The Rocky Mountain Front
By early August it looked like my summer was ruined. We had taken a fun trip up to Bowman Lake in Glacier National Park, where we rowed and sailed our new Vermont Fishing Dory to the end of the lake and took a nice hike. I was looking forward to a back-country trip with friends from Colorado and back east, and Dona and I had done some reconnaissance up by Gray Wolf Lake. But three days before our friends arrived my back went out. I could barely get dressed, let alone ride or hike or backpack. Then Dona's back started bothering her too. I went to my chiropractor, which helped, and we both started physical therapy, which helped some more; but it was clear this would be a long recovery process.
I resigned myself to a lost summer. I had been hoping to do something I've wanted to do for years — ride from the northern part of the Bob Marshall Wilderness all the way south to home. Another year was going by and it wasn't going to happen. I had also been hoping to do a late fall trip along the South Fork of the Flathead, and that wasn't going to happen either. I tried to keep a smile on my face, but it wasn't easy.
After three weeks I ventured out on Poppie, riding across the river with my water measuring equipment to measure the flow in a spring creek I monitor. It isn't very far, but I had to support my weight with a hand on the horn so the slight thud of hooves didn't jar my back too much.
Things slowly got better. By mid September the rains started, and hunting season opened in the back-country. The weather was now problematical, with snow and rain almost a guaranteed on a long back-country trip. We had obligations and no big blocks of time.
I thought about it every day when I went out to feed, and finally decided I might not be well, but I was well enough. Well enough to ride without too much jarring, and if I was careful how and the panniers weren't too heavy, well enough to pack Scheba. She's a Haflinger and not too tall, a good thing in this case. I consulted Dona; she was game, and we decided we had a ten day window the next week. We keep a good supply of back-country food at the ready, and we had a trip to town planned so we could buy anything we still needed. We decided Max could pack some of his own food, so we invested in a doggie pack.
The next week I took a few trips across the river to get the horses in better shape. Max came along with his pack to make sure it worked ok. He seemed to think it was the equivalent of a shock collar. He never likes wearing that but does fine once we get out. Anyway, he did fine. I loaded it with six days of food and decided that was all we should saddle him with.
We poured over the map. We didn't have time to do most things, and with hunting season open in the western part of the Bob our best option was in the Sun River Game Reserve. That includes parts of the Chinese Wall, which Dona had wanted to visit for a long time; and also Prairie Reef, which we both wanted to get to the top of.
Ten days is on the edge of what we can do with one pack horse; I didn't want to bring two because our horse trailer only holds three. With four horses we would have to borrow a truck and trailer; our truck is only a half-ton and isn't safe to use on a four horse. I always bring some horse feed along because sometimes we camp places which don't have a lot of grass; at two pounds each per day, that's sixty pounds of feed. Max gets about two pounds a day, so we had another four days of his food.
That didn't leave much room or weight for our stuff, but we go pretty light and I figured we could squeeze it all in with a little extra on our saddles at the start.
We decided on loop starting at Gibson Dam on the Sun River. The first four miles of trail is carved out of steep rocks, and I wanted to be going up in the morning to avoid having to pass people coming down. So I wanted camp near the dam. We packed the truck, loaded up Sambo, Sky and Scheba, and Dona, Max and I scrunched into the front seat. We turned Poppie out and asked our neighbors to make sure she had water if she hung around the barn instead of going to the far side of the pasture where there was a ditch. We were off!
We gassed up in Lincoln and headed up Roger's Pass. I was in great spirits. But as we started down the other side the oil warning light came on and my heart sank. We pulled over and I checked the oil. It was down a quart but no-where near empty. I filled it up, got back in and started her up and the light went off. We crossed our fingers and carried on. Droving towards Augusta I went over everything I could think of that could cause the oil light to go on when we weren't low on oil. I convinced myself it couldn't be a catastrophic oil pump failure; maybe it was intermittent, or the oil sensor was intermittent, or the pump was about to go but not dead yet. We got to Augusta, the only town between Lincoln and the trailhead, near five o'clock. We tried to find a mechanic, but couldn't locate one. We grabbed a burger at Chubby's Dogs and Burgers, and chased them down with ice cream and shakes (great burgers and ice cream!).
I considered wisdom of continuing on. The engine hadn't frozen up; if we hung around trying to figure out what was wrong we might not make it to the campground; and if we didn't make it tonight we wouldn't get started when we needed to in the morning. We would lose a day and not have time to do the trip as planned. I really wanted to do this trip, so I crossed my fingers and we headed off into the sunset. Hopefully we could make it to the trailhead. I didn't want to mess with the truck now; I needed to get away from civilization, and was willing to worry about the truck after we were out of the back-country.
Wow! The Rocky Mountain Front is one of the great sights of the world as far as I'm concerned. We had a clear blue sky as we drove westward.
We arrived at the base of the dam and I held my breath as we geared down into granny to make it up the steep grade to the top of the dam and then down the other side to the campground. The oil light stayed blessedly off. We pulled into the campground to look around for a site. Something wasn't quite right, as there were no facilities for stock or stock trailers, and there were quite a few campers parked with no vehicles by them. Upon closer inspection we discovered the stock facilities were a bit further down the road, so we moved down there. Once there, we discovered there wasn't any stock water, and we weren't allowed to camp there.
I get pretty upset when told I can't camp somewhere, yet people with big expensive gas-guzzling rigs are allowed to park their giant Winnebagos and sleep all night, or bozos with semi-trucks are allowed to pull over and sleep in the back with their rigs running all night. So we fed the horses, gave them a chance to drink out of a bucket (we had water with us in the truck), tied them up, and rolled out our bags in the back of the truck.
It was a clear, moonless night; we identified some new constellations and drifted off to sleep. After a wonderfully quiet night, we awoke to sunshine and a new day. While we were nibbling breakfast and packing up, another rig pulled in with a big trailer, empty. A fellow got out and just kind of stood around. As we mounted up to head off, he informed us he was there to meet a string coming down; they were supposed to be there by ten.
Ugh. I was a bit annoyed. He was clearly an outfitter, and I figured early mornings are unofficially for traffic going in. I thought outfitters would heed that, particularly on a narrow trail cut out of a cliff. Wrong. He said we might want to wait for them to get out before we started up past the first point on the reservoir.
We started up the trail; I kept an eye out for good places to pull off as we wound along above the reservoir. Just before we got to the first point where the cliffs started, the string coming down showed up. We turned around, backtracked a bit, then rode up the steep hillside to let them pass.
The good thing about Halflingers is they are short, so it's relatively easy to lift loads up on the packsaddle. The bad thing about Halflingers is they are round as a barrel, so it's more difficult to keep those loads centered over the horse. Our particular Halflinger, Scheba, is best described as a "dumb blonde." She doesn't pay much attention to what's going on. Instead of standing quietly on the hillside while the other party passed us, she ploughed ahead through some dead branches. One of them caught her pack, added a little resistance, and the packsaddle started to roll around her belly. Another good thing about Halflingers is they aren't easily excited. She stood calmly while I rearranged her pack back where it belonged.
We had a pleasant ride up to Reclamation Flats near the end of the reservoir, where we stopped for a bite to eat. As we were resting a young Forest Service Ranger rode down from the direction of the North Fork of the Sun, leading two mules and trailing a black lab. She filled us in on trail conditions, and informed us one of the trails we were planning on hadn't been cut out in years. That was the trail from Bear Lake northeast to the North Fork of the Sun. We planned to camp below the Lake, check it out, then head up to the North Fork. With that trail closed we would have to back track quite a bit. That meant we would have a pretty long day the next day. Dona could only ride a certain amount without bothering her back and ankle, so we decided to skip Bear Lake.
Because it was late in the irrigation season the reservoir was drawn down, and we could get an idea what the river was like before the reservoir went in. Even with the bathtub ring of the reservoir and twenty or so feet of barren bank and mudflats you could see how pretty it must have been. Maybe someday we will take that dam out and restore this section of the world.
We crossed the North Fork of the Sun, then headed up a cutoff trail that came back to the river after a few miles. As we rode through the trees the woods started talking to us. We couldn't see them, but the elk were bugling. What a treat!
It was approaching late afternoon, so once back at the river we looked for a good camp. The North Fork of the Sun is flanked by wonderful meadows for much of its journey and it didn't take long to find a good spot. We unloaded the horses and set up camp. I turned the horses out one at a time, not wanting them to head back down the trail. This was only Sambo's second overnight trip, and he was still getting used to hobbles. When I first worked with him I used a three-legged hobble, and he broke the strap between the hind hobble and the front ones. Any time a horse breaks something it's bad reinforcement; they learn they can endure a little pain and then be free. That episode also burned his pasterns a little, and I didn't want to mess him up and ruin the trip if something like that happened again. I had made up new hobbles with a wider pad and a 2" strap instead of the normal 1" one. I got him kinda used to those at home, but he hadn't figured out how to walk with baby steps — He just stayed in one place like he was rooted to the ground. He needed a good bellyfull of grass so I turned him lose by himself without hobbles. I was hoping the horses would get used to being around camp and treating it as home.
Dona relaxed with the map and a book; Max was tuckered out from carrying his new pack, so he kept her company. I got out my fly-rod and went fishing.
Sambo was out grazing, and suddenly he started whinnying and carrying on. I looked up to see him trotting off to the south. I thought a string of horses was heading our way, but it was a bull elk. Apparently he was worried Sambo might be stealing his girls; Sambo was worried the elk might be up to the same thing. They warily approached one-another, did a quick investigation, and then the elk returned from where he had come.
It was a gorgeous clear night, and we slept under the stars with an occasional elk bugling to remind us where we were. We had the tent set up in case we got too cold or some unexpected weather blew in, but it just sat there unused all night.
The next morning we headed on up the North Fork of the Sun.