Of all the things that could go wrong when one is halfway up on the edge of a very steep canyon wall, which is easily a thousand feet tall, on a trail that is, in some areas, only three hooves wide, covered in snow and ice, and has fallen trees, while on a horse that is “high spirited;” the worst had happened. I found myself in the air, trying to kick my feet free from out of the stirrups as the horse and I began our decent down the canyon face. Time stopped; we didn’t.
My day began around 0245 that morning. I was so excited about the pending trip into our tribe’s sacred mountains that I couldn’t contain myself. Every time we head to our sacred mountains profound lessons are learned, bonds between brothers become tightened evermore, and we all leave the mountains with recharged soul batteries, having become slightly more in tune with Mother Nature. These mountains are unlike any I have ever been to. The prayers of countless ancestors are here; and, every time we go, one can feel that sacredness.
I meditated after taking a shower and packing my backpack. At the end of the meditation I prayed for guidance and safe passage. Little did I know how much I would need those prayers before the sun set that very day.
There is a living legend out on the Crow Reservation. He goes by the name “Littlebit.” A true man’s man, he can build you a car from the ground up, is a former rodeo champion in many different categories, has helped raise many kids who were not his own out of the goodness of his heart, helps out anyone and everyone at the drop of a hat, and is a mountain man of mythological proportions. Simply being around him makes one a harder worker, tougher, more resilient, and kinder. I am honored to call him my friend.
I reached Littlebit’s house and we went to work loading up horse saddles and gear right after his amazing wife cooked us a hearty breakfast. Darrell, another tough as nails mountain man who has been through more than I could ever imagine and a great friend to us both, was also with us. I could not have been more excited.
Once everything was packed up, we went to wrangle the horses. I recognized all of the horses, except one. This new horse, Nutcracker, was far bigger than all of the rest; even bigger than Wiggles, a brute of a horse (who I also happen to have a “fun” history with haha). Nutcracker is owned by a man Littlebit knows, who told him to take the massive horse to the mountains for some exercise. It’s not a new or foreign concept at Littlebit’s; he trains and exercises horses for people, so we always see new faces.
Nutcracker was very quickly excited the moment we entered the corral. He began running around, thereby stirring up and exciting even the tamest horse-Junior. These horses are very well taken care of, have a very respecting relationship with us, and love to ride. But, the skittish nature of this one horse seemed to stir them all up.
Horses all have their own personalities, fears, and temperaments just like humans do. One also quickly learns how to read a horse’s energy just as a horse reads the rider’s. I felt as though Nutcracker had fear and a slight bit of crazy in his eyes the moment our eyes locked.
We finally wrangled up all the horses (a hilarious process because some of the horses will stand facing the corner thinking that if they don’t make eye contact with you, then you can’t see them either), and loaded them into the horse trailer. The trip to the mountains takes us through miles upon miles of dirt roads (which in the winter are covered in snow). We took the horse trailer as far as we thought it would go, before parking it.
“Herman, why don’t you ride that big horse there” Littlebit said.
“Huh? That one?” I replied as though I didn’t already know which one he was talking about.
“Yea. The owner says he’s ‘high spirited;’” Littlebit said.
“HA! High spirited? More like crazy;” I said, half-jokingly under my breath.
I didn’t give it much thought after that at all. We saddled up the three riding horses and the pack horse. At about 6’1,” it was not easy for me to mount this horse, just to give some perspective on his size. Nonetheless, we all mounted our horses and set off toward the sacred mountains-the most beautiful landscape that I have ever laid eyes upon.
The snow glistened in the afternoon sun. With smiles lighting up our faces, joy in our heart, and adventure in our souls we galloped up the first foothill. We rode in silence for a while, enjoying the quiet stillness, and just taking it all in.
We came up to the first canyon. It was much smaller than the canyon we were heading for, but still steep enough to send man and steed alike back Home with a slip on the slim trail. The trail is such that if one were walking it on foot, another could not stand shoulder-to-shoulder. If one had a fear of heights this would not be a place they would want to be. I do not have a fear of heights, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get a proper rush of excitement, joy, and adventure immediately upon descending onto the trail with a hop over a boulder and down another. I let out a “WOO!” and laughed as smiles overtook our faces. This is the kind of stuff I used to dream of as a kid; quite literally a dream come true for me.
We made it down to the canyon bottom. A beautiful river runs through it. The water glistened a clear blue in the shimmering sunlight. The horses all took a little drink. We crossed over, and began our ascent up the other side of the canyon wall. As we entered a batch of thickets Littlebit hollered: “hold on to your hats!”
We ducked and dodged the low-hanging branches with reigns in one hand and holding on to our hats with the other as the horses galloped to make it up the steep parts. All the other horses slowed down at the crest of the steep parts, but Nutcracker wanted to keep running. I gave the verbal stop command of “woahhh, woahhh,” but had to gently pull the reins down when he paid no mind.
We began climbing higher and higher up the canyon wall and Nutcracker only became more and more bold, trying to pass the other horses on the slim trail. We nearly got in some real trouble when he bullied the reigns and tried to push by the pack horse and then turned sharply to the right, going a few feet up the canyon wall (luckily on a flatter, wider part of the trail which was still highly sketchy nonetheless). We recorrected and got back on the trail.
“You have to teach that one to follow!” Littlebit hollered.
We finally made it to the top of the canyon to flat ground. We maintained a single file line for a mile or so to help Nutcracker get used to playing follow the leader. We crested a hill and saw a magnificent sight. Three rather large coyotes slowly trotted off at the sight of us. Their departure signaled several crows and magpies, two bald eagles, and a massive golden eagle to slowly fly into the air. With the sunlight dancing on their feathers as their wings caught the wind, ascending into the heavens like a dancing tornado of avifauna, and the mountains in the background, it was a sight that no words or pictures could ever do justice; an understanding, harmony.
We came up to the two elk carcasses that the array of animals was feeding on just minutes prior. It was a grim sight; a reminder that life and death are interdependent on one another. I glanced down to my Ruger without even thinking about it; ever grateful for its companionship.
We made it to the edge of the canyon whose bottom was our destination.
“Tighten your saddles up! We’re heading down! Haha!” Littlebit exclaimed said with excitement and a laugh.
Steam from our horses created the foreground for the amazing visual and destination before us. I took in the scene, breathing the air in deeply and smelling the freshness. I looked back to see Darrell already on his horse ready to go. I took the sight in once more before hopping on my horse with pure excitement. The only word that came into my mind was: “shitchyea,” haha.
We began not only our decent into the bottom of the canyon, but an entire new adventure in itself. The ride down began about 2,000 feet above the canyon floor if I had to guess. It’s difficult to say because drop offs and trees prevented me from seeing the canyon floor. The trail was thin enough in certain spots to make my horse tread the very edge with the outside two hooves. I thought about my friend in Utah whose brother went over the edge of such a trail with his horse and broke his neck. I immediately centered myself back into the moment, forcing all such negative thought out by focusing on my breath and all of the sensations in my body.
Certain parts of the trail took some getting used to for my mind. For instance, usually the edges of trails on canyon walls, a thousand to two thousand feet from the ground, are not where I enjoy the presence of snow and ice. When we came upon a similar portion of the trail which also had a fallen log on it, it really made me think how the hell we were going to continue on. My question was soon answered at the sight of Littlebit excitedly taking his horse’s reigns one handed, with pack horse in tow, up the slippery, steep mountain side. My eyebrows raised in surprise and the thought: “damn, I didn’t even know that was possible;” entered my mind as a smile lit up my face.
With a swift and powerful motion my horse and I too went up and around the impediment. I was some kind of excited, smiling and laughing to myself, alone, in the back of the trail line. We made it down to the bottom of the canyon to find a shallow, partially frozen river. The horses had a nice long drink until the ice beneath their feet began to break. Littlebit’s horse, Junior, being the most experienced of all the horses, gracefully leapt and galloped across the river. However, the pack horse whose lead rope Littlebit still had in his hand, decided he was going to stay put, like a child wanting to run away from taking a bath, but then had a sudden change of mind, took a large, joyful, splashing jump into and then across the river.
Darrell and his horse, Wiggles, seemed to also have a little discussion about crossing the river as the ice beneath Wiggles’ hooves began to break. With a deep bellowed “YAHH!” from Darrell, Wiggles jumped into action and ran across the river and slowly trotted up the steep bank on the other side.
Nutcracker looked at the ice; he looked across to Wiggles and Darrell on the other side, thought about crossing, and then wanted nothing to do with it all when the ice began breaking under his heavy frame. In fear, the poor guy wanted to turn around and go back up the way we came. I imagine his thoughts were something along the lines of “screw you guys, I’m going home.” Using the momentum of his abrupt right-sided turn, I pulled his reigns down to the right, took a page out of Darrell’s book, and bellowed a loud and deep “YAHH!” as we slang shot across the icy river.
I felt a momentous surge of power in my horse, and felt that he enjoyed the aggressive, powerful act of crossing the shallow river. As we hit the steep bank, I could feel that he wanted to continue in power, speed, and raw aggression, but couldn’t see the barely distinguishable trail covered in snow. I became his eyes, encouraging his spirit with a loud, excited “WOOO!” and a cinching down of my legs.
We jolted up the bank, up the snowy cutbacks, and were operating with horse and rider as one. At that speed the turns felt like hairpins. Pulling sharply right, then left, then right, then left, then right again, we blew up the bank and into the thick ponderosa forest; which without a doubt felt enchanted. One could have easily lost their hat in the low-hanging branches we ran through if not held on to tightly with one hand.
We caught up with the rest of the trail line at about the same time that Littlebit spotted a herd of elk about 700 yards away. With a look, and the flick of the wrist, the lead rope of the pack horse left Littlebit’s hand, into Darrell’s. A look from Littlebit preceded the semi-whispered “Herman, let’s go!” The chase was on.
Snow kicked up from the hooves of both horses. We were in the bottom of the most beautiful canyon on earth. We were all but alone for at least 50 miles in any direction; other than the elk we were chasing, the horses we rode, Mother Nature, and the ancestors who guided our souls. I had thought such times and scenes ended with train robberies and the herds of buffalo which ran as far as the eye could see. Yet, here we were; living the times of old again, as we once did, a long lost past lifetime ago.
More snow shot into the air as our horses picked up speed. We went down a hill sharp enough to make my stomach go up a quarter ways up my throat. We burst between some trees at the bottom of the hill, seeing the site where someone had once camped before the snows came many months ago. We ascended up another hill at full speed. For a brief moment, my mind seemed to flash me back to a time far gone; a time of horses, bows and arrows, buckskins, feathers, and buffalo robes.
This flash was abruptly stopped by the sight of Littlebit and Junior getting stuck in a four foot snow drift. In an excited whisper, Littlebit said “keep going, Herman!” Although my harvesting days seem to be well over, a little adventurous chase for the sheer fun and excitement of it never hurt anyone! That thought immediately left my mind when I found myself in the air.
Over the handlebars I went. I flew through the air and landed in the snow, which hit me with a brisk awakening as it entered the space where my jacket meets my neck. The short flight to an arctic-style wake up from nostalgia was due to a four foot snow drift that sank the front legs of my horse, sending me over.
The look in the eyes of my horse clearly said “y’all are crazy and I’m outta here!” My eyes attempted to call his bluff. I certainly lost that bet as he decided to run back the way we came. I attempted to chase after him, high-kneeing through the massive snow drifts.
Darrell saw Nutcracker running towards him with Littlebit and Junior in hot pursuit, and me on foot, also chasing; helping nothing by my cardio haha. Like a relay runner, as Nutcracker blew past Darrell, Darrell tossed the lead rope of the pack horse to Littlebit as he arrived, and chased after Nutcracker. Snow kicking up in all directions, he turned him around back towards Littlebit, who then funneled him to me. The horse gave me a look which seemed to say: “fine, I’ll let you catch me…but we’re going home after this.”
Once the snow settled and we realized all was well, we had a good laugh at the sight of me flying through the air and into the snow. The elk had escaped, but the laugh we had at my expense made up for it.
We took back to the trail as the sun danced on the horizon and told us he would be gone soon; but, not before some coffee in the enchanted ponderosa forest. Down the river bank we went, crossing the river much smoother. This was when I first noticed really something off about Nutcracker’s behavior. He tried to pass Darrell’s horse as we began to make it to the top of the river bank. I pulled back on his reigns knowing that this type of behavior in just a few minutes could easily cost us both well-being and our lives alike. He immediately disapproved and became slightly agitated, breathing hard, grunting, and shaking his head.
I focused on my breath, recentered myself, and found calmness in the present moment which helped calm my horse down some. The trail began to increase in steepness. We began the ascent. He was fine at first, but then randomly tried to pass Darrell and Wiggles yet again! I pulled back gently on his reigns to stop his move, which would have sent us off the trail and down about 50 feet to the river at the bottom; and, he all of the sudden made a hard right turn. He quickly realized that the cutback was way too steep for him to go up. I pulled his reigns to the right until we were facing the proper direction again. This move could have easily cost us, yet again, on many parts of the trail. Luckily, it didn’t.
We continued up the trail, now with the canyon wall to our left, a beautiful sky, and about a 1,000 foot drop down a very steep part of the trail and canyon, to God knows where, to our right. I couldn’t even see the canyon basin, so I couldn’t tell you what, or how far the bottom was. My conservative guess is that we were about 1,000 feet up from it.
We were all enjoying the peace, quiet, and serenity of the moment. All of the sudden, out of nowhere (yet again), Nutcracker tried to pass Darrell with an abrupt movement. I bellowed “woaa woaa” (the universal: “don’t do that/stop horse” command) and gently pulled on the reigns. Before I knew it, I was sideways in the air, kicking my feet free from the reigns out of pure subconscious reaction, as Nutcracker and I went off the trail, and down the canyon wall.
I hit the ground. Rocks greeted my back as I immediately began sliding down the sloping canyon. I heard loud crashing sounds as if they were right behind my head. I grabbed my head, cranking my chin into my chest as I continued to slide downwards. I thought about the possibility of this horse simply stepping on me, let alone somersaulting on top of me. Without a doubt, this massive horse’s weight on my chest would crush my ribs, turning them into jagged knives dancing in my thoracic cavity.
I finally came to a stop, which I was grateful for. Hearing the crashing sounds, seemingly directly above me, but daring not to look up in the interest of time, I log-rolled as fast as I could to my left. I began sliding down the canyon wall yet again. Looking to my right, Nutcracker slid about ten feet past me with intensity, stomping about trying to regain steady footing.
We both finally came to a halt as some downed trees provided something to stop us. Nutcracker and I locked eyes. His legs were sprawled out wide; shaking. The look in his eyes said “okay, I trust you; just please get me off the side of this canyon thing!”
Upon initial assessment, I was not only grateful, but impressed that he was uninjured and hadn’t fallen amidst all of the chaos. I walked towards him, carefully using the log at my feet to give me something to hold onto. I looked him in the eyes with one hand in the air in front of his nose, as I slowly leaned down to grab his lead rope with the other; all the while smiling and softly saying “it’s okay buddy, it’s okay. Everything’s great. Everything is just great.”
No sooner than I picked up his lead rope, I heard the movement of rocks sliding downward. Out from underneath me, my legs left the perfectly good ground and found themselves where they shouldn’t be-in the air, a few inches above the ground. The ground welcomed me once more with a thud. I somehow found myself in between a horse going downhill…and, well, downhill. Needless to say, I was hoping and praying this horse wouldn’t crush me once again. I scrambled to the right as fast as I could, getting away from the horse as we continued to slide down the canyon. I grabbed onto a log, once again getting to my feet. The horse, however, slid another few yards, knocking me off balance and back to the ground.
I managed to get back up. With the lead rope in my hands, I tried to take a few steps uphill, but it was too steep.
“You have to go sideways!” I heard Littlebit scream. I looked up to where he was on the trail. He sure did seem a far ways away. I began moving laterally with horse in tow. This also proved to be too steep as I almost fell yet again. Nutcracker began sliding downwards as his lead rope shot out of my hand. I slid down to grab it; similar to how a baseball player slides into a base, leading with one leg.
We had to go diagonally and down to a spot, just before the trail, which was more level. We finally made it back onto the trail. Nutcracker said bye as he bullied by, and trotted past me up the trail. I tried to grab his lead rope, but a pain shot up from my groin into my stomach telling me that I was not going to move much faster. Darrell grabbed his lead rope as Nutcracker made it back up to them. When I saw that all was calm with no visible threats to convoy and horse, I sat down realizing that at some point during this entire ordeal I had not only pulled my groin, but kind of just mashed everything in that region.
I took a minute or two to myself just admiring the beauty that surrounded us (in the picture above you can see how to the right of my feet the drop off is so steep that you can't see the ground below). I then had to get back up realizing that the sun would soon be down and we still weren’t out of one canyon with some hills, another canyon, and some more hills to cross before we were back at camp.
“I’m walking this horse back home, he’s fucking crazy!” I said to Littlebit and Darrell.
“Yea…You have to ride him because we’re too far way and it’s going to get dark soon;” Littlebit said matter-of-factly.
“God dammit.” I knew he was right.
“He keeps wanting to pass us. He was a race horse once. You guys take the lead;” Littlebit said.
“What?! He was a race horse?! Well, that sure explains a whole lot;” I said as we all shared a good laugh.
I got back on the horse. And, up the trail we went. Other than some minor mishaps, we made it back without incident…for now.
Finally back at camp with no time to spare as darkness settled in, I got off the horse realizing the shooting pain that remained from my pulled groin. I limped along as we unsaddled the horses and gave them their hay. We put hobbles on their ankles so that they could roam around freely at night, but could not run away. We set up our tents, crawled in, and went to sleep.
I was deep off in dreamland when sounds of horses neighing and hooves running close to my tent woke me up around 0100. I put on some clothes and went to have a look. The horses seemed to be distressed and were seemingly all over the place. It was difficult to pinpoint their position in the heavy snowfall and wind that had started while we were asleep. Darrell and Littlebit were already out and about, catching the horses when I made it to the scene.
It turns out that Nutcracker’s powerful legs broke his hobbles, and spooked the other horses into hopping away from camp. Other than some deer tracks in the snow, nothing else got near camp that we could see.
Once we tied the horses back up to the horse trailer, we made some chili and coffee to help warm up; staying up until about 4 AM, sharing more laughs before taking a nap. When daylight broke, the snow was still falling. The approximately -8°F (with wind-chill) temperature made the air feel crisp. Although I petitioned to go back out to the canyon on the horses, Littlebit assured me that we would shortly be stuck if we didn’t begin to head out immediately.
On the way home, we made only one stop. Littlebit and Darrell got out of their truck, took Nutcracker out of the trailer, and began walking him.
“Where are yall taking him?” I asked.
“Back to his owner!” Littlebit said as he laughed.
From my jeep, I watched them return the horse to the owner. “What did you tell him;” I asked.
“I said, ‘this horse is too crazy, he almost crushed my buddy’s nuts!’”
I laughed. “And, what did he say?”
“He just laughed” Littlebit said laughing himself. “At least you have a story now though. Haha.”
What profound spiritual lesson did I learn you ask? Don’t ever ride a crazy race horse on the side of a canyon wall. But, if you do, you’ll surely have one hell of a day.