Winter Equine Camping© Lori Hall-McNary
Jan 3, 2001
Camping with your horses takes plenty of preparation. Camping in the snow with Southern California horses…I’ll let Los Vallecitos Rider’s Trail Boss, Muleman Jay, give you the details in his own words.
"BRRRRRR....COLD!!!!!! It snowed and it was REALLY
COLD, then it snowed some more and it got COLDER. And
then to top it off it got even colder and snowed some
more, are you starting to see a pattern here? For
those of you who spent the weekend at home in the
rain, you missed out on a wild weekend. When Hunter
and I left Friday morning about 10:30 it was drizzling, as we got up to Alpine, it was pouring
rain. When we got up around Descanso it started
getting colder and it was snowing lightly. As we got
higher up in the mountains the snow was sticking and
as we got up to horse camp it was really starting to
come down. Cliff and Cindy were already there
making camp and Cliff took a few minutes to help me
stretch a tarp over my stock trailer to keep the
blowing snow out of our "home" for the next few days.
We hurried to set up our gear and get the horses and
mules taken care of. By this time it was about 3pm and
there were a couple of inches of white stuff on the
ground. Hunter, Cliff, Cindy and myself had decided
that since we were here, we were going to make the
best of the situation and we might as well go for a
ride. Hunter (9 years old) had kind of a tough time since his mule Zeke had a foot abscess about 4 days earlier and was
still on the mend (he's fine now) we decided to bring
our greenbroke Norwegian Fjord horse Snow on the trip.
I had planned to pony her like we have done on several
trail rides but she was having so much fun playing in
the snow that she was frequently a handful. After
dealing with her 3-year-old antics for the weekend
Hunter has a greater appreciation for his well broke
quiet old mule. Anyway our afternoon ride did take
place and we have several "blizzard" photos to prove
it.
Hunter and I turned in early in our trailer. I can tell
you that you have not lived until you have spent a
night on a cot in an open stock trailer during a snowstorm. Happily we had good quality gear and some zero
degree rated sleeping bags or it could have been
really ugly. We found that if you really used your
imagination you could pretend that the lantern was
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The copyright of the article Winter Equine Camping in Horse Management is owned by Lori Hall-McNary. Permission to republish Winter Equine Camping in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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