Mammoth Hot Springs Horsey ride

Horse ride at Mammoth Hot Springs Horse Corral

22 May, 2009

This isn't really a hike. But riding a horse is more work than it looks. I've only ridden a horse something like 6 times. Each time, far enough into the past that I forget two things.
1. From the saddle horses seem huge
2. Though the horse may be doing most of the work, staying in the saddle and not getting the horse aggravated with you is much more work than it appears.

We went out with the very first ride of the season from the Mammoth Horse Corral.
For my two youngest kids, this was their first horse ride. The wranglers at the corral wanted us to identify with our horses. Thus we became known as:

Tex - my horse
Bashful - my wife's horse
Tomahawk - Number 1 daughter
Alfie - Number 2 daughter
Happy - Number 3 daughter
Norman - Number 1 son's horse.

The ride is a one hour, three mile loop. From the Mammoth Stable, out onto the hills below Bunsen Peak and back. The wranglers told of a wolf pack that had been in the area. Of close encounters with a black bear on an earlier ride. In our case it was elk, or an occasional squirrel. We did get to watch a young wrangler get bucked off his horse. The wranglers break in the new horses. They ride them with the established horses until the decide they'll accommodate city slickers, or have to go back and pull carts in Bozeman.

My understanding is the horse that did the bucking would get a few more chances.
The lead wrangler, told me that more of the park and its trails and hikes were closed down than she could remember. When we came in the South Entrance, Thursday the 21st, there was snow piled on the side of the rode to the height of our vehicle. Out past the road side it appeared the snow still was about 4 feet deep. Lewis Lake was frozen over. When we left, on Memorial Day, Lewis Lake was starting to show big patches of blue. Thus, in the space of four days the ice cover showed significant change.