We’re fortunate enough to live at the west slope foot of the Bridger Range, and so embarked on a packtrip more or less right in our back yard. Ross Peak is a prominent Gallatin Valley landmark, one I was long overdue to stand atop, and so this venture had been on the to-do list for some time. Available time sort of mandated leaving mid-afternoon, with a return not much over 24 hours later, which obviously precluded spending much time driving, so we loaded up the trailer with the ponies inside, and headed out singin’ our song. "Come on baby, waitin’ to see yeah, I’m gonna take you, packin’ with me…"

And of course, this was appropriate since my wife and son went along. Now Cody and I do a lot of packing, but Kim went on too many of my exploratory ventures early on in our marriage and is completely over floundering through the deadfall in hopes of determining if one can, in fact, get horses through here. I can understand that, as those little vexations can grow frustrating, although the rewards of discovering some hidden Shangri-La compel me to keep undertaking these ventures.

So, although there is a road of sorts nearly to the top of Ross Pass from the east (although it was still gated last time I was by, a couple of weeks back); how much fun is that? No, I wanted to go up Truman Gulch, cross the divide into Jones, and camp at a nice meadow I discovered many years ago whose attractions include, not least, a dandy spring! The only potential problem with this scenario is crossing the Truman/Jones divide. Because yes, the slash mark I just put between the two words is approximately the pitch of that ridge! Still, there’s a good trail, except for this one spot….

A fair number of years back the trail washed out just before you get off the ridge and down into Jones. It was a pretty bad washout; the trail just ended at sort of a chasm, with no way around it due to deadfall and steepness. I was in there once last fall, though, to help a buddy who’d drawn one of the highly coveted Bridger buck tags and taken a nice muley. That time, I left the horses at the divide and we backpacked the deer up to there. I noticed that the washout had mellowed some, with the neighborhood critters and even the odd motorcycle and hiker re-establishing sort of a marginal trail once again.

The key word there is "marginal". Going down it wasn’t much problem, although it alarmed me more watching Kim and Cody lead their horses through than it did trailing my own saddle horse and 2-packhorse string down it. Then, I was preoccupied with not getting crushed under three largish horses if they went down and slid/rolled to the bottom, God forbid. There’s a phrase horsey types like to use regarding those snazzy sliding stops that make such great photos; "he buried his tail in the ground". Well, that’s what Sonny and Buddy looked like sliding down the washout! And of course, one must attempt to not dwell on the knowledge that we had to go back up that way on our return.

Fortunately, we successfully blocked that disconcertion from our minds, and had a great time in camp. We broke in a couple of the new ponies to being picketed, and they took to mountain use like old hands, even though Buddy is basically a teenager if not adolescent at four years old. He did fine, though, and six-year-old Sonny performed flawlessly for Kim, to her relief.

We’re still in the rainy season here, and had a 50-60% chance of showers both days. Saturday we got rained on just enough to get out the Gore-Tex, although the evening turned plumb nice. Sunday morning I actually thought we were going to get some photogenic blue skies, although was unable to impart my enthusiasm for climbing Ross Peak to Kim and Cody, who found their sleeping bags more gratifying. That’s fine, and solo is simpler, so I headed out not long after daylight. About 45 minutes later I was at Ross Pass, attempting to puzzle out a route up the peak through binoculars. I’d picked several likely candidate’s brains about how one should go about climbing this mountain, and was assured that it was a walk-up. Plumb simple and easy… And in fact, I vaguely recall reading an obituary or something that mentioned a downright elderly woman (80+ years old, as I recall) had climbed it not once, but twice.

Still, doubts crept in. I’ve looked at that mountain on a daily basis for what’s getting to be a long time now, and it always looked pretty dang rugged to me. Still, you can only tell so much from a distance, but close up it didn’t look much different. There was a somewhat obvious path up about the first two-thirds, though, and I assumed the route should be straighforward beyond that. So that first portion was a walk-up (OK, I had to use all fours in a few spots). Those spots where I had to use my hands also had me thinking this elderly woman must have been quite a gal! As I neared the top, though, the credibility of these reports began to rapidly wane.

I’d wound up sort of off to the east side of the mountain, with my view to the west blocked. The skies to the east were definitely what one might term grey, but when I neared the summit and got a look off to the west, it was like "uh-oh!". We’re talking a rapidly approaching black wall of weather. I’d gotten to a point just below the actual summit, and at that point (at least from my vantage point) it was clear that going further in a sane manner would require ropes and preferably a belay partner; both of which I was conspicuously short on. So if there is indeed an easy route to the summit that senior citizens and small children could do without even breaking a sweat, I’d be curious to hear about it. Until that’s verified, I’m calling BS on this matter.

So needless to say, I didn’t linger at the (near-) summit. In fact, my motivation to lose elevation was extreme, and if I hadn’t been in such a dang hurry might have gotten extraordinary photos of a wall of fog flowing over Ross Pass. At the moment, my concern was more with getting off the rocks before they got wet (and slippery), as well as not becoming disoriented in what looked to be certain near-zero visibility. As it turned out, I’d guess visibility remained in the twenty foot range, which was enough to stay on route. More impressive was the horizontal trajectory of the downpour. I bet that pass sees some extreme weather…

Fortunately, the storm was short-lived, and I arrived back at camp to sunshine and companions who’d just emerged from the tent to savor a gorgeous morning. A brief nap was in order, and then we packed ‘er back up and headed for home. And yes, the washout was interesting, but we made it up without mishap. Lots to be said for having big, strong, calm mountain ponies! In fact, our luck held in an extraordinary fashion, with no rain until about a minute before we arrived home. Cody and I unloaded the ponies in the more common vertical version of a downpour, and agreed it would have been a discouraging prospect indeed to have weathered that while crossing the divide. Not only that, Kim may have never gone on a packtrip with me again! As it is she actually had a grand time (disregarding those washout moments) and is eager to go again. And, my next intended destination is devoid of dangerous washouts, and so I may be able to turn her back into a regular companion on these grand adventures!

See you on the trail…

As mentioned, we're going to be hitting the farm auction circuit over the next couple of years, and Saturday there were two very interesting local auctions.

First, the Flying D Ranch spring antler auction. This is an enormously entertaining affair, with civilized haggling over a mountain of elk skulls and shed antlers.

For the first time ever, the ranch wintered more bull elk than cows, by a ratio of ~1.2-1. That is simply unreal, and a model for elk management that I’m trying to espouse via my involvement with the Madison Ranchlands Group. If you can reduce total elk numbers via sensible public hunting opportunities, while increasing trophy quality, well hey… what’s not to like?
Not to mention this astounding pile of antlers brought nearly $60,000, which isn’t just too shabby of a sideline, eh?
In fact, I bought a pretty darn nice elk rack, a winterkill (or perished from unknown wilderness perils). It is indeed a terrible irony that it’s bigger than any I’ve taken in just horrendous expenditures of effort over a couple of decades, so we’re thinking we may just start watching football on TV on fall afternoons, and buy our antlers at the auction from now on!

Not really. This is the year. With all the rain and subsequent forage growth, we’re getting reports of outstanding antler growth, and after extracting helicopter survey intel from FWP biologists through wolverine-like persistence, I have mostly concluded that we are indeed doing exactly the right things, and since my luck is on an extraordinary roll this year, not to mention I am just sickeningly overdue to finally collect a truly giant elk, my mojo is strong. Hopefully strong enough to climb into the Hall of the Mountain King, and pack his meat and antlers home.
I had to leave the Flying D auction by about noon, in order to make it to another auction in Manhattan where so far as I was concerned, the main item of interest was a cherry White 5542 combine. This is as it turns out an absolutely mint 1986 harvesting machine of what might be considered almost cutting-edge technology for the Rockpile Ranch, and was purchased for the fantastically low bid of $1000.00!

That is correct. Just for perspective, shortly afterward a chuck wagon (yes, a wooden thing you pull with horses) sold for $6500. And some hard-used saddles for about $500. I’d have bought one for half that, as we could use another saddle, but no. It would seem that smaller combines are more of a buyer’s market here in the New West.

So that is a huge upgrade to the machinery stable here at the Rockpile Ranch, although for comparison here are a couple of its predecessors; matching McCormick-Deerings from back in the day...

So with the sun going down, sunset shots are apropos, and here's the friendliest horse you ever seen, 6 year-old Sonny, who is going up for sale soon as I put together some web pages extolling his many virtues.

And, I'd be remiss not to include his pal Buddy, who also finds the pasture conditions meet his satisfaction.

Those two are exceptional horses, so stay tuned...