Thursday, Aug. 15, 2013 – Strenuous, Stressful, Spectacular Ride in the Badlands

What a ride! It must be said that the most memorable rides aren’t necessary the most fun rides, and today was certainly a case in point. Today was a day of many firsts, several losses, lots of close calls and countless spectacular views. We began by entering the National Park and driving down to the parking area across from the entrance to the campground, where there was a trailhead to the Buckhorn Trail, our trail for the day. After quickly saddling up, we headed across grassland, doing our best to follow the trail, but there seemed to be countless variations, and no sure direction. We made our way until a marker, essentially a post in the ground with an unreadable plate on it, so we figured we must be going the right way. I had brought my GPS and created a map of the trail, but in several places, the hard copy map which I had overlaid on Google Earth didn’t completely match the red trail markers already placed on Google Earth, so I split the difference on my GPS map. As time went on, though, it seemed some sections of the trail were a moving target. Anyway, we made our first small climb, a ravine about 20 feet high, the first of many we were to make today. As we crossed the grasslands, we were faced with many small ravines, steeper and deeper than a simple creek crossing, and probably narrow enough for a hunter to jump over, but we aren’t riding hunters so we had to persuade our horses to essentially drop into a pit and climb back out again. Just as they were starting to get used to that, we came to another deep ravine, this one probably 15-18 feet deep, down and up. Just as we got to the top, and I was just getting Apollo ready to head down, suddenly his head went up, his nose flared and he snorted in defense mode, because about 20 yards beyond the top of the opposite side of the ravine was a great big buffalo. Even though he had mostly gotten over his anxiety about cows, apparently a buffalo is a completely different matter. Needless to say, Apollo wheeled around, wanting no part of it, and Clio followed suit. We spent the next 15-20 minutes trying to settle them down, though they were truly in flight mode. We tried to find another way around, but there wasn’t one. After staring at the buffalo for some time, they eventually weren’t quite so frantic (the buffalo was ignoring them completely), they got a tad bit quieter. Fortunately, the buffalo started moving away a bit, down into another hollow, and laid down, so it could no longer be seen by the horses (though obviously the smell was still strong). I managed to persuade Apollo to go back to the top of the ravine, but I still couldn’t get him down it, so, as a last resort, I got off and walked him down the ravine. He seemed a bit more calm because I was ignoring the buffalo, which helped, but of course, he was too anxious for me to get back on him, so I had to lead him up the ravine. Naturally, he ran past me and practically dragged me to the top, it was fortunate my Mccarty lead was just long enough not to throw him off balance, as it was a considerable drop had he done so. Anyway, I climbed to the top and started walking past where the buffalo had been (and still was, just off the trail a bit more than previously), and Hubby and Clio crossed the ravine with no problem, as usual when we lead the way. I continued to walk for another 100 feet or so, enough to get Apollo settled down, and finally remounted and continued along the trail. More grasslands, more steep little arroyos, more uncertainty about which way the trail went, since the markers were few and far between, and there were uncounted trails made by the buffalo here. We finally came across a marker and headed for it, only to discover that just beyond that, and along the trail where we were headed, was a whole herd of buffalo! Granted, it was a small herd, but a herd is a lot more imposing that a single buffalo, and there were young one’s around for the bulls to protect, so we had to be extra careful. Fortunately, they seemed to be heading away from the intersection (and away from a hiker that evidently was trying to get closer to them), and that emboldened Apollo a bit (bravest coward I know, besides my little dog Billy), he was tossing his head at them as if to say, “So there! I’m not afraid of you anymore!” Of course, that lasted until the herd saw us, and, like the cows last week, turned around and headed for us, apparently just out of curiosity. We headed away from them as best we could, but we were going in the opposite direction that we wanted so we just went far enough so that the herd lost interest for the time being. We tried to get around them, but they just come toward us, but eventually they just started heading down the trail where we wanted to go, so we hung back and slowly followed them, stopping every time the bull in the rear turned to look at us, then starting up again when they resumed their progress. Eventually, the plain widened out enough, and the horses had settled down enough, so that we could give them a wide berth and walk around them. It’s a good thing the buffalo walk so slow, it made it possible to get around them at a walk. Whew! What an experience! By the time we passed the herd, the horses had apparently gotten over most of their fear, so this was a big step for them today! Shortly thereafter, we arrived at the Prairie Dog Town, a wide area full of low growth and scores of little heads and wagging tails and lots of holes to avoid. We observed them for a while, very cute and cuddly looking, and the horses only gave them a cursory look, thank goodness. We stayed on grassy plains for a while, and just as we were leaving the Prairie Dog Town, we saw a good size fox loping away from us, apparently disturbing his hunt, though I can’t imagine it would be that difficult to get a meal of prairie dog, considering how many of them there were. We continued along reaching another steep arroyo, and just as we were approaching, the head of another big buffalo appeared at the top of the ravine. If this keeps up, we’ll never get home, we thought! The buffalo started growling (yes, growling!) for a bit, then swung around and headed away from the ravine, though we could still hear his growl, albeit further away. We waited a few more minutes to make sure he was gone, though we couldn’t be sure until we got to the top of the ravine, since we couldn’t see past the edge. I finally headed up, and Apollo was fearless despite having seen that buffalo there only moments ago, and fortunately, the buffalo had already moved off a ways, almost out of sight. Well, at this point we lost the trail again. We didn’t know we had, in fact the trail looked clearer here that in many spots along the way, but afterward, when I compared it on Google Earth, we definitely got off track. Anyway, we followed what we THOUGHT was the trail, and that led us to a cliff wall that seemed to got practically straight up. There were lots of tracks there, though, so we knew it was possible, but it was definitely a bit heart-stopping to think of what would happen if someone’s hoof slipped. Well, undaunted, we headed up. Fortunately, it was in a couple of stages, so we had time to rest in between each stage. At one point, I saw two elk on an almost invisible narrow trail along the edge of the cliff. I pointed them out to Hubby, but he only saw one because the other one had already leaped away. Just before we reached the top, Clio (who was in front of me at this point) lost one of her boots. There was no way I could stop on that incline and pick it up, so I waited to the next stopping point before dismounting, walking back down to get it, and climbing back up again. I mounted again, and we made it the rest of the way to the top, when Hubby discovered, that I, too, had lost a boot! We had no idea where, though, and I wasn’t about to climb down this entire incline looking for it, so we let it go. Too, bad, too, we really didn’t even need boots out here, there’s almost no stones or gravel, it’s all dirt and grass. Anyway, we made it to the top safely, that was the important thing. I should mention that the views in every direction were spectacular, every time we stopped to take a look. That just wasn’t as often as we liked, since we were so busy handling everything else. At the top, it turned back into grassland, and we were able to relax for a short while. Before long, though, we were climbing down ravines and crossing creeks, at which point we got lost again, crossing one creek and going left, when we should have crossed the ravine and gone right, so that was another mistake that took us a half hour to resolve. At one point, Clio took a misstep and her leg when into a washed out area of the trail (and by washed out, I mean the ground had separated, fallen off, and left a drop-off as tall as the ravine), which made her drop completely to ground level. Hubby got dumped, but it would have been so easy for Clio to break a leg or otherwise hurt herself, but she pulled herself out of it and upon close examination, didn’t seem any worse for the wear, though we kept an eye on here for the rest of the trip. Thank goodness for my GPS!! If it hadn’t been for that, we would never had figured out how to get out of there, as our “wrong” route took us to a near dead end, with only extraordinarily dangerous possibilities from there, and frankly, we weren’t ready for that. After retracing our steps for a half mile or so, we managed to get back to the trail, seeing out mistakes (no trail markers ANYWHERE to be seen!) and got back on track, climbing yet another ravine to more grasslands, almost getting lost again before getting back on track. Finally we found trail markers again, passed yet another stray buffalo, stopped for lunch and rest, before descending off the other side of the plateau, often going through trees so thick and hanging down so low we could barely hang on. Again, more washed out ravines that were barely passable, but we finally made it down. My GPS died about halfway down, and I couldn’t find the spare batteries (turned out they were in the saddle bags on my bareback pad back in the trailer!), Hubby had lost his stainless steel water bottle that we’d had for a long time (by now we had drank everything else we brought with us, and were parched, couldn’t wait to get to water), plus he lost a hearing aid somewhere along the trail, probably at one of the three times he came off Clio during the ride. At last we reached the road, and followed that for a ways, before venturing off south of the road to sort of stay on the trail, which would bypass a couple of climbs on the road. The plains here had several swampy areas, but nothing deep enough for the horses to drink from. Clio had managed to get a drink from a puddle earlier, but Apollo hadn’t had anything since we left the parking lot. Finally we reached a bank of the Little Missouri river, and they had a pretty good drink there. According to where I thought we were on the map, if we turned due north we should just about run into the parking lot where we started, but without my GPS, I couldn’t be sure. We turned north anyway, figuring if we got on the road we’d know where we were, so we did, and discovered we still have about a mile left, up a hill and down another. By now the sun was getting low, and we were literally riding off into the sunset. We reached the trailer at last, gave everyone a good drink, including us, spoke to a passing ranger about the items we’d lost (he said he’d report it to the lost and found), loaded up and drove the 10 minutes back to camp. I gave the horses a good liniment rubdown, extra rations, and lots of hay, settling them in their rope and pipe corral before we finally settled down for what little was left of the evening. Pain-killers for all tonight!