine rack with a horse magazine in it! Outside the tent was a pile of dirt and a shovel, so if you took a dump, you'd cover it up with the dirt. What a setup! They also had a table made out of a bunch of small logs tied together, and Chad had three basins that he used to wash and rinse the dishes. He just had everything, and was really organized, it was amazing to see.

We found out that Miah was really psyched that we had decided to go on the overnight, since they really look forward to any opportunity to get away from the ranch, just because they get stir crazy being there all the time. He also really lovs the overnights because of Chad's cooking and the whole environment, so we felt better than we had decided to go. We hadn't wanted to put them out for us.

Aspen with wildflowers

While we were waiting for dinner, I talked with Jeff a bit about photography. He does fashion photography, but now he's doing a lot of work at dude ranches, quite a difference. He talked about the business and it sounded like he wasn't happy with how phoney it was, how the quality of your work mattered less than whom you knew. He told us about the models and what they're like, and what the different roles are for the people doing a shoot. He was trying to let us know that it wasn't as glamorous as it seems, but I don't really think of it as glamorous. Seems like a lot of pressure and a world of people I wouldn't like much. While he was talking, he was making little bundles of sage, tying them up with twine in a certain way, sometimes putting flowers in them. He said you could dry them and then burn them and they smell really good. He made one for Krista and then he gave one to us. That was really nice, I really liked it. (Walendo later said that he was amused at the contrast of Jeff, with his cowboy outfit and deep, macho voice, explaining way how you could put dried plants in a little shell in your bathroom and burn them to make the room smell nice.) In fact, I wanted to make some of my own, which I ended up doing later. I was glad I'd seen Jeff making them. At one point, Miah rode around bareback on Handsome, which was pretty impressive -- after riding all day on a saddle, I don't see how you could stay on bareback.

After dinner, we stood around the fire and Chad told some stories about cowboys he knew (one of which said "I tell you what" every other sentence, which we later repeated a lot), and he told us about his fiance and some of the jobs he's done. They were considering both coming to the ranch next summer, which would be really nice for them and for the ranch, but it also sounded like he gets a lot of offers. We coule see why -- he was great with people and he was a fountain of knowledge about the wilderness and cowboy ways. He really makes a difference at the ranch, all the things he knows and how willing he is to entertain and to teach. It was getting cold by then, and Walendo was getting tired, so we went to bed pretty early. The sleeping bags were extra warm, as advertised, but I did need to wear a sweatshirt and sweatpants. With those and the comfy air mattress, I slept really well all night. At about 5am, Walendo woke me up and said to look out of the tent at the sunrise. There was a gorgeous orange glow lighting up the sky. I said, "Wow, that's beautiful," and then collapsed back down and went back to sleep.

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