Horseback Riding the North Columbia Country

Table of Contents

• It's the Journey
• Trails and Travails
• Trail Talk: Riding the Kettle Crest

Thanks to Carol Austin for providing the photo.

It's the Journey
by Carol Austin

For some people, riding is about the horse. For others, it's about the places a horse can take them. For me, riding is about the journey. To ride is to run without effort, to fly without wings, to defy gravity. The generous, spirited animal I sit astride transforms me, and we become one with the landscape as we travel through it. I am free, because I belong nowhere and have no responsibility, except to the moment. The old saying that the outside of a horse is good for the inside of a person is true. And there are few things as lovely as an early spring day enjoyed from the back of a good horse.

On the first ride of spring, my Appaloosa mare, Dotty, is as playful as a kid at recess. She bows her neck and lifts from the earth as though on springs. We trot the trail along the edge of the property, through patches of sunlight and shadow, under a canopy of fir, pine and aspen trees. The ground smells like frogs and is spongy beneath Dotty's hooves, muffling the sound of our passing. Moving through pockets of warm air ripe with fragrance, we glide through the dappled light, the dogs running playfully ahead. For many riders, it "ain't ridin'" if there isn't at least one dog along. Dogs will resort to desperate measures to go riding, should you decide to leave them home. Once, when I left Buster the Anatolian Shepard and a Jack Russell named Spud at the farm, they somehow helped each other escape from a kennel and a tie-out chain, spooking my horse when they caught up with us five miles up the mountain. During the trek up Kentry Ridge, the dogs pause often and stick their noses in the air, hoping for a hot scent, though they won't be allowed to pursue anything that might cross their path. Early spring rides are about watching for the first buttercups to appear on sunny banks where the snow melts soonest. Before long, there will be mauve shooting stars and yellow trout lilies poking up through layers of pine needles. Warm breezes eddy around us as we crunch across icy patches of snow in shaded areas. In a few weeks, the aroma of blooming ocean spray bushes and alder and cottonwood trees will create a cacophony of smells. Sometimes I sniff honey on the wind, the clean, sweet aroma wafting to my nose from a well-hidden wild beehive. Taking a shortcut on an overgrown deer trail means I will have to check for ticks upon returning home.

In late spring, the trees newly fringed with bright green leaves create a sparkling impressionist painting. Still, I often keep my eyes trained on the sides of the trail, looking for the first tiny pink calypso orchids. Later will come ladyslipper orchids, astonishingly surreal with long, twisted sepals reaching to the ground. Their big, pale-green-striped pouches look more like fairy's purses than lady's slippers to me. In 25 years of riding my side of the mountain, there is only one place I've ever seen them. I spotted them accidentally when I dismounted to pick up a dropped glove and, squatting down, happened to glance through a dense stand of young fir to spy a hidden woodland garden with several of the rare and secretive plants growing in a clump.

From higher up the mountain, I hear a ruffed grouse drumming. For years after moving to Stevens County, I thought their sound was someone up in the woods trying to start a motor. I could never figure out where the noise was coming from, or why there were so many dopes up in the woods trying to start motors! I finally discovered it was part of the grouse's mating display, made by the male beating his wings against his body. For years, the grouse were so thick that I scared them up every few feet. Their numbers are diminished now, some say because the wild turkeys compete for the same food.

A good place to give my horse and dogs a rest is a favorite outlook halfway up the ridge. The dogs pant as they rest in the shadow the horse casts across the trail. I can see across the Columbia River, south to Inchelium and north to Boulder Mountain. Back in 1988, I watched the huge, billowing mushroom-shaped cloud that signaled the beginning of the White Mountain Fire. Near the same spot, I once saw two adorable shoebox-sized black bear cubs cut across the trail and dive over the bank. A couple of seconds later their mother boiled off the uphill bank and came rushing down the trail, swiping her paws as she ran, her eyes locked on Olga, my huge white Anatolian Shepard. I quickly whirled my horse in the opposite direction and, kicking her sides, shouted, "Dogs! Come!" as I galloped away. I did not look back until I reached the bottom of a quarter mile grade, and was pleased to see my dogs were at my heels and the mama bear had disappeared.

As spring gradually gives way to summer, I will have to ride early to avoid the punishing heat of the summer days. Meanwhile, I enjoy the pleasure of slipping away whenever I have a few moments to spare from the multitude of tasks on my "to do" list. I catch my horse and ask the dogs, who already know what's happening, "Want to go for a ride?" They leap about and bark with joy. "Let's go!" I say, putting my foot in the stirrup as Dotty bobs her head impatiently. "C'mon, let's go for a ride!"

Contents

Trails and Travails
by Carol Austin

On a cold day in mid-May of last year, my friend Lois and I headed out on horseback from our homes near Rice. Two loaded pack mules were in tow. Our destination was approximately 15 miles away in Summit Valley. We had scouted the trail, first from the north, then from the south, but had not ridden the middle section. We have ridden Kentry Ridge, near the Orin-Rice summit, for many years and figured it would be easy to find our way on the logging roads crisscrossing the area. It was the maiden voyage of our newly-formed pack and guide outfit, Stink Weasel's Excellent Adventures. The Kentry Ridge-to-Summit Valley trek was the test trip to get the bugs out before offering our services to the public.

Before we even got out of my barnyard, four mini-snowstorms had blown through. "Oh well," Lois said, "this will give us practice packing in inclement weather."

"It should blow over," I said. "It's spring."

We headed up the trail to the ridge top along which we would travel, and turned south. The distance looked distinctly unwelcoming. Great banks of dark gray clouds scudded against the mountain tops and we faced into a cold wind. Undeterred, we urged our molly mules, Petunia and Debby, to walk out at a brisk pace. They carried our kitchen supplies, tent, bedding, campstools, and the ingredients for a gourmet meal at the end of the day. After a couple stops to make some minor adjustments to Debby's packsaddle, our animals settled into the rhythm of the trail and we began to make pretty good time. The first night's destination was some friends' property. We would camp there on a land formation between two mountains on the west slope of Old Baldy Mountain. They had set up a lovely, private camping spot with firewood, a corral and picket area for our stock, and water for the horses and mules and us. Brian and Vicki and Ron and Brenda were joining us that evening for a special dinner that Lois and I would prepare. Ron and Brenda's farm near Summit Valley was our second night's destination.

As we reached the crest of Kentry Ridge more weather hit. Snow flurries interrupted by gusting winds and brief periods of calm repeated throughout the afternoon. After about four hours we entered the region we had "eyeballed" from distant ridges, but had not traveled before. We made our best guess at an unexpected fork in the road and journeyed on, now cold and a little damp, tired of squinting against the tiny pellets of ice pelting us head-on. After a while I asked Lois, "Doesn't the direction we're heading seem 'wrong' somehow?"

"I was just wondering about that myself," said Lois, as we came around a bend and encountered a skidder, two pickups and three loggers in the middle of the road on the side of the mountain. They informed us of our whereabouts and we retraced our trail for a couple of miles, which was very unpleasant given the increasingly cold weather.

With no further detours we arrived at our camp spot, where Brian and Vicki waved to us from where they stood near a crackling campfire. Ron and Brenda soon joined them. Lois and I unloaded the packs, removed the tack from our horses and mules and hobbled them to graze. Then we set up the tent, stashed our gear, made our beds and organized our kitchen supplies near the fire. Next we put our stock into the corral and fed them some pelleted "taco" (timothy, alfalfa, corn and oats), before turning our attention to the meal we had promised our friends, who chatted happily around the fire pit. Dinner included an asparagus and mushroom fettuccine, a salad of mixed organic greens from Ron and Brenda's greenhouse, homemade balsamic vinaigrette, French bread and strawberry shortcake for dessert. "Gee," said Ron, "and I was thinking more along the lines of hotdogs."

After dinner Lois and I bustled around the camp kitchen cleaning up. Our friends commented on what a great meal it had been. With our cleanup chores complete we offered everyone an aprËs dinner glass of wine. After a long cold day in the saddle and the hard work of setting up camp and then cooking dinner, we were looking forward to relaxing around the fire. "No thanks," said Brian. "We'd better get going. We have a busy day tomorrow."

"Us, too," said Brenda. "It was a wonderful meal. Thanks so much."

Lois and I stared blankly at each other. After everyone left we polished off the bottle of wine and flopped into our sleeping bags, dead tired.

The next morning I crawled out of the tent to white stuff! It had snowed an inch during the night. Lois slept in while I got the fire going and made a pot of cowboy coffee. The weather looked foreboding to the south, so we quickly packed and saddled. Brian and Vicki arrived on their four-wheeler, to guide us up the mountain to pick up the trail that would take us to Ron and Brenda's. By then a towering bank of purple clouds from the south was headed our way. Though it had warmed up considerably since early morning, the wind had picked up, and by the time we reached the ridge top trail, it began to thunder in the east. A second storm system was headed our way. Our friends turned for home. We were again traveling through unexplored territory. "See that ridge over there that works down to that notch between those two peaks?" I asked Lois. "I think if we head that way, we'll come out on that ridge that drops into Ron and Brenda's."

"Uh-huh," said Lois "it looks about right to me."

We rounded the backside of Old Baldy and came out of the trees into the open on a high ridge, just as the storm front from the east and the whirling purple storm clouds from the south meshed into a black and purple vortex. The pine trees swayed violently in the gusting wind. Lightning spiked toward nearby mountaintops, and the thunder was immediate. We were directly under the colliding storm systems, two human lightning rods atop horses on a granite ridge. "Yikes," exclaimed Lois, "I don't want to be chicken, but maybe we should get off and walk?"

"Sounds like a good plan to me," I replied. As we prepared to dismount, the tangled storm systems politely parted and whooshed off in opposite directions.

We could once again see in the distance the ridge we needed to ride toward and optimistically set off at a good clip. A couple miles later the mountains in front of us suddenly disappeared as we were engulfed in huge swirling flakes of snow. Without bearings in an area we had not ridden before, we made our best guess and continued on. The snow piled up, then melted on our hats and shoulders, and on the tops of our animals and packs, melting as it hit the earth. I was wishing that they made defrosters and windshield wipers for eyeglasses when Lois, who was in front of me, whoa'd back and exclaimed, "Mushrooms!" All along the road, popping up from under matted layers of aspen leaves were dozens of huge, dark brown, lacy, lovely morels. They were the super-duper king-sized morels perfectly suited to dredging in egg and flour and frying in a pan. I leaped from my horse and dragged her along by the reins as I collected them greedily. Lois held the pack string and coached me from horseback. "There! Over there behind that log! Next to that big rock! Over there!" No sooner had I remounted and ridden a few yards, another batch of the delectable velvety beauties thrust up their wrinkled blackish-brown tops from the rotted leaves. We proceeded slowly down the logging road, unable to pass up even one. The snow continued off and on. After a couple of hours, both our saddle bags bulged with mushrooms, but we were soggy and cold, and the day was growing late.

Mushroom fever abated and we decided to hasten for Ron and Brenda's. Looking around, all we could see was the belly of the snow cloud hanging above us, obscuring all landmarks. "This is it," Lois declared. "I'm cold. Let's get there. We can't be too far away."

"Lead on, pathfinder."

We rode for about a half hour downhill before deciding we were again headed the wrong way. We turned around and rode back to where we could see the ridge behind which we thought was Ron and Brenda's farmstead. The snow picked up again. We moved as fast we could, but Petunia and Debby were tired and cranky and had no enthusiasm for facing into yet another blizzard of gigantic snowflakes. After an hour we were moving at a pretty good clip, and I was starting to imagine how good it would feel to get out of my damp clothes and warm my feet. Just then Lois pointed to an open green metal gate. "Hey! Didn't we ride past that about an hour ago?" Shocked, we realized we had ridden in a big circle. "What in the hell are we doing out here?" I asked rhetorically. "My feet are cold, my hands are ice, my glasses are fogged over and I'm starving! Why can't we just stay home and bake cookies, like the other mommies?" Lois turned around in her saddle and smiled kindly from underneath the sodden rim of her cowboy hat and said, "Now what fun would that be?" With no further missteps we finally arrived at Ron and Brenda's, where they had a kettle of savory soup simmering on the stove, and a big batch of morels they had just picked waiting to be cooked for us. It wasn't long before we were full and warm and happy again. And though we had intended tenting for another night, we instead decided to load our pack string into the horse trailer and go home. Friends called during the next few days to ask about our trip. They said things like, "I watched all those storms hitting up there where I knew you girls were, and I was sure glad I wasn't with you!" We were glad too, and laughed about the irony of having navigated easily through wilderness areas and then getting lost so close to home.

I can understand people who are happier at home than on a horse packing trip in the snow, but I can't wait to once more head for the high country. Other trips have been fraught with other problems and other dangers. We've ridden down a hogback in pitch darkness with only a flashlight to prevent us guiding our pack string off a precipice, reported a forest fire and waited until the fire crew roared by to fight it, battled horseflies the size of bumblebees, turned our pack train around on a steep mountainside in an area the size of a door mat, crossed boulder-strewn flood-stage rivers and ridden fifteen miles in one day in 117-degree heat. But we have also experienced the total freedom of life on the trail, with no clocks, no phones and no schedules to keep. We've been to the places where the rivers begin and felt the thrum of the earth's magnetic pull as we lay on our backs watching Mars appear like a red beauty mark next to the face of the full moon. We've flushed a grizzly bear out of a huckleberry patch and been astonished at the speed with which he rocketed from view. We've watched from our sleeping bags as elk watered from the river at dawn, the horns of the bulls materializing like tangled tree limbs from the mist. And late last spring we watched in awe as two thunderstorms danced.

Carol Austin is a freelance writer and horse breeder who lives near Rice. For more information about Stink Weasel's Excellent Adventures contact: Carol Austin at 738-6641 or visit her website at http://www.AustinSportHorses.com/StinkWeasel.htm.

Contents

Trail Talk: Riding the Kettle Crest
by Carol Austin

Some of the most splendid horseback riding opportunities in the country exist in the Tricounty area. Now is the time to get out on the trails, enjoy the balmy weather and take in the scenery. There are many wonderful places to ride hereabouts, and most people don't have to venture far to find them, but, if you would like to explore a little further afield and enjoy some new vistas, try the Forest Service trails.

U. S. Forest Service Ranger Districts, located in Kettle Falls, Colville, Republic and Sullivan Lake offer free recreation maps for trail riders. The maps are keyed to indicate the best season to use the trails, the amount of use the trails receive and the difficulty of the terrain. They include directions to access the trail and helpful information about attractions and other considerations of the ride.

Last July a group of friends and I rode a section of the Kettle Crest Trail #13 South, near Sherman Pass. The portion of the trail we rode traverses the back side of White Mountain. It is a series of fairly easy trails and switchbacks, combined with some areas of increased difficulty. Parts of the area we rode through were burnt by the White Mountain Complex fires of 1988. The outstanding feature of the #13 trail, as far as the women on the ride were concerned, was the brilliant display of wildflowers blanketing the steep hillsides. There were purple lupines and yellow poppies, white yarrow and fluorescent pink indian paintbrush cascading down the mountainside in brilliant contrast with the lush grass and splotches of steel-grey granite talus slopes. The view was punctuated with huge specimen pines and charred tree skeletons, remnants of the devastating 1988 fire.

Our lone male companion (who suffered from "Ward Bond Complex"--you know, the guy who's always in the lead), was much more interested in the huge mule deer bucks we flushed along our route.

If you decide to try this scenic trail, pack a lunch and carry drinking water, because you'll want to explore as much as possible in a day. There are campsites along the way for overnighters, and well-marked watering spots for the horses. Don't forget your camera, and be sure your horse is well shod to withstand the rocky areas. I ended up trying to pound a shoe back on with a rock, and my horse finished the ride with three shoes.

The parking areas at the trail heads are ample for large trailers and have information about the trail posted there. Be sure to read and observe the rules for trail use, such as staying on the trail, not cutting across switchbacks and packing out all your refuse with you. This is especially important since special interest groups are trying to have horses banned from many areas. Horses can be destructive animals if not properly managed, so try to make as little impact on the environment with them as possible.

Happy trails.

Carol Austin is a freelance writer, author and publisher who raises horses near Rice. Her book, "Suicide Race," details the history of the Suicide Race held yearly in Omak, Washington.

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