HORSE DRIVE

We checked in at 5pm at Frontier Pack Train and found that we were a group of 27 people, ranging in age from 12 to late 60's. All of our gear was loaded into a big horse trailer and two small buses transported the group to a location just short of Bishop, CA. We found that very nice mountain tents had already been set up for us in a meadow and the cooking team had our dinner under way! Deanna and I decided to share one of the larger tents together, stowed our gear and had a great evening eating, drinking a little beer and getting to know the group.

We were awakened the next morning, before dawn, to the sound of nearly 100 horses and mules being herded into the corral next to where we slept! Frontier Pack train uses these horses for their various day and overnight riding trips; the mules are used for hauling gear for some of their trips. During the winter, these horses stay in a pasture in Bishop, CA. Our job was to move them over the Sierra Nevada mountains to Frontier Pack Train's main corrals on June Lake Loop. We loaded our gear back in the horse trailer (for transport to our next night's camping spot), ate breakfast and prepared to meet our horses. Little did I know what I was in for! The sum total of my riding experience at this point was a few trail rides, the longest being two hours, once in my life! We dressed prepared for a day that would start out chilly (we camped at ~4,000 ft), but promised to hit 100 (F) as we passed through an open scrub region. The bandanas were for the trail dust - more about THAT later! We each had a saddlebag with water bottles, sun screen and our little Casio digital cameras.

It took quite a while to get all of us saddled up the first day. Deanna rode "Marble" and I rode "Opie." Deanna is an excellent rider, both bareback and using a saddle, so she was matched to a horse with a little more spirit. I made no secret of my inexperience, so I imagine they picked Opie with that in mind. He was short enough that I was able to (just barely) get up in the saddle unassisted...little did I know the disadvantages of that little fact! We finally got under way at about 8:30am. Our first task was to go down a short stretch of road, then cross Highway 395 from the western side to the eastern. CHP (California's highway patrol) was SUPPOSED to be there to direct traffic, but that didn't happen. I imagine we made an interesting site to the folks in the cars - the 27 of us, about 6 mounted ranch hands and all those loose horses and mules! You don't see THAT every day!

Our lunch break came after about 4 hours of riding (I'd now doubled my lifetime experience on a horse!) through countryside that turned from dusty scrub to grasslands. Driving a herd that size was pretty amazing though. Deanna spent a lot of the time helping to round up any strays. One group of riders stays at the front of the herd, while the rest stay at the rear. Opie liked to be right up front! Unfortunately, with his short legs, he would often fall behind, resulting in the need to trot to catch up. Holding him back just frustrated both of us, so trotting became VERY familiar to me!

The food wagon met us with a wonderful lunch spread/plenty of water and our sore and tired butts got a decent rest. Both my knees and one of Deanna's were bothering us and we took up the offer to skip the last 2 hours of riding for the day. Call us wimps but the logic of taking it a little easier the first day, so that the rest of the trip wasn't ruined, made sense to us! Five of us caught rides with the cooks to our evening camp site, popped some Ibuprofen and relaxed! They'd even set up a shower for us...though I was too tired to even care! Our 2nd night campsite was on Casa Diablo Mountain.

Click HERE to continue the tale to our second day on the horse drive.