Big Horn 50 A midwest perspective (perhaps long)

["Ed & Wendy Hauser" <sisufarm@mmmpcc.org>]

Last winter I made a commitment to do a western ride.  Eventually, I decided
on the Big Horn 50.  Apparently, so did a lot of people from the Midwest.
The 50 had 5 of us from MNDRA (Minnesota Distance Riders Association), two
from DRAW (Distance Riders Association of Wisconsin), and the 100 had two
from Illinois.

The ride camp was not as good as I had expected, being hot, dusty and dry.
This is not a criticism of the ride management, because the change was
required to preserve the pasture in the usual site.  WY is very dry this
year.  The food on Friday night was great.  (We usually have the banquet on
Saturday in the Midwest, but this made sense and otherwise the participants
in the 100 would have missed it completely)

We traveled 2 weeks in all, riding in a number of places in the mountains.
We electrolyted our horses 2 times a day the whole time.  They ate well,
drank well and traveled with no problems.

The ride started at 4 am, which of course is dark.  I had never tried to
climb an unseen mountain before, but the view from partway up of the lights
of camp, Shell, Graybull, and one other town was worth it.  One of our party
had a light on her helmet, which worked fine except when she turned around
to talk.  I would have rather just trusted the horses and gone for it.
Before I do my next ride like this I will try to build a gentle, red LED
light to put on my horses breast collar.

The lower elevations were mostly dolomite.  I was surprised how slippery it
was.  When we got into the granite, my horse had much less trouble.  Ranger
had steel shoes, with hard surfacing alloy welded on.  If I could have used
easy boots over them on the front, he would have slipped less.  (I can't
trot him in easy boots and expect them to stay on)    Two of our horses had
easy boots on and they seemed to help.

After going up above 9000 ft, we came down to the first stop.  Wendy, (my
acrophobic wife and crew fir the 5 of us.) had made it to the meadow with
Candy's truck.  We knew the road was bad when the locals were warning us
about it.  During the stop we had a Moose walk by.  A nice bonus.   As every
horse was sound so we all went on.  The stop was a short 30 minutes.  (We
are used to longer stops in UMECRA country), so we stayed a few minutes
over.

It was up again through the fir trees, some meadows, and eventually we
climbed to some meadows and Lake Adelaide at the 9300 ft level.  A quick
trot around the lake and it was down the Adelaide Trail.  This trail is the
steepest, rockiest trail I could imagine horses navigating.  We did chicken
out and lead our horses part of the way.  Ranger thought I was going to slow
and repeatedly nudged me to go faster.  Since this trail is through fir
trees, it is a nice break from the wide open mountain views.

At the end of this trail was a beautiful stream, meadows, cows and people.
We quickly trotted through them to Ranger Creek.  This was not a scheduled
stop, but Wendy was there and we all stopped for about 20 minutes while the
horses ate and drank.  Then another steep climb up to Antelope Bute.  A
couple of miles of great meadows, then down the Antelope Bute Ski Area and
the end of the 50.

We had decided to go slowly and enjoy the experience, so our ride times were
in the 9.5 hour area.  (I did not write down our arrival time so I'm not
real sure).  We talked, took pictures of each other and generally enjoyed
the ride.  Although it was hot at the base camp, the temperature on the
trail could not have been better.

The trail was marked fine.  There were not an over abundance of markers, but
whenever there was a choice you could find them.  The stop was  beautiful,
and had water.  The first couple of hours had no natural water, but there
was plenty the rest of the ride.  As the web site says this is not a ride
for whimps, or whiners.  We heard some complaints that the final descent on
the 100 (Hopkins Creek to the finish) was not marked well enough for dark
riding.  I can't comment as we did the 50.  Because of the change of camp
the ride was run in the opposite direction from the original plan.  This may
have caused some of the problems.  They are planning to have GPS coordinates
available next year.  This would surely help.

The bottom line is: all 7 Midwest horses in the 50 completed, and the two in
the 100 also completed.  Flat land horses can do mountains, if the riders
are sensible.   I will be back in the future.  The views and experience is
worth the trip.

Ed and Wendy Hauser
1140 37th St.
Hudson, WI 54016
sisufarm@mmmpcc.org