For the next installment of our travel log of the first leg of our Mexico-to-Canada trip, I’ll cover days two and three. We had originally planned to take rest days on Sundays and one weekday. As things turned out, we were behind schedule from the start, so we eliminated the weekday rest, but our Sundays were spent in rest, relaxation, and thanksgiving.

This first Sunday of our trip was particularly restful, not only for us, but for Clancy and the horses as well. It allowed us all to recoup our strength and recover from muscle soreness of the first day’s exertions. We hadn’t intended to stay Sunday at the Bar-M Ranch, but when we woke up on Sunday morning, it was raining outside. We were glad for the blessing of having been able to spend a restful night in beds in the Bar-M bunkhouse.

Shortly after Dad and I got out of bed, Jesus dropped by with breakfast for us, compliments of Araceli. It just doesn’t get any better than that for a 3,000-mile horse pack trip! We asked Jesus if we could stay over another night. He acted like he was surprised we would even ask and replied that of course we could stay.

Dad and I spent the day just relaxing. We held a short religious service, to thank the Lord for having blessed us to be able to make this trip as father and son, and to ask for his continued help and blessing. Clancy spent most of his day just laying at my feet. He was pretty sore and tired from yesterday’s mileage. The pads on his feet weren’t as tough as they might be, since most of his life prior to the trip had been spent in places with grass and mud, rather than rocks and cactus.

We learned from Jesus that the ranch was owned by a family named Keifer or Cafer. It comprises over 40 sections of deeded land. The family also owns several other ranches in Arizona and New Mexico. We were appreciative of the generosity of the ranch in allowing us to cross their land, using their facilities, and staying in their bunkhouse. This stop, after our first day of the trip, was truly a blessing to us. It made a lot of difference to us going forward. Without that day of rest, I’m not sure Clancy would have been able to make the rest of the trip. The generosity and warmth shown us by Araceli and Jesus was truly a breath of fresh air in our day and age, here in the United States.

By the end of the day, the weather cleared up. The horses looked good and Clancy had recovered and didn’t appear to be sore anymore. That evening Jesus dropped by and brought some cookies for us. He passed on Araceli’s goodbyes and told us he and she both would be leaving early in the morning. Araceli had to head back into Douglas for work and he would be heading to another ranch to look after about 800 yearling calves that required some work. We said our goodbyes and settled-in for another restful evening.

The following is from my journal for Day Three (Monday) of our trip. I was already starting to lose track of time, as my journal has the date as Tuesday, April 13. I wrote the entry on the morning of Tuesday, April 14, 2015:

04/13/15   Tuesday   Half Moon Valley, Chiricahua Mountains, Arizona

We made 16.5 miles yesterday. No major mishaps. Horses are getting settled-in and becoming trail-wise. We passed through some tough country with the ground covered with volcanic rock and thickets of mesquite and catclaw. We were very glad to have good, heavy chaps.

We made the 4-5 miles to highway 80 around 2pm and were trying to find our way through the fence, when Jesus drove by on his way back to the Bar-M. He stopped and talked a bit and let us know we had missed the only open (unlocked) gate for several miles (actually we had hit the fence line probably a quarter mile east of the gate and turned the wrong direction. He told us there was no other open gate heading west for many miles). We decided to lower the fence where we were and travel along the highway shoulder to Rucker Canyon Road. It was providential that Jesus met us there, because farther along, the fence had been rebuilt and we would have had a tough time with it. [Jesus had another ranch hand with him and they helped us lower the fence and stood on the wires while we got the horses across.

At that point the fence was quite old and the wires were loose. We simply unclipped the ties with our fence tools, lowered the wires, had Jesus and his hand stand on the wires while we crossed, then retied the fence wires to the posts, leaving it in better condition than before. About a half mile further on, the fence had been newly rebuilt and the wires were “high and tight” and would have been nearly impossible for us to cross it. We passed several gates along the way, but they were all we padlocked.]

We crossed the fence, said our goodbyes to Jesus and headed on. A bit later we had to re-set the pack saddle on Daisy. While doing that, Jimbo spooked and ran off, with Ranger tied in tow, and Daisy and Lizzy following (we were left standing by the fence with Black and Honey). It looked bad for us, but they stopped about 100 yards away and [when I approached them] Ranger came to me. I got them all caught up and we walked back to where Dad was. We got everything settled and went on. That was the only mishap we had yesterday.

Jimbo is getting more confident and trusting and less skittish every day. He’s going to be a great trail horse.

A couple miles along, we came upon Boss Ranch Road. We found an unlocked gate there, so we decided to cross teh highway. It was a good decision. Just after we closed the gate, two USBP agents, pulling a horse trailer, stopped to talk. One was Joel Tanner, whom we met at the border (he was one of the two who stopped by our camp on Day One), and the other was Cody Winn. Cody was able to give us some instruction on the best trail for us to get up into Rucker Canyon. We took his advice and ended up in Half Moon Valley to camp.

We passed Boss Ranch and got permission to cross his range. He wasn’t happy about it at first, but warmed up to us after a few minutes (he was concerned about our stock transmitting disease to his stock. After I assured him we had current health certificates and were not from the area, he relaxed a bit and gave us permission to pass).

Clancy kept up well and showed no foot soreness. I put booties on him as we left the ranch, but they seemed to bother him, so I removed them. Turned out he never needed them. Once we got camp set up and laid our beds out, Clancy settled down right between us and never moved again the rest of the night.

Dad slept like a log, but I had a lump right under my back that made it hard to sleep. I decided that I’ll take my heavier sleeping bag once we get to Eagar. I didn’t get cold, but cool enough to keep me awake at times.

All the horses are well. No sore feet, no sore backs. Our gear is performing well. The DeLorme Explorer is posting to our website as it should.

My Phillips Formfitter pack saddles are doing well, but you really have to make sure the manties are packed well and are exactly the same weight and loaded exactly the same way, or the saddle will turn. We had to re-set Daisy’s saddle, packed with 100 pounds of feed each side, four times yesterday. It turned on her three times. Luckily, she was calm and did not react. We also had to re-set Ranger’s, packed with 50 pounds of feed each side twice, but his didn’t turn, just started leaning. I don’t think that would be such a problem if the saddle bars were fixed, rather than able to swivel. However, the value is in that they can adjust to the horse’s back – so they fit about any conformation – and they move as the horse moves. We have had no sore backs even with heavy loads. (Note: we found later that the Phillips Formfitter saddles were turning due to the extra saddle pad we had put under them. Once we removed the extra pad, they stopped moving on the horses’ back. The problem was not the saddles, but that we had over-padded them.)

The GoalZero solar chargers work well. We have been setting them up to charge in the mornings. I have been afraid to mount them on the pack horses for fear of losing or breaking them (our original thought was to mount them on top of the packs on the pack horses, so that they were charging our gear throughout the day, but we had been passing through some pretty dense thickets and it seemed unwise to try it).

I have been using the GoPro Hero 4 Silver camera to record portions of our ride, but have only used the hand-held extension (selfy staff) as a mount. I don’t see the value in mounting it on my head or chest, because we wouldn’t get anything but what’s ahead of me and nothing of ourselves or pack train. I have resisted the temptation to mount it on a pack saddle for the same reason as the solar panels. maybe later on, when we are better settled on the trail.

Had some cell coverage yesterday. Joshua [Jensen] said he and Al [Smith] will meet us Wednesday, rather than Tuesday, so he can get better prepared. That will give us a rest day tomorrow. Today I think we will only need to make about ten miles or less, so it shouldn’t be a tough day. Hope not, anyway.

Day Four coming up.

(End of journal entry)

Again, I had lost track of the days. This was written on the morning of Tuesday, April 14. Joshua and Al met us in Rucker Canyon the following evening.

Just for interest, those of you who are readers of Louis L’Amour western novels (as my dad and I are) will recognize some of the names of places we passed through during this portion of the trip from the novel, High Lonesome. We camped in Half Moon Valley on Monday night and passed through High Lonesome Canyon the following day, drawing water for our canteens from the creek that flows through it. You’ll see some videos of that area with my next post.

I failed to mention a couple things that happened during that day that were significant to us. The route from the Bar-M to I-80 was cross-country. There was no road that went the direction we needed. We just headed out across the low, rolling hills. Being ranch land, fences are a fact of life. Most of the fences we came across were old enough that we were able to find places where they were down, where we crossed. One fence we crossed under in a dry creek bed, where we were able to lift the wires high enough for the horses to pass under. Others we took down, passed over, then repaired the fence. We took with us fencing tools and several bags of fence clips. We always made sure to leave the fence in better condition than we found it in. Each time we had to cross a fence it cost us 15-20 minutes and brought with it the risk of the horses getting tangled up with each other and in the fence. It also meant Dad and I had to dismount and remount, tie the horses, keep them from getting tangled up, and work on the fence. Being a couple old farts, that was significant additional labor to us, what with our heavy chaps and all. Crossing fences was a real headache.

I mentioned that we passed through thickets of mesquite and catclaw. Catclaw is commonly known as “wait-a-minute” bush. It grows about four to six feet tall and is covered in thorns that look exactly like cat claws. The horses’ coat offers some protection for them, but even they try to avoid the stuff. For us, the thorns grab, then break off in the skin, which then gets infected like a sliver. We were both very grateful for our heavy batwing chaps. The mesquite thickets are just as bad, except that they grow much taller than the catclaw. The mesquites had needle-sharp thorns about two inches long. I even had a couple of these penetrate my chaps. We saved some of these for tooth picks. Pushing our way through some of these thickets, too large to go around,  was tough work. We stayed to stream beds (called “washes” to westerners) as much as we could, when they headed the right direction, but even that was tough going.

Here’s a short video of the area south of I-80. Here’s one of the area north of I-80 , on Boss Ranch Road, heading into the Chiricahuas.

Most of the land down there where we were crossing is volcanic. Even where the land is relatively flat, it is very tough on the horses, due to the fist-sized volcanic rocks that cover the ground. It wasn’t so bad once we got into the Chiricahuas, but we were lucky to get past those first two days of travel without laming a horse.

Stay tuned for more.