3-week pack trip coming up! - General Chat - General Chat - Horse Community, Horse Pictures, Horse Forum and Information

Posted : 8/27/2010 6:13:53 PM

Yep, getting ready for elk camp with my fiancee and the horses. I am putting in some long days repairing tack and camping gear, making endless lists, preserving foods to pack in, shopping and sorting out supplies.

This will be my longest trip into the backcountry, we will be on the Oregon side of Hells Canyon (my avater pic was taken there last year). We set up the wall tent about 7 miles from the trailhead, which is about a 2-hour drive from Imnaha, Oregon up narrow gravel roads that hug steep hillsides..... Imnaha is not much of a town, has 1 building that is the store/post office/ tavern all in one.

I am taking Shelly, the little Haflinger I have been training all summer, and Peach my bombproof, tried-and-true Haflinger mare. My fiancee is bringing his gray horse, Thunder and his daughter's blue roan, Blue. Blue has a nasty attitude and is a bucker, I don't plan to ride her but I sure as heck will put a 180 pound pack load on her and see if she can buck that off! When Blue gets put to work she is a tough horse and her attitude improves. She's just one of "those" kind of horses (not my kind!).

So this year the plan is to use the truck and horse trailer as out 'general store' with extra food and supplies. I take on the role of head outfitter and will be running the horses back and forth to the trailhead to pack my fiancees hunting buddies in and out of camp while hubby hunts. The idea is to keep the loads lighter. My fiancees style was to overload the horses, trying to pack everything in at once. I have the loads broke up into categories: what we MUST have the first 2 days, and then subsequent loads like camp furniture and surplus cookware, groceries, horse feed, etc get packed in later. Same for packing out; break down as much of camp as possible a day or two ahead.

You think a weekend horse camping trip takes a lot of work, try 3 weeks! SO MUCH STUFF! It's going to be a blast, though. A lot of hard work and a lot of fun. Last year I published a photo journal in Adobe format and was able to post it on another forum as an attachment. I'll try to do the same this year.

A few more pics from last year, I had the Haflingers Sweet P and Peach, my fiancee had Thunder and a little pait mare, Roxy, who has been rehomed (she was too lightly built for what we do with horses)

hunterseat

Posted : 8/27/2010 7:34:24 PM

It's such a privilege to be in on this! How exciting! I'm going to be watching the weather and wonderning about you the whole time! But I won't worry. You got this stuff DOWN! I'm wondering about what you're preserving to take with you!
Take lost of camera batteries!
It just sounds wonderful!

ladyluck

Posted : 8/27/2010 8:32:01 PM

Have a great time and take lots of pix!! Will be watching for them!!Whew! Will be lots of work for you!

3equines

Posted : 8/27/2010 10:27:01 PM

My fiancee built a huge food dehydrator. I found that if you pressure cook seasoned meat it will shred and dry quickly in the dehydrator, and reconstitute. Then I discovered I can just open up a jar of home-canned elk or chicken and dehydrate it, since it is allready pressure cooked.

Also have been drying veggies from the garden: carrots, celery, onions, leeks, bell peppers, tomatos, broccoli, zuchini. I like to add these to Bear Creek soup mixes. We pack in some fresh produce but it either gets used or spoils in about a week, so the dried stuff adds a lot of flavor and nutrition for the rest of the trip.

Dried fruit: I use the peeler/corer to process apples and pears, makes melt-in-your-mouth pieces of dried fruit. Just picked apples this morning, pricessed them and they are in the drier right now. Have tons of dried sweet cherries from last year, I use them in place of raisins in oatmeal and dutch oven coffee cakes.

"Spaghetti sauce leather" made by cooking down tomato sauce with fresh garden herbs and garlic into a paste (I use a 12" cast iron skillet on the stovetop to maximize evaporation) then dry the paste like fruit leather in the dehydrator.

Also make jerky out of elk and deer meat.

Need to bake brownies and cookies, vacuum sealing them keeps them fresh and moist, also helps keep them from disintegrating while being packed in!

We freeze all the meat, butter, and cheese before loading it in the cooler with dry ice. I pre-cook things like bacon, sausage and ham before freezing it. Stuff stays cold for 5-7 days this way and we just lower our hygeine standards for the rest, and cook things thoroughly. Haven't gotten sick yet.

3equines

Posted : 8/27/2010 10:40:12 PM

Regarding weather it can alternate between blazing hot and freezing cold. My fiancee has been there years when it was 96* one day and snowing the next. He has had to pack camp out in blizzard conditions. Last year it was blazing hot, then got frosty and a little rainy, then hot again. Changes in a matter of hours. You just carry a lot of layers and sometimes end up wearing them all at the same time! When it gets wet or cold we put the saddles on the horses to keep their middle warm and dry, and give them extra grain or turn them out in their hobbles to graze more.

We have to set up the wall tent and seal the canvas with a silicon sealant this weekend, hopefully it will help us stay dry. The little wood stove that gets packed in does a good job of making heat but doesn't hold a fire for long, you get warm twice cutting wood to keep it going!

Painted Horse

Posted : 8/28/2010 1:49:59 AM

Yep, I like fall camping in the wall tent. We pack up a narrow slot canyon for about 5 miles before it opens up into an upper valley. We go another two miles to where we set up our tent. There is a small spring there that the rancher has piped into a series of stock tanks down the canyon. We camp 300 yards away from one of the tanks. It's where we water the horses. We haul in most of our people water.

Camp is at 8000 foot. So yes the weather can change pretty quickly. It often is snowing at camp and raining back at the truck which is parked at about 6000 foot. We occassionally see some black bears down lower by the truck. This time of year they hang out closer to the river. Up high we run into the cougars. We always find the remains of recent kills. While I've never seen one while camping in that area, I frequently see their tracks in the snow or sand.

We pack in the tent, sleeping bags, cots wood stove etc, first trip in. Horse feed and other stuff comes in on the second trip. I often haul the first trip in and while my buddy sets up the tent, I return for the second load. It takes a little over an hour to ride the 7 miles each way.

I've spent many a hour sitting on a horse in heavy snow or rain as we ride up and down this canyon.

hunterseat

Posted : 8/28/2010 2:14:35 AM

Do you gain a lot of weight camping like that? [ ':)'

] You need at least 2 big pack animals just to haul food! Sounds like so much fun! I'd want to go with you, though, cuz I know you're packing heat! I'd never have the nerve to go alone.

3equines

Posted : 8/28/2010 3:43:32 AM

[quote=hunterseat]

Do you gain a lot of weight camping like that? [ ':)'

] You need at least 2 big pack animals just to haul food! Sounds like so much fun! I'd want to go with you, though, cuz I know you're packing heat! I'd never have the nerve to go alone.

LOL! We actually all lose weight, horses and people both! Every day is hard work. You don't have time to eat a big breakfast when the horses need to be turned out, camp needs to be cleaned up, gear needs to be packed for the days adventures. Then you get to catch the horses again, tack 'em up, hit the trail. Nibble on snacky stuff. When you aren't riding, firewood needs to be gathered, water heated, dishes and laundry washed by hand. Food needs to be made the old fashioned way. Horses have to be turned out to eat again in the evening, and caught again. When I am packing, it is a lot of work to tack up 4 horses, run the whole string out to the trailhead by myself, pack and weigh loads, get them on the horses, and pack it all back to camp.

The guys are out hunting before daybreak and again after dark. I often run the horses up to a certain landmark and meet them at the end of their hunt. The guys are working hard singlefooting it after elk, burning calories. At the end of the day there better be a good meal!

The horses trim up a lot too. I will get before and after pics! Hard work, and only 2 short turnouts a day to eat really peels the fat off their bellies and puts muscle on. The only time my Haflingers look like anything but butterballs is after elk camp!

I forgot to mention that water needs to be hauled up from the creek 300 yards straight downhill from camp! We generally load 5-gallon jugs on a packhorse and bail water from the skinny little creek into them, then have the horse haul it up the hill.

A normal day burns 4,000 to 5,000 calories per person.

PS my fiancee just gave me a really sweet 9mm semiautomatic handgun. Way lighter than my old .38 special, a little more firepower too!

Second Chance 2

Posted : 8/28/2010 12:59:19 PM

Sounds like alot of fun,

hunterseat

Posted : 8/28/2010 2:32:10 PM

And the spaghetti sauce roll-ups reconstitute with water, right? You are the Rachel Ray of the wilderness!! AND your fiance is amazing to build you a dehydrater! You guys are a great team!

3equines

Posted : 8/28/2010 4:41:03 PM

LOL! Me and Rach, we go WAAAY back ';)'

. I tear pieces off the roll-ups and put them in the pasta water just before the noodles are done. They absorb the water and voila, cheeses tortellini a la marinara. I like using the dried cheese-stuffed pasta that comes in a box.

Fresh hard cheeses like Parmesan and Romano pack and keep well in the backcountry, too.

When my fiancee started riding together, we quickly noticed that I always had lots of food and he always had a flask of whiskey. We make a great pair!

hunterseat

Posted : 8/28/2010 5:07:23 PM

That is SO funny!
[8|] "hmmm.... what sauce goes well with whiskey?" (what KIND of whiskey?)
Tortellini sounds delicious.
I just sent a link to this thread to your friend Rach. Wouldn't it be cool if she read it? [ ':D'

]

3equines

Posted : 8/28/2010 6:28:04 PM

Here's a camp kitchen from a pack trip in the Olympic Mountains. We were moving camp every day, no wall tent and wood stove! And don't tell Rach, that's Kraft Mac 'n Cheese. Tastes great with a pack of that vacuum packed tuna they make nowadays! The metal boxes load on the packhorse. I like this pic cuz the ponies are highlined in the background.

hey, who's that gettin' into the moonshine?!

hunterseat

Posted : 8/28/2010 7:17:38 PM

A watched pot never boils! (Did it ever boil?)

Camp kitchen? Where's the ice maker and the blender?

Looks like Thunder wants a little nip! [ ':D'

]

Rod44

Posted : 8/30/2010 11:09:09 AM

Really like both of your pictures. You have really pretty country to ride in. It is fun actually "using" horses for something rather than just riding or driving them around. We have hills here too but not as tall!