Horse Packin

Every summer NOSOCA has a horse pack trip during one of the weeks of camp. I expressed my desire to go one year to our director Rick Faber and his response was something along the lines of "why would you want to do that? It's too hot to camp. We go during the winter to scout sometimes, we'll put a trip together for yah." So he did and I found myself if Virginia for October break!

Disclaimer: due to heavy fog and prevalence of taking pictures on moving horses some of these are not of extremely good quality but I hope you enjoy none-the-less.

We drove in Wednesday around 7 pm to find camp already set up for us. This is base camp. The barn and bathrooms etc are behind me. To the left is another tent just for warm clothing.... it got extremely cold as I will explain further in a minute. There were twelve us us til friday night when Brent came and made our number 13.

If there was a fire going, somebody was always making stick bread.

Thursday morning feeding up before the morning ride.

Maria made sure to observe the "all dogs must be on a leash" law. This dog is crazy amazing. She and Austie which you will see later are EXTREMELY well trained cattle dogs.

First ride... Turned out to be a crazy one. We were climbing over rocky cliffs. Ever seen a horse slide down a rock?

Thursday afternoon another group went out for their first and only ride. They weren't as die hard riders as some. We only brought six horses.

The rest of us stayed behind and played slave and thump thump.

Supper prep for campfire stew. You put veggies and mushroom soup and fri chic in tin foil then stick it under the coals.


Josh wanted to make sure that we knew which one was his.

The Mountain Man and his Wife cook breakfast...in the rain...and it stayed rainy pretty much all day.

We were able to rustle up a beach umbrella to keep the rain off our food. Very campy I know.

While some went golfing and the rest of us took an 8 hr ride to Elk Garden.

Me and my noble steed Dakota. He's a great horse just a little dumb when it comes to water and getting over rocks. At one point he ended up on his knees. MY knees are covered in bruises because he has an affinity for trees as well. Otherwise he was a perfect ride and a lot of fun. I was stylin the chaps that day for which I later became very grateful.








I think they said that there were something like 160 wild ponies. Aren't they cute? There were some babies in the pack too. They were very unafraid of humanity.

Up at the top of the mountain, visibility was about 50 ft. I felt like I was in a western movie the whole day. I wish you could see Loren's horses' eyes. They are white, which sounds scary but it's actually really pretty. We had quite a bit of trouble with him on this trip tho. He bucked Loren 4 times. It was rather exciting.

Dakota and I take a lunch break

Up in the caves... This day was SOOOO cold and windy and wet. It was more fun then it was miserable but it was pretty miserable at times.

We finally got below the clouds and got to see some of the view. The mountains were in peak but due to the high winds were loosing leaves at a high rate of speed. See the Christmas tree farms? They were everywhere; sometimes right along the path. Made me very ready for Christmas

At the end of the day, everybody was exhausted. Even the dogs.

Saturday morning, incredibly not so saddle sore, we saddled up for our last ride out to the scales. That's me in the big gray coat that I stole from the stash in the closet. By this point it was down in the thirties.

Dakota and I hit the trails again.... can you tell I'm freezing? Even after saddling.

But it was the first day that we finally got to see the sun!!!!

As usual the trails were GORGEOUS!!! I wish I could capture it on camera. Everything was perfect... well except for the fact that I was freezing.

Brent was styling in an attempt to keep warm. I had a scarf wrapped over my head and under my chin to try to keep my ears warm

Nick and I. The horse he's on is named Dancy. She is a really good cattle horse. The Wrangler, Loren, pictured below (can't miss him, he's big and purple) used to be a cattle rancher.
Judy and I crossing the stream.

Dancy got hurt so we had to pony her for awhile. They were all getting tired and not picking up their feet so a few of them got some sizable cuts.

Remember I told you that Dakota hated water? I had been off walking beside him because of the fore stated issues, and he started flipping out because we were in a rocky creek bed, spinning around in circles. Being the round horse that he is, no saddle stays on him very well so between that and his spinning, when I tried to get on him the saddle fell off and well, I ended up soaking wet with mud sprayed up on me. Can you see my wet pants leg? I don't think I got warm again for the rest of the weekend. Dakota never walked through muddy water again. He preferred to jump it instead. The first time of which I was totally unprepared, with my feet out of the stirrups. But like I said he was just enough trouble to be fun. Don't want a boring horse!


That afternoon we all headed out to go on the Virginia Creeper Trail. When we went to rent some bikes they said it was closed however because somebody had put tacks all over the trail and people were coming in with flats. Apparetly some smart one does this 6 or 7 times a year to get back at the government.
So we stopped in the little town of Damascus instead. This is before the apple fight broke out--one of my personal highlights.

But then we found out that the trail was open at least part way so we traided off on the six bikes that we had and rode part of it.

That night a mixture of hunger, cold, and exhaustion hit us and it was Saturday Night Live by the campfire. I wish I could have captured the moment for you. I haven't laughed that hard and that much in ages. This is garlic bread making. I wasn't able to try it myself but I hear that it was so garlicy that with each breath, garlic cloves were reforming in the air. Smore making contests were also part of the nightly events.


Poor Austie was shivering so I put her up on my lap to try to get both of us warm. I think it got into the twenties that night. I was told before I left that you should sleep in as little as possible in mummy sleeping bags because they work off of body heat. On previous nights I had found that to be true but this particular night, the thought of taking off all my layers (can you tell I have more then one pair of pants on? I swear my legs aren't normally that huge) and waiting to get warm in a place not by the fire sounded dreadful so I chickened out and went and crashed in the motor home.

Packed up and ready to go home.

Leaving was definitely bitter sweet. It took me over four hours to finally get warm after we left Sunday morning. Even when I felt warm I was getting cold chills every 5 minutes. If I make it through this week without getting sick I'll find it to be a miracle. I have never been so incredibly cold in my life. However, I have also never had so much fun in my life. Can I go again?