Camping With Horses

Yesterday we broke a record in Colorado as the temperature climbed to 82 degrees.
I was stuck in a classroom in downtown Denver but I did step out at lunch to feel the sun on my face. Spring fever, full moon dreaming, my thoughts stray to all of the fun ahead for us this summer. I will never forget the first trip I went on with Larimer County Horseman's Association up the Poudre Canyon to Jack's Gulch.....

Camping with horses takes a lot of planning and quite a bit of gear. However, I was with five women and I had more experience than anyone. YIKES!! I had only been horse camping once ~ one time ~ with my sister and her (now ex)husband. We had driven into the back country of the Gunnison Wilderness Area and for five days I had the time of my life. My brother-in-law was generally just an ass, but he was actually an ass-et on this trip as he had done a lot of camping with horses. I learned a lot thank God, but I didn’t have any of the fancy gear he had.

But I must tell you, we women pulled our resources together and went to work. We did not have the pipe corrals that we thought we were going to have. However, within an hour, we had fashioned a couple of high lines that we could tie our horses to overnight. A highline looks like a clothes line strung between two trees, as high as you can get it, and you tie your horse’s lead line to it. We had brought our weed free hay and our horse’s water buckets. About an hour after we had found our camp site, we gathered up our chairs, poured ourselves a drink, set the camera on the hood of the truck and hit the timer. We have this great picture of us, with our horses eating quietly in the background, setting in OUR camp. It is precious.

* annette