Yellowstone-more

In April we signed up for a trail ride in Glacier National Park. This was something that Emma in particular was looking forward to. But we had at least a month of driving across the country looking at horses before we would hit Glacier. So in Yellowstone when the opportunity arose, we signed up for a guided trail ride. For those of you who don’t know, we are not horse people. When I was about 10, I went with my father to a horseshow. He ended up holding the reins of a horse for a friend. Something like, “Hey, can you hang onto my horse while I go to the bathroom?” While we were waiting for the friend to return, my dad put me up on the horse just to hang out; sort of like a pony ride. While we were sitting there grinning at each other, a small carriage with some crazy ladies with wild hats came driving up behind us and spooked the horse. I was thrown to the ground and broke my arm. Since then I have had a few opportunities to “get back up on the horse”. When I went away to camp one summer I took lessons. The culmination of the 4 weeks of camp was a horseback riding competition. Ribbons were awarded to the 1st through 4th place riders. My level had 5 competitors including me. The other 4 received ribbons…

When we arrived at the corral in Yellowstone for our ride, we could see a bison across the parking lot. It was a little closer than I was comfortable with. But we thought we could make it safely into the little shack to register. As we started to walk across the lot, we were screamed at by an employee to get into the building or back in our car. There was another bison we hadn’t seen that was right behind the bush we had parked in front of. A wrangler (is that what they are called?) came riding out to chase the bison away. Our sprint into the shed got the adrenaline going. Now I was ready for a trail ride! We signed waivers and read a page of instructions. This made me a little nervous: my riding instruction was coming from a piece of paper? But luckily we were gathered together with the other 15 or so riders for some verbal instructions too. Kids would be in the front near the lead guide and though our instruction sheet said we should keep a horse’s length between us, today we should all ride nose to tail. There had been a bear sighting in the area. The thought was if we were all one line of horses, we would look like one giant horse and be more intimidating to a bear if we happened upon one. Just as we were about to saddle up, there was a flurry of communication between the guides and our ride was called off. There was a bear on the trail engaging in unusual behavior. For the last two trails that had gone out, the bear had been following the horses. As we walked back to the shack to get a refund, a couple of the guides jumped on horses and went galloping off to help with the bear situation. It was quite dramatic. The kids were disappointed. I found I was relieved. Especially with the whole bear thing. I’m not entirely comfortable on the horse and then a bear is going to be added to the mix? And I wouldn’t just be worrying abut myself. I would have my non-horseback riding little kids each on their own horses and my non-horseback riding husband on his horse? I was quite happy with my consolation prize of an ice cream cone!


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