We went to bed to the sound of howling wind and knew the temperature outside was dropping as our forced air furnace was kicking on more often (man, we love our LQ!!!). It was tough to sleep that night, thinking of our poor horses out in the cold howling wind and thinking we’d have to endure it from the saddle in the early morning. I headed out for my usual chore of feeding the horses at 5am and noticed that not only was it extremely windy and cold...but there were no stars to be seen. That’s when I felt a few drops of rain on my face and realized we were really screwed.... today we’d be heading higher in altitude, knowing we’d be hitting snow, and knowing that the worst was not over and that it had probably just begun! Sure enough, the trail from Darwin out to the corrals was cancelled for the 50’s. Instead they’d be doing our LD loop with us, and then heading back down the highway to do some of the trail from the previous day. We bundled ourselves up, just as heavy as ever (BTW, I must share with you that I was never cold, - the secret to my success was silk thermal underwear, both top and bottom, those FABULOUS battery-powered heated socks, thermal riding pants, International Expedition rain pants from REI, a turtle neck, fleece coat, Carhardt jacket, fleece head and neck cover, polar fleece riding gloves that stayed fairly warm despite getting wet, International Expedition rain coat with hood from REI, and my Troxel crash helmet....I probably weighed another 30 pounds, but it worked! I had Ariat Terrains which I will upgrade to the waterproof kind.). We headed up the highway to the trailhead. The highway had fortunately been reopened to traffic although it didn’t matter so much to us as the 50’s would no longer be going to the corrals.
