Tired of Winter

Since I'm tired of winter, I took a little pictoral travel back in time to one of my favorite summertime activities, horse camping.  My parents live across the street from Roosevelt National Forest, so when the mood strikes, we can just load up the horses and gear and we're off!  We typically leave after dinner so we don't have to worry about hauling food around that might tempt bears, but that means that we're often setting up camp in the dark.

This is all the gear I need.  Tack, horn bag, tent and sleeping bag.  Horn bag has all the necessities: contact case, saline, book, light and camera.  Horse camping will definitely teach you to pack light.  It helps that for this trip, we were only planning one night.

Meeker loaded up and ready to go.

...Jesse...

...Ranger...

Riderless Washoe gets to haul the hay.  One of the rules of the forest is that livestock must haul in their own feed - no grazing.  Poor Washoe practically turned himself inside out trying to reach back to sneak bites from the saddlebags.

All unpacked.  The tarp protects the tack from moisture from the ground, and we tent the tarp up over the tack to protect it from dew.

The horses started out in a temporary pen we created by running hot wire (tape, actually) around a few trees.  It worked great until a gust of wind came and spooked Washoe, who bolted.  Luckily, he's unsure on his own and didn't go far.  Meeker, Jesse and Ranger stayed in the pen; Washoe got to spend the night tied to a tree.

Finally!  We got camp set up, spent some time looking at the stars, then called it a night.  Or tried to, until Washoe pulled his great escape.  Once he was secured to the tree, we crawled back into bed.

At one point, I had pictures of the next morning, which was beautiful, but I think those got lost when my computer contracted its ITD.