Just horsing around

Author: By Timothy Leland, Globe Staff

Date: SUNDAY, August 24, 1997

Page: M1

Section: Travel

The third, to be precise, of our seven-day packtrip on horseback into the back country of Yellowstone National Park and the adjacent Bridger-Teton National Forest.

It had been snowing the previous night. That's not uncommon in the higher altitudes of Wyoming, even in the middle of July. The cold, steady rain that had kept us huddled under a lean-to next to an open fire all day long had turned to heavy, wet snow at dusk, piling up on our flimsy nylon tents. Later, as I lay in my sleeping bag, fully clothed against the cold, my tent roof had yawed drunkenly to the side under the accumulated snow, and slowly settled to the ground on top of my head.

Happily, my son and daughter, ages 27 and 21, had been outside the tent at the time. They had wrestled it back up and tied its corners to overhanging tree limbs with heavy twine. I knew that my wife -- safe and sound back in Boston, enjoying the summer weather -- would split her sides with laughter when she heard about this. She had said I was crazy to sign up for a fishing expedition on horseback in the wilds of Wyoming.

I was wet and chilled that night. Approaching my 60th birthday, I wondered, drifting off to sleep, whether she had a point.

But that was yesterday. This day broke warm and sunny -- a gorgeous summer morning, the distant snow-decked mountains gleaming in the sun, the river by our tents glittering with fast-running current.

By 6:10 a.m., my son and daughter each had caught a cut-throat trout, wading upstream with the antique fly-fishing rods passed along to them by their grandmother and grandfather, casting mothlike artificial flies into the deep pools with delicate skill.

By 6:30 a.m. Dave-the-Cook had the fish frying on his skillet over an open camp fire . . . and a few minutes later we were all having fresh trout for breakfast, along with eggs-over-lightly, home fries and thick buttered toast, washed down with jugs of hot coffee.

This is what we had come for. This is what a packtrip adventure in the Western wilderness is all about.

There were 10 of us on this expedition -- seven guests and three guides. There were also 12 horses and nine mules, the real heroes of the trip. We came for pleasure. They came to work, and they did it with phlegmatic dignity, carrying everything we needed in canvas or plastic ``panniers'' as we headed into Yellowstone Park early one mid-July morning.

Joining the three members of our family were Mark Vandenburg, an Illinois carpenter, and his wife, Diane, in their mid-40s; Candy Coady-Powers, a nurse from Vermont of similar age; and Wayne Phillips, a 55-year-old botanist from Montana.

We came for different reasons and with different backgrounds. The Lelands were the only ones interested in fly fishing; Wayne was on the trip to study wildflowers; Candy was the only member of the group who owned a horse at home.

Whatever our interests, we were on a vacation trip unlike any we'd ever had before. Over the next week we would all become fast friends, as we shared this wilderness adventure together.

There is a feeling of real accomplishment, when you complete a packtrip on horseback in the mountains of Wyoming. Heck, you feel a sense of accomplishment when you finish each day of one -- especially if you normally spend most days behind a desk in Boston.

In a sense, my trip had begun six weeks before I left Boston, when I took the first of three horseback riding lessons at a stable near our home in Duxbury. My riding days (such as they were) had occurred many years before, and I had serious doubts about what six days in the saddle would do to me. After the first session, I had a good indication. I could barely walk.

But muscles are wonderfully adaptable, even older ones, and three lessons later I felt sufficiently conditioned to undertake the challenge.

Now there was only one last thing to do, according to the trip guide and organizer, Ron Dube. On his suggestion, I ordered a pair of black silk longjohns from the Winter Silks catalog. Worn under my jeans, Ron assured me, these would prevent chapping on the legs and other crucial areas. He was right. Those sexy silkies may have been my single best purchase of the entire trip.

With the silk underwear, plenty of warm clothes (Ron warned that it can snow on any given summer day in the Rockies, and he was right there, too) a yellow slicker for rain (normally used for sailing in Duxbury), an extra can of insect repellent, a new flashlight, and my trusty camcorder, I was ready to ride. All of the above came in handy before we were through.

We rode a total of 85 miles on horseback over the next six days -- camping, fishing, and hiking along the way.

We rode through lush green valleys with high, rocky bluffs on either side and snow-topped mountains in the distance. We rode up steep mountain trails with Yellowstone River, the longest un-dammed river in the country, winding in silvery loops below us. We rode through enchanted spruce forests, with lichen known as ``old man's whiskers'' hanging from the limbs. We splashed across crystal clear mountain streams, the horses pausing to drink in the heat of the day.

And everywhere we went, there were wildflowers, a seemingly endless variety as the trip went on: dainty little mountain bluebells and dense spikes of purple-blue phacelia. Pink clusters of sticky geraniums. Bright orange Indian paintbrush, the state flower of Wyoming. Fireweed, a darker red. Glorious fields of yellow buttercups, goldenrod, barberry, cincquefoil (three different kinds), and little sunflowers. Woolly white yarrow and larger stalks of white cow parsnip. Delicate white phlox and tiny field chickweed.

Dube, a wiry, 55-year-old native of New Hampshire who moved west some 20 years ago and has been leading packtrips into the Wyoming wilderness ever since, is a serious wildflower enthusiast, and took great delight in identifying the various species, shouting out the names for us as we rode past.

``Penstemon!'' he'd exclaim, pointing to a little blue flower beside the trail.

``Heartleaf arnica!'' (gesturing toward a flower with bright yellow petals) . . . ``Coiled-beak lousewort! . . . sulphur buckwheat . . ..''

His shouts would go up several decibels when he spied a wildflower that was really unusual. ``Look at that!'' he'd bellow. ``Lewis monkeyflowers!''

Ron's interest in wildflowers was practical as well as aesthetic. When I sprained my wrist one day, he wrapped it in a poultice made from boiled wild strawberry leaves and yarrow. (The swelling was noticeably diminished when I took the Ace bandage off a few hours later.) And for dinner one evening, along with fresh trout caught in the Thorofare River, we had the bulbs of wild camus and the nut-like roots of American bistort, both of which Ron had dug up that afternoon along a riverbed. Dave-the-Cook roasted them in a pit filled with hot coals and rocks, covered with baked sedge and cow parsnip leaves.

The roots of wild plants weren't the only unusual fare we ate on this trip. In fall and winter months, hunting expeditions take the place of fishing trips for most outfitters like Dube in Wyoming and Montana, and on several occasions we had the results of his efforts for dinner. Although I am not enthusiastic about hunting myself, I had to admit that the grilled elk venison we ate one evening was quite tasty, as was the moose sausage we had the following night.

I drew the line on the next offering, however. The little brown patties were grilled like hamburg over the fire, and Ron wouldn't tell us what the meat was until after we ate it. So we did, and the taste was acceptable, if not especially noteworthy. I wouldn't have it again, however. The patties turned out to be mountain lion. (Yes, there's a hunting season on these non-endangered animals, too.)

We didn't see any mountain lions on our trip (although a young boy was killed by one the very same week of our trip while walking along a mountain trail in nearby Colorado). Nor, unfortunately, did we see any grizzly bears, although we found their tracks one morning in our campsite. Every night we had to pull our food panniers high up in the trees to keep them out of the grizzlies' reach. (We also had to spit our peppermint toothpaste into the fire to avoid attracting them, and to remove every morsel of trail food from our tents at night, even if wrapped in cellophane deep in a duffel bag. For some reason, everyone seemed to remember this particular caution, even my normally absent-minded kids.)

There was no shortage of wildlife around us, even though we didn't actually see a bear. (For five days we didn't see any other humans, either, deep in this wilderness area.)

Riding along, we did see herds of elk, bulking up for the winter months on the thick, green grasses below the timberline. We watched bald eagles circling high overhead. Porcupines climbed trees and watched us unconcernedly as we rode by. We were visited almost every night by antlered mule deer. They ambled up to our campsites in the dusk and watched us eating in curiosity, motionless, their noses twitching, gazing at us out of large liquid eyes.

One day we passed near the partially decomposed skeleton of a buffalo, the bones beginning to bleach in the harsh sun. ``Probably coyotes,'' Dube surmised as to its killers.

We experienced the stunningly beautiful landscape of the West in much the same condition it was some 200 years ago, when the explorers Lewis and Clark first arrived on the scene, traveling the same way.

The Wilderness Act of 1964, which covers parts of Yellowstone National Park and other similar wilderness areas, prohibits anything but horse or foot travel in such protected parklands. No motors of any kind are permitted in them, including chain saws. The law stipulates that people passing through these areas must leave no permanent trace of habitation.

In keeping with the spirit, as well as the letter of the law, Ron Dube teaches ``minimum impact camping.'' It upsets him to see one of his campers drop a single orange peel on the forest floor. Everything -- paper, food, old fishing line -- goes into the campfire every night and is consumed in the flames.

Days and nights in the wilderness, far from the amenities of city life, present a challenge. Packtrips of this sort -- moving on horseback from one place to another -- require a certain amount of teamwork, and the experience brings everyone together.

Arriving at a new campsite at the end of the day, my son and daughter would set up our three-person tent while I collected our bags from the mule packs. After supper, after collecting firewood and hauling the panniers to the treetops, we would all sit around the campfire and talk about our flyfishing exploits or lie on our backs and study the stars in the coal-black expanse of the Wyoming sky. Can there possibly be a happier experience for a 59-year-old father?

As the week wore on, the outdoor life grew increasingly routine, if no less exhilarating. Late one afternoon near the end of the trip, we were riding along a plateau overlooking Yellowstone Lake, an exquisite body of water with 120 miles of shoreline. We had traveled 18 miles that day, the trail winding through dark forests of old-growth pine, across fields of high grass and wildflowers in brilliant shades of yellow, lavender, and blue, then up the steep side of a bluff running parallel to the lake. The sun glinted off the white peak of a mountain in the far distance.

About 3 o'clock, the air thickened and thunderclouds began to build up to the west. The sky grew darker, and we reined in our horses to remove the rain gear that we always kept tied to our saddles. By then, we were in a copse of trees that had been burned in the fires that raced through Yellowstone in 1988. There is something mysterious about the silvery, barkless tree trunks of these dead forests. The ghostly trees stand mute and impenetrable, refusing to give up the secrets of past life.

A faint rumble of thunder crept down the valley below us as a fine mist began to fall, precursor of heavier rain to follow. Shafts of sunlight pierced the clouds overhead, giving our woods an eerie, cathedral-like glow. Dube turned in his saddle.

``I've got the best job in the world,'' he said quietly. ``Can you imagine getting paid for this?''

Another roll of thunder was heard, louder. Just then, the glimmer of a rainbow appeared over Yellowstone Lake, arching down to the dark forests on the other side.

``I've got a great office here,'' he said.

No one disagreed.

Wyoming Outfitters & Guides, PO Box 2284, Cody, WY 82414; telephone (307) 527-7453; fax (307) 587-8633.

Yellowstone Outfitters & Guides, PO Box 3663, Bozeman, MT 59772.

Winter Silks catalog for silk longjohns, (800) 621-3229.