Hillbillie Willie and the Sleeping Giant

June 22 2024

Sleeping Giant, the new Montana ride, is only around 8 hours from Oreana, so we loaded up Regina’s trailer with 3 horses and headed there on Thursday. Of course, “8 hours” is by car when you’re on a mission, and our adventuresome trip took 11 hours. 

But when we pulled into Ridecamp in a field of yellow flowers on a private ranch north of Helena next to the Missouri River where the Nez Perce people lived and roamed, and where Lewis and Clark once floated by, it was worth the journey. The scenery is gorgeous, just the kind of country that makes you want to jump on a horse and ride into. I’d never ridden in Montana before so I couldn’t wait to hit these trails. “Sleeping Giant” comes from the mountain ridge above ridecamp, which resembles a giant sleeping on his back.

Hillbillie Willie was of course traveling with his BFF DWA Barack, and his frenemy DWA Papillon, and after Willie's unexpected wacko antics at Eagle Canyon this year, I wasn’t sure quite how he was going to behave at the ride. We’d be doing the 50-miler on day 1 (and possibly day 2) and one of his buddies would do a 25 each day. Willie and I practiced leaving them at times to walk around camp on Friday, and he seemed to handle it well. Maybe Saturday’s start wouldn’t be so bad!

I was hoping for that perfect spot at the start of day 1’s 50, not too many people strung out ahead of us, not too many people close behind, not too fast, not too slow. Who could I ride with that might match Willie’s pace? Willie was pretty calm as we warmed up before the start (yay!), and I ended up talking with Teresa from Minnesota aboard her seasoned 18-year-old gelding Aaz. “You want to ride together?” She asked. I said “Sure!” but with the caveat I always add, “We can try,” because I just don’t know anymore if my horse is going to be on crack or not, and if he is, my plans are out the window.

We let the fast riders go out first, and walked out the gate (!), before settling into a trot. Willie was amped and a bit bumpy, but not crazy (yay!). And with a calm influencer ahead of him, Willie settled into his fast trot, pulling, but not pulling my arms out of their sockets. In fact, he only pulled for 32 minutes (yes I looked) before he settled into hard work, and it did help that we soon headed uphill, up and up and up.

One of the ranch owners Cathy Campbell was present as we rode through a gate onto her land, with a view spread out below us of Upper Holter Lake, part of the Missouri River and the Lewis and Clark Trail into the Gates of the Mountains. Montana grass was green and knee high along the cow trails. 

You could call 18-year-old Aaz a mountain horse, because this 4000-mile horse has completed, among many other rides with Teresa, the Big Horn 100 6 years in a row, and the Big Horn 50 or 75 another 4 years in a row.

My Standardbred is *not* a mountain horse, but today he became one, tackling the climbs like a pro, keeping pace right with Aaz, climbing higher and higher, and higher still, up onto a ridge overlooking the valley below and the Sleeping Giant ridge on the other side, and Helena in the valley to the south. The cool and wind-less morning was perfect for hard-working horses.

Aaz and Willie were pretty perfectly matched in pace, and they seemed to enjoy each other’s company. They traded off leading and following, trotting where we could, walking where we had to on a few rocky shale-y ridges and on the hard climbs. We looped back down into the valley, then turned and climbed right back up to the ridge a different way, and the views were still spectacular. Aaz ate Montana grass the entire loop, but not Willie at first, no sir, he is all business out on the trail. But after 15 miles or so, Willie snatched a bite… then later another bite…. then for the rest of the day he copied Aaz and grabbed mouthfuls of grass as we moved along.

Back at the vet check in camp, Willie only took a minute or two to pulse down. His BFF DWA Barack was out on trail, but his frenemy DWA Papillon was in his pen so Wille was happy to hang out near him during the break. Willie is never a voracious eater, but he ate non-stop for the hour hold (yay!), and his pulse dropped to 48 several times.

NOAA predicted a 60% chance of rain and thunderstorms for the afternoon (oh boy), and the clouds were already hovering. It was too warm to wear a jacket, but I tied my raincoat around my waist as Aaz and Teresa and Willie and I headed out on Loop 2. Before we even reached the road crossing, I’d slithered into my raincoat. By the time we reached the first gate (unmanned this time), it was lightning and thundering. Oh boy. I’m terrified of lightning. I was able to open the gate on Willie, but it was a bit tricky to close on horseback, and the thought of me holding onto a metal gate on a very tall horse made me awful nervous, so I got off to close it. As we started up the road, I kept my head down and pretended there was no lightning and thunder, and when it started hailing, Willie wanted to turn tail to the ice balls, but I kept him moving forward and he put his head down and pretended it wasn’t hailing. We all got a good soaking before the sun came back out.

The two-track road took us along the interstate where we had a tunnel to get us to the other side. Willie is not usually spooky but he wanted nothing to do with this tunnel! Aaz waited behind to see if Willie was going to get eaten or not. I got off Willie and led him toward the tunnel, which he still was leery of, but I pretended it was perfectly normal to be going through a dark tunnel underneath the interstate, and so he decided it was too. 

On the other side, we started climbing, and climbing, and climbing. The sun played hide and seek with more scary and spectacular storm clouds. The higher we climbed, the stronger the wind blew. Near the top along a ridge it was blowing so hard, a gust knocked Willie and me off the trail a few feet. Since we’d gotten soaked in the rain, it was quite cold in the gale. But we kept plodding upward. I was crossing my fingers that we’d avoid the darkest storm clouds with the lightning, and as luck would have it, our trails took us right between the worst of it. 

We didn’t see a bear along the soft two-track through the forest back down to the valley, but I am sure some bears saw us! We paralleled the interstate a while, and our horses were so hungry for the delicious chest-high Montana grass, at times they’d slam on the brakes to graze. A longer tunnel took us back under the interstate (no problem for Willie this time), and the rest of the loop was a flat two-track for miles and miles back to camp, coming in on the backside of camp, with Sleeping Giant over our shoulders.

We’d had the perfect Bubble the entire day, and we didn’t see another single horse or rider on loop 2. It felt like we had the entire marvelous Montana wilderness to ourselves.

It was a shocker for me getting back to the finish in 5th and 6th places (out of 22 riders). We’d pretty much started out in those places and stayed there the whole day. Even more amazing, we finished the ride in 7:07! Willie was tired after the ride, his CRI being 54-60 at 10 minutes, but an hour later he was 48-48!

I’m impressed with my Standardbred! In April of this year he was 12 years old going on 2 and on crack, and we’ve progressed back to a relatively calm start, a relatively contained first half hour on trail, eating along the trail, eating at the lunch break, and getting fitter. And, I think I’ve got my mountain horse now. :)

A Taste of a Montana Winter

Sunday February 20 2011

Only a week-long taste, but it was delicious.

The Raven also thinks it's fabulous.


Lonesome meets The Raven


Rebel meets The Raven


I found bobcat tracks one day, very likely cougar tracks another day (we went back and checked, and I'm even more certain that's what it was). These are coyote tracks - you can see the symmetrical shape to the paw and the claws. They look big, but it was soft snow and they were a day or so old.


Soaking up the sun


Frisky and hungry


Another inviting path


The Clark Fork

Jumpy

Thursday February 17 2011

All this talk about cougars, after my story on bobcat prints, and I'm looking over my shoulders.

Inches of snow fall overnight. I'm out walking in the new snow next day. Some flakes are still falling, but the temperature has risen to just above freezing. Some of the snow stacked on the needles of the pine trees occasionally slides to the ground with a sudden WHOMPF in the otherwise quiet forest. One lump lands beside me. I jump a foot in the air. Another lands behind me, WHOMMPHFF and I leap and whirl a 180 in the air, my heart thumping.


Silly, I say, it's just snow. There are no cougars out here. Haven't seen any tracks, the horses haven't been nervous. Well, sure, cougars are out here, but not right here. Surely.

Today I flounder through more fresh fluffy snow - hard packed inches of snow covered by ice covered by the new snow - graceless, noisy, incompetent. Vulnerable. My feet heavy and clumsy, grabbed by the snow with each step, sometimes sinking to my knees if I don't stay on a track.


I look over my shoulder, a lot. Not that it would help, if a cougar were close. I wouldn't see it stalking - unless it boldly walked behind me in my tracks; I wouldn't see it hiding through the trees where they grow close and the low branches drape the snow. And I'm so loud when I walk. My feet crunch, my clothing swishes, my collar creaks - which makes me jerk my head around, thinking it's something else behind me.

I'm not nervous; I don't feel anything amiss. I'm just looking around a lot. This is no different from the many other forests I've hiked through - often after dark, far away from human habitation.

And yet... there has been a lot of cougar discussion that has stuck in my head more than usual. Including the fact that you're more likely to be struck by lightning twice before being attacked by a cougar.

And, I see no cougar tracks around here... or are there?


What are these? I walked within 30 yards of this spot 3 days ago. Today I discover old tracks in the snow - big tracks. They have since softened and melted and expanded, and have been snowed in by inches of snow the last 24 hours, but there is unmistakably a track of something that has left big footprints. I can't match the stride without jumping from step to step.


Hmmm. It's not a deer; tracks are too small. Wouldn't be a bear; they should be hibernating now. Elk perhaps? Tracks still seem too small. But wait - that can't be an elk, it goes from heavy undergrowth trees, across an open spot to more heavy undergrowth trees. What else is that size with that big a stride... ??

Perhaps I'm stretching my imagination. I continue to enjoy the snow walk. But now I'm jumpy as a cat.

Save a Logger, Eat an Owl

Tuesday February 15 2011

Outside, the 3/4 moon is bright, reflecting off the snow burying the meadow. The surrounding woods are darker than black, hiding whatever wishes to be hidden. It's so still I can hear the horses munching on hay 50 yards away on the other side of the barn. Not a hint of a breeze moves the pine needles. I've got the three little dogs outside (one on a long leash). We are looking, listening to the sounds of the mountain forest at night.

And then from far down the canyon I realize there is a rhythm to the soft sounds I'm hearing. It's an owl - a barred owl!

I always think of spotted owls when I'm in the forest. Years ago I did spotted owl surveys, tromping around in the Pacific Northwest forests at night, searching for them, recording their steadily declining numbers. Out of habit (and hope, always hope) I look for them in every forest I'm in; I look for them here in this corner of Montana, even though the habitat doesn't suit the spotted owl. Around here, this is a logged forest, second- and third-growth trees where trees are still standing. No old growth forest that the spotted owl needs.

That barred owls would be here never occured to me only because it's been so long that I've heard one.

In 1990 the Northern subspecies of the spotted owl - which lives in old growth forests in the Northwest, from British Columbia to northern California - was listed as an endangered species. Because of that, logging in the Pacific Northwest on federal lands was all but stopped and was reduced by almost 90% by 2000. Jobs were lost, though the logging industry had already been in decline since World War II. Automation of the industry had already been stealing jobs for decades. Machines replaced the men that used the shovels and pulaskis to build roads, the men that used the saws and axes to cut and fall and load trees, and the men that drove horses to transport the logs. Machines replaced people in the sawmills. Society, and corporations, hail automation as progress. In the logging industry (as in any industry), it meant job losses. Perhaps the spotted owl was to blame solely for logging woes; perhaps it was a scapegoat.

Spotted owls were allegedly eaten at barbeques. You can still come across the "Save a Logger, Eat an Owl" bumper stickers on old vehicles. You still don't walk into a bar in one of those old Northwest logging towns and start chirping away about the environmental benefits of conserving the cute fluffy, endangered spotted owls you have left in your neck of the woods.

Then there's the barred owl. A little larger than the spotted owl, more aggressive, and not needing strictly old growth forest to live in, it's another reason the spotted owl is in trouble. They are cousins in the bird world; both are of the same genus, Strix, and rarely, they interbreed, resulting in a sparred owl. (I located one of these once on my owl job.) Barred owls moved from the eastern US to the west over the 20th century. In many historic spotted owl nesting sites in the Pacific Northwest, the barred owl has taken over.

Now, this night I hear a female barred owl down the canyon. I answer its call. In five minutes, she has flown further up-canyon in my direction. I am thrilled to hear her. She continues to hoot her 8-note call, and in another five minutes, she is closer, hooting from only a quarter mile away.

I am mesmerized by the call, by the fact she is answering my call. She's probably looking for a mate; it's that time of season. I have heard many barred owls, but I have never actually seen one, even though they have been close enough I could have hit them with a rock. I've jumped out of my skin and nearly had a heart attack before, when one has flown in silently in the dark and suddenly screeched an unearthly howl right above me. But I've never laid eyes on one.

I call once more, and suddenly, zeroing straight in on my call, she flies directly at me, 30 feet above me into the nearest tree. Oh my God!

It's so startling, she scares the leashed dog, who starts barking; and the second little dog takes off barking directly at her! Oh, crap!

I come to my senses and quickly reel the leashed dog in and grab her and throw her in the house. (I've already thrown the littlest dog-morsel inside.) Meanwhile the barred owl now starts hooting her territorial call in the tree above, loudly, insistently.

I'm hissing at the remaining barking little dog to get back here before the owl takes her, but oh, no, she's going to get that owl. I don't want the owl to get scared away, but I don't want to provide her a meal, either. It's chaos in the once-quiet forest: thundering hoots, piercing yips, and angry hissing human voice.

The owl is agitated by the noisy brazen barking meal-on-legs, and flies 15 yards away to another tree. Fierce Little Dog takes off after her, completely ignoring me. AHHH!

I run in the house and grab dog food in a can and run back outside and shake it. Thank goodness Fierce Little Dog is also a Fierce Little Hog, because she comes running back for food, and I grab her and chuck her in the house.

I run back outside and listen to this barred owl who continues her territorial call. For half an hour, I stand motionless and silent in the snow under the moonlight, listening to this booming melodic call of this beautiful wild creature as it echoes around the meadow and back down the canyon. I apologize for disturbing her... but forgive me - I'm selfishly glad I did.

And since there probably isn't a spotted owl for miles around anyway due to lack of habitat - I am thrilled with the encounter.

Cat!

Saturday February 12 2011

I wander up a hill in this Montana forest, savoring the winter snow.


The snow is heavy and wet, dragging at my feet. Deer tracks litter the snow, telling the story of a busy forest over a highway that's hidden in the summer. Without snow, the forest always looks empty. It's not.

I clumsily slop and slosh and half slide along deer highways and down a snow covered logging road - until I stop dead in my own tracks.

Cat tracks!


Small, but unmistakably (I'm hoping - I'm pretty sure) cat tracks.

Has to be a bobcat. The tracks cross this logging road and go straight up the hill.


The cat is long gone, but of course I have to follow. Up I scramble, slipping, falling, slithering, panting, grabbing onto roots and brush to keep from sliding back down; ridiculously, maddeningly graceless as I follow pawprints of an undoubtedly graceful, efficient, effortless cat.



I can't read snow as well as dirt, but with the softened, sunken print in this softened, gently melting snow, I'd say the tracks came from the night before. The cat was on a mission, tracks undeviating, heading straight up the mountainside. On a southern facing slope with sparse trees, the snow disappears, and with it, the tracks and any hint that anything passed this way.


I slide back down the hill (actually sit on my coat and slide down) and follow the tracks where they came from. Still a straight line - across the road back into the forest, over the snow-covered little creek (water flowing beneath, snow thick enough that I don't fall in), until the tracks finally fade in ice.


The snow will melt, the tracks will disappear.

But the cat will still be here... somewhere.

The Bomb

Wednesday February 9 2011

Montana. Winter. 15 degrees, and a foot of winter white.

This is what I'm talking about! This is the bomb!

Rebel appears to have not seen anyone so giddy before.



(P.S. - I corrected my typo. I'm so giddy with snow I can't write straight!)

Fort Howes Endurance Ride - Day 2

Sunday June 13 2010

Day 2 - dark skies all day, but no rain!


Bonnie finished the LD yesterday. Today she rode in her first 55! She finished!


Namibian rider Kordula on the 100. Unfortunately her horse was lame and she pulled.


Nicole and her gorgeous Arabian/Quarter horse/Friesian! (that's them up top, too). Unfortunately they pulled from the 100 when her horse came up with either a stone bruise or an abscess.


Mom Marsha and 11-year-old son Cy doing their (and their horses'!) first 100. They finished!


Sue and Julio finished 6th on the 100.


Kyle trotting out Julio (yes, another Julio Horse in the 100!), and in the distance Steve trotting out Beaujolais. Steve also owns Julio. Steve finished 4th, Kyle 5th, and Julio got Best Condition.


That's Gregory, not wanting to get dirty after winning the 50 yesterday. "Today, I am visiting!" He sort of helped his fellow Columbian rider at the vet checks.


Lynn and Suzy shared the win in the 55.


You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink... but you can try.


Cici wins the 100 on Fantasia - she's so happy!


The sun sets and the ride still goes on...

Fort Howes Endurance Ride - Day I

Saturday June 12 2010

This is the 14th year for the Fort Howes endurance ride put on by the Stevens on their Circle Bar Ranch near Ashland, Montana. The ranch has been in their family for 6 generations now. Beautiful place in the rolling hills of the Ashland Ranger District. Cloudy and cool all day till afternoon when it started raining... then dumping rain... but as they say, if you don't like the weather here in Montana, wait five minutes and it will change.

Here are some photos from Day 1 (a 35, 50, and 75 mile ride).








Sue Hedgecock on Amazing Kon. I rode this guy 2 days in Utah last year. He's a fun horse. They finished the 50 today... but got pulled at the finish because he was stiff in a hind leg. bummer!






Tennessee is telling some tall tale.


This gal almost went over the other side of her horse when she mounted! Then they had a good laugh.


Vet Ray Randall vet checking a horse.


Heading out on a loop under darkening clouds!


Darolyn Butler from Texas.


Trotting out at a vet check.


Nicole Chappell and her gorgeous horse. I saw them last at the Mt Adams ride when they finished the 100. They're doing the 100 here tomorrow.


Smiling in the rain!

And P.S. - no, I didn't ride! (Brought my helmet and chaps and The Raven just in case, though : )