I told you recently that our horses were going to be heading up to the high country. Yesterday was the second sendoff. The truck above hauls them to the High Sierra Ranger Station on the Kaiser Pass Road where they are offloaded to a Forest Service corral to be shod and then gathered and herded up the road to a corral at Florence Lake, then around the lake and on to Blayney Meadow. It’s a remarkably involved process that takes the efforts of about a dozen people. My assignment for the two days was to be up at the corral in the foothills with a truck at 6:45 AM to pick up five riders and bring them back to the foothill ranch. Then I turned around and drove back to the same corral to pick up the saddles and other tack to return for the following day’s ride. On that second day the saddles rode a truck to the ranger station where on the third day many of the same riders will finish the cycle to the ranch. When it goes well, it’s like a beautifully choreographed ballet.
It went well.
Tomorrow I have to get up at 4:30 AM and do something else. I’ll probably be able to get to a computer and write about it in a couple of days. Don’t hold your breath. There will be pictures.
2 comments:
When the horses get shod, does that mean the shoes are checked and replaced as required, or does every horse get four new shoes every spring? Do the horses spend their winter vacation barefoot? (We city folks don't know anything about this stuff).
All the horses are barefoot when we’re not using them for riding during the summer season. All the shoes get replaced at once unless there is a problem with just one shoe, like it falls off.
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