If going hunting twice in his life makes Mitt Romney
a “lifetime hunter,” then you could say I’m a
lifetime horse rider. Besides a couple of childhood pony rides, I
took one riding lesson as a teenager from an instructor whose
teaching style resembled that of a Russian ballet mistress —
when she cracked her whip, I was never sure if it was for me or the
horse. I was grateful for that lesson on June 5, when I joined the
Four Corners Back Country Horsemen, an advocacy and volunteer group
that works to keep public lands open to horses, for a trail ride
and barbecue to celebrate National Trails Day. Established by the
American Hiking Society, the day recognizes the value of
public-lands trails for hiking, biking and horseback riding.
The morning of the event, I was the first guest to arrive
at the Lower Hermosa campground, located in the San Juan National
Forest in southwestern Colorado. Jon Sherer, an insurance salesman
and one of the Horsemen, taught me how to control my horse, a
17-year-old ginger-colored gelding named Jack. Sherer warned me
that, even though it would be mostly “follow the
leader” on the trail, I should be prepared to rein Jack in if
we encountered a motorcycle, llama or other strange creature.
“Even a backpack looks freaky to them,” he said.
The trail we planned to ride, the Lower Hermosa, is the
most heavily used in the ranger district; the Horsemen consider it
a “model” of multiple use. “Shoot,” said
Biff Stransky, a retired Forest Service ranger who’s now
president of the Four Corners Back Country Horsemen, “one
year it was in Playboy Magazine, believe it or not. Of course, I
didn’t see the article…” But somehow he knew that
the story, published about 16 years ago, named the Lower Hermosa
one of the top 10 mountain bike trails of the West, and showcased
riders who included Playmates.
Later, I learned that on
multiple-use trails, a code of etiquette governs encounters between
horses and other trail users. When a horse or pack string meets
with a backpacker, the backpacker should step off the trail, moving
to the low side in order to look smaller and less threatening, and
wait for the horses to pass. Mountain bikers and off-road vehicle
users going in the opposite direction of a horse string should do
the same; if they are headed in the same direction, they should
stay behind the horses until there is a wide enough place to walk
their vehicles past. The engine of an off-road vehicle can spook a
horse, so the driver should shut off his machine when horses are
close by. Friendly conversation between the horse riders and other
users will assure the horses that there are people attached to
those machines and backpacks.
After about an hour and a
half on the trail, we stopped for a break in an open woodland of
ponderosa pine. Rowdy Wood, from the Columbine Ranger District,
said the area is still used for grazing, but things have changed as
land managers learn more about how to keep the forest healthy. They
now know that plants need a period of rest, so although they used
to allow grazing from May 15 to Thanksgiving, they now limit it to
June 15 to Oct. 15. And though the agency once let ranchers scatter
cattle all over the allotment to remain relatively sedentary
throughout the season, it now requires the cattle be moved in
groups from one area to another. This is expensive, and the changes
have not been popular with ranchers.
While we snacked,
Stransky told us the group feels its best advocacy tool is to get
people out in the woods, where they’ll let their guard down and
speak candidly. “A lot of our politicians are forgetting
about us,” he said. “They’re excluding horses
without even thinking about it.” All that the Back Country
Horsemen want, he said, is for people to remember horses when
they’re planning projects and uses on public lands. Even when
managers aren’t trying to exclude horses, they often end up
doing so inadvertently. For example, you can’t bring your
horse to just any campground: the roads need to have curves wide
enough for a trailer to negotiate, and it’s helpful to have
corrals for the horses.
Back on the trail, Jack made it
clear he was anxious to get back to camp, constantly trying to get
ahead of the others, but somehow I kept him in line most of the
time. As we reached the parking lot after four hours and seven
miles on the trail, we saw a couple of folks on off-road vehicles
preparing to head into the forest. After we passed them, we
wondered how far they would make it on the narrow, brushy trail,
which is popular with motorcyclists but rarely used by
four-wheelers.
The Back Country Horsemen often find
themselves on the same side as motorized users and cyclists in
fights over access to trails on public lands, but it’s clear
many of them feel it’s a Faustian bargain. In conversations
amongst themselves, few have nice things to say about motorized
users: They scare the horses, they make noise, they go off the
trails, they’re lazy, and how can they experience the
outdoors from the backs of those machines? “They look like
Darth Vader,” said one rider.
But ask members of
the Horsemen directly whether they support some restrictions on
trail access, and most of them will sidestep the question.
It’s clear that, as much as they may regret the presence of
motorized vehicles on the trails, they are afraid that if they
start supporting restrictions on one type of user, their own
preferred mode of transport could be reined in next. Instead,
“education” is their watchword: They just want to teach
everyone to get along.
Finally we all arrived, sore but
in one piece, back at the campground in time to eat barbecue with a
couple dozen other Horsemen who had arrived while we were on the
trail. Before we all headed home, Sandy Young, the event’s
organizer, left us with a few words of advice from a horse:
Take life’s hurdles in stride.
Loosen the reins.
Be free-spirited.
Keep the
burrs out from under your saddle.
Keep stable.
Carry your friends when they need it.
Spur yourselves to
greatness.
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