If you happen to be out for a hack, are riding in some obscure place, or just take some cool photos aboard your mount, send them to [email protected] including a quick blurb about this photo’s story and write “The View” as the title. This week’s View comes from Horse Canyon in Utah.
From Allison Landes:
This is the view from the back of (oddly enough to find in southern Utah) a Hanoverian cross horse named Clarence. This is from a pack trip in southern Utah in an area of the Escalante National Monument called Horse Canyon (very appropriate).
We continued riding onto a 2 foot wide slick rock ledge that was near an upwards of 200 foot exposure. Talk about trusting your horses feet! Needless to say, I wasn’t quite comfortable enough to pull my phone out and snap a picture at that point.
After this pack trip with 7 horses, packing our gear and their feed (along with moving forest service camps), endless river crossings, and trail finding/building, it was compounded into my brain that horses are first off much less fragile than I imagine, and second off, much smarter (and I am certainly not one to ever say “stupid horse”!).
These horses have really got the whole “self-preservation” thing down, and know their job well enough that they know how wide their packs are and choose their trail accordingly.
After being a groom for a four in hand of combined driving ponies for the past 1 1/2 years, I am swinging to the other end of the spectrum and working with these amazing pack horses in the desert for a few months. I am going to string along my young horse and give him some invaluable “real life” experience before he begins his career as an Eventer. My hope is that some day as approaching a gigantor log dropping into water, he will reminisce his time on the trail and say, “Oh, a water hazard without willows thrashing my face, possible quicksand, and not having to pull along a string of horses behind? Bring it on!” Tally Ho to true cross country riding!
