Winter Equine Camping
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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