Thank goodness, I never killed a horse. There were any number of times when I could have but my luck held out. These excerpts recount a period when I had two dead horses on my hands that I was more or less “monitoring.” One was struck by lightning, the other suffered a freak accident. The day in question seemed to have a real death-theme. (Some of my descriptions might be a little too vivid for the squeamish.) To me, it was all part of the Big Circle. ◦◦◦◦◦ More words of explanation: around this time, the upper West Walker was still part of a long-time cattle grazing allotment, the permit held by a local ranch family. When the cows were around, the fenced “administrative” pasture at Piute would routinely get broken into—calves would sneak through the wires of my broken-down drift fences and their moms would crash through after them. Or backpackers would leave one of the gates open. My grass was greener, apparently. It was tedious coming home to find cows in my yard. ◦◦◦◦◦ Reference to Mike and Rene: this couple from Nevada were my “best customers.” I’d see them multiple times each season and we’d become friends, would share meals. Mike was a real character: former packer, nonstop talker, somewhat notorious for losing livestock in the backcountry. Losing four-legged animals in the mountains is terribly easy, always an embarrassment if someone else finds them before you do. (Mike’s lost horses were finally located a couple of weeks later, miles from where they’d gone missing.)◦◦◦◦◦ “Hobby-horsers” is a mildly derisive term for a particular breed of private stock users—generally wealthy people who are inexperienced and/or clueless. As a user-group, hobby-horsers and their animals do more damage and commit more eco-crimes than any other category of wilderness visitors, mostly out of sheer ignorance and because their equally inexperienced animals are completely freaked-out by being in unfamiliar situations. Whenever I met these folks I’d spend a lot of time trying to educate them. Over the years, I saw that the added effort really paid off.
13 Aug (Mon) ◦◦◦◦◦ Back from The Valley and back to work, heading into Piute. Greta packing the trail-crew into their camp at Fremont junction today and she asked for help. Well of course. Both of us had things to take care of first so it was almost noon before we were out at the barn saddling up and gathering tack. Crew already waiting at the pack station with their stuff so we hustled out there. Got everything of theirs loaded onto five animals and finally achieved escape velocity. ◦◦◦◦◦ Met some hobby-horsers just past Lane Lake—a couple recently moved to the area (Carson City) who plan to visit on a regular basis. Gave them a good talking to and marked the best stock camps on their map. They were appreciative and seemed “okay.” We’ll see. With hobby-horsers you never know—even if their gear isn’t all shiny & new and they’re not riding Appaloosas and seem to know what they’re doing. Sometimes they surprise me, in a good way. ◦◦◦◦◦ To the camp way past quittin’ time, dropped loads and pressed on. In Lower Piute, ran up on a Scout leader who’d somehow gotten separated from his troop and was now in the lost-column. Nice fella, surprisingly unperturbed, just then setting up his tent—literally right by the trail. With incisive questioning I finally figured out where his group were located (he couldn’t recall the lake’s name) leaving him much relieved. ◦◦◦◦◦ Home at last, found two messages pinned to the cabin door: one from the guy camped with his family up at the head of the meadow. Something about a dead horse and a “please advise.” The other was a crumpled note from Mike Vidal, delivered by some backpacker apparently. He and Rene were at Tilden Lake [fifteen miles away, in Yosemite N.P.] and had lost two of their horses. Mike! I almost never find notes left on my door…only a few times, total. Today, two. And this: when I arrived there were twenty-plus cows grazing inside the back drift fence. Shooed ‘em out Rawhide-style—that is, at a gallop, hyah-hyah!ing at the top of my lungs. It worked. Red thought I’d lost my mind. Pies all over…looked like they’d been in for a couple of days. Sigh. Cow pies in the yard. Pies right in front of the porch step. (At least no pies on the porch.)
→ 17 visitors → 10½ miles
14 Aug (Wed) While I was over in Yosemite my meadow turned to gold. In just those few days of being gone, Upper Piute went from green-tinged-by-gold to gold-tinged-by-green. Always happens around this time of year: I gaze out from the porch, hardly able to remember when it was that pure, raging emerald-green green of EarlyJune. Definitely counts as one of those poignant moments that happen every season, just the one time. (There are others, others like it, all of them bittersweet.) ◦◦◦◦◦ After breakfast, saddled Red and went to visit the dead-horse people. They were just getting ready to eat themselves, smell of frying bacon drifting through the trees so good. Dieter took me over and introduced me to the victim, clearly visible under a blue tarp not fifty yards from camp. Here’s the story: They got packed in last week and brought the one horse to ride—their own, not the pack station’s. Seems they were breaking this ten-year-old mare to picket off a front leg. She didn’t like it at all and wigged out, lunging against the picket line until she somehow got flipped over, landing on her hip. They saw this from camp and actually heard something snap. The poor mare was in agony, grunting they said, and broke into a foamy sweat. She got stood up, leg dangling useless, quivering. When Dieter tried to lead her farther away from the river she almost fell so he put her down on the spot with a pistol he‘d brought along for just such an emergency. A “bad scene,” as we say in the business. I told them how things stood: Your property—your responsibility…if necessary, we can take care of it, will bill you, et cet. Totally winging it…I had no idea how such things get handled or even what would happen to the corpse. (Bart sez he had to buck up a mule with a chainsaw one time….the Park Service uses dynamite.) Dieter agreeable to the terms, such as they were. ◦◦◦◦◦ Then, to make this morning even more tremendous, one of their boys told me he’d found a dead deer in the river. “Right over there,” he pointed. When-it-rains-it-pours syndrome! Sure ‘nuf, just a bit down-meadow from their camp there’s a spotted fawn, couple of feet under, tangled in the branches of a submerged snag. Must’ve got swept away following mom across the river. But it sure was dead, with a veil of green algae and skin starting to peel off the face. This being my drinking water supply I just sighed, rolled sleeves up, took off boots, waded in and drug the thing out. Weighed maybe twenty pounds, wet. Holding the dripping remains by one front leg at arm’s length, I carried it up the hill aways to dump behind a log or boulder. Only got twenty yards before Bambi just slipped out of my hand. That is, its leg slid through a tube of sloughing skin and the carcass hit dirt with a soggy thud, leaving me (a moderately squeamish child of the suburbs) standing there breathing through my mouth with a handful of slimy fawn skin which I flung away in a hurry. Left the corpse where it fell. No way am I gonna pick that thing up again, unh-uh! When I looked down and saw my dominant hand covered with greenish-brown, slimy fawn-skin and got a fat whiff of that soul-piercing stench of death, I felt the proverbial lump rise in my throat. First time ever. An apt expression…now I know. This was for sure the closest I’ve come to hurling out of sheer revulsion, the way people are always doing in movies. ◦◦◦◦◦ Back in camp, Dieter’s wife handed me the high-line I’d loaned them, neatly coiled. Dieter said he’d bring a rope next time…told me he’d read the Backcountry Horseman’s booklet I gave him last week and got a lot out of it. This one’s coming along well. (Mmm…aside from leaving behind an equine stiff.) I’ll never know for sure whether they blew it or if it was just one of those things. ◦◦◦◦◦ Stopped at the cabin for dry pants and to try and wash that gawd-awful stench off my hand. Ivory soap didn’t begin to cut it so I went out in the yard and scrubbed my hands vigorously with dirt, then tried again with dish detergent. Not quite gone but oh well. ◦◦◦◦◦ Rode down-canyon and stopped by Doc’s camp to say hi. (He was up for a couple of days doing trailwork and invited me for tea tonight.) Down in Lower Piute, was surprised to see my lost Scoutmaster still in his emergency bivouac, talking with compatriots. Apparently several groups of scouts were out looking for him. It was ten a.m. and he still had his tent up! Would have expected the guy to be off at dawn—to maybe not prolong his troop’s worry at the very least. Go figger. But we had a nice chat anyway and I gave them some standard tips for Boyscout troops (Dig a latrine!) and explained the cow situation. ◦◦◦◦◦ Headed for Long Lakes where I cleaned up a brand-new camp built on a recently cleared, hardened site. The last occupants had done some major trenching around their big tents, excavations that unearthed a bunch of broken glass and bits of rusty cans from days of yore. They also left behind two large cardboard boxes (???!!). Filled in trenches, loaded my trash sack, and burned boxes in a nearby camp’s firepit. Now, I’ve offered “commentary” on such matters many times in this here log, clearly just venting steam. But answer me this: Why is it that NO ONE…EVER…fills in their tent trenches before they leave? I can’t recall seeing where someone has filled in their damn trenches—not once. Why is that? WHY?! (Phew. I feel better.) ◦◦◦◦◦ Rode the PCT to Walker Meadows. This was a death-themed day, it seems. Rode over to check on my (other) horse carcass and was stunned to find it gone! All that was left was a brown patch in the still-green meadow though the place stunk pretty bad. Under nearby trees I found the skull and a few gnawed bones. (Figure these had been drug off by coyotes.) Amazing! Ma Nature sure takes care of business! Scattered all around were piles of bear poop. This unlucky horse was struck during that lightning storm on I think 19 July. First saw it seven days later, bloated but almost intact. Less than three weeks gone by and the whole thing’s already been recycled; nothing left but bones, some excrement, and localized stench. ◦◦◦◦◦ Down to the trailcrew camp for a short visit. Telling them about my latest horse fatality, several of the crewfolk got down on me for being not sufficiently hard-core with Dieter. And maybe they’re right. But these guys have no empathy whatsoever for the visitors. With that smug, superior attitude of theirs, pretty much all the people who come back here are jerks and idiots. And yet all three of those kids have aspirations of becoming rangers. But hey: unless they grow up and modify their attitudes toward their fellows they’ll never make it in ranger-world…would continually be frustrated and despise the people they’re supposed to be serving. They don’t seem to grasp the fundamental truth that humans, by definition, trend toward the ignorant & lazy & careless end of the spectrum. This includes them and definitely me, too. In many ways, I’m a complete idiot! Many! The only way to reach people and modify behavior is with compassion and understanding—one of the most important lessons Lorenzo left me with. Yeah, I’m continuously disappointed and frustrated by things the visitors do. (See earlier tirade.) But you have to just suck it up and carry on…learn how to let it all go. In the end, it’s good for people to come to the mountains. It does them good. This is their land, too. End of second rant. ◦◦◦◦◦ Finally got to meet Jan and Stan Hunewill, owners of the Hunewill Ranch down in Bridgeport Valley. Been hearing about these folks since I first arrived. Stan is, what? fourth generation? Pioneer family, name on maps forevermore, a family that’s now part of the landscape. I’ve wondered what it must feel like to have that long-time, deep-in-the-bone connection to place. It was obvious right off that these are two fine specimens of humanity…top shelf. I’ve only ever heard nice things said about them, which is rare. They were on vacation with friends, everybody leading llamas, everybody looking pretty darn happy. Redtop got his first introduction to the South Americans and he reacted quite well (all things considered) to a head-on meeting with hideous, long-necked space-aliens. He acted terrified but also seemed curious—which, I thought, was a lot better than only being terrified. Oh, they must look horrible through his eyes! Got a laugh out of the whole group when I remarked: “Y’know how in sci-fi movies, the scariest monsters are the ones that look vaguely humanoid.” ◦◦◦◦◦ Home at a reasonable hour. Had a quick dinner, then walked down to Doc’s camp with Rip. Got there before sunset. Doc was just sitting down to a panful of some typical Doc-stew—red beans with chunks of Spam and onion, looked like. Mugsy enjoyed his share with some kibble mixed in. We sat around a tiny Doc-fire and gossiped while Rip the shadow-cat wove in and out of the dim firelight, slinking around. Doc got a kick out of my day’s happenings. ◦◦◦◦◦ Walked home in significant darkness, sky half-cloudy half-starry. It was humid and unusually warm with a tremendous display of lightning going on to the east and more intensely to the north, flash after flash, too far away to hear thunder. Weird weather. No rain.
→ 31 visitors → 16½ miles → 1 firepit → 5 lbs trash
Six days later: 20 Aug (Tue) ◦◦◦◦◦ Rode back to Piute tired and happy and relieved to be going home. [I’d been in the trailcrew camp working with them for several days while the cabin was occupied by Forest Service people.] Met two backpackers who’d passed by after the FS folks left. They saw a bear in the yard—bear with a white chest. I miss all the good stuff! Sounded like the bear I chased off two years ago. Prob’ly the one that ransacked the cabin in ’87. Guessing it’s here to feast on horseflesh. Hope so. ◦◦◦◦◦ Got unpacked. Happy horses home at last, grazing merrily in the hollows where the grass and sedges are still green. Cow bells ringing out back, all the world at peace. Took my river bath. Flies horrible all of a sudden—can’t help but think they’re connected to the not-so-fresh carcass less than a mile from here. So, after my dip, Rip and I went to check on the decay process. ◦◦◦◦◦ Started smelling that smell a hundred yards off. Cat not exactly...afraid. But wary. Ursa had already gotten into it—hole in the neck, belly skin ripped off revealing guts. One hind leg ripped off entirely. Rustling sound of a hundred thousand maggots prominent in the otherwise silence. Didn’t stink too bad. Claw marks on the hide and that dreadful, leering, toothy death-grin. I then did something strange but very Tim-like…sort of a science experiment, actually…an investigation into feline behavioral psychology. What I did was toss my cat onto the horse’s back, to see how he’d react and also gauge by the sound produced the carcass’ internal condition. Result of experiment: Rip bounced off just like I’d tossed him on a hot stovetop. And the carcass sounded as if it were mostly hollow, covered with brittle parchment. The process of decay is well advanced and in a couple of weeks this horse should be mostly back in the system. Walked home by moonlight.
Four days later: 24 Aug (Sat) ◦◦◦◦◦ Still light after dinner so I strolled up to “Deadhorse Meadow.” Amazed to find the carcass down to mostly bones already, a seething pool of maggots filling the body cavity, rustling feverishly in the last light. An unforgettable sound. It didn’t even smell that much. Well, that is, until you get up close. ◦◦◦◦◦
26 Aug (Mon) ◦◦◦◦◦ Dropped down a gulley back into Piute Meadows. Visited the horse remnants, now a stringy pile of bones dragged off under some trees. Not much left but head and legs and a few thousand fly larvae. A hoof lying nearby, separated from the leg bones cleanly. It looked like a big hunk of yellowish plastic. It’s been two weeks, today, since the horse breathed its last. Thanks to maggots and bears, with a little help from coyotes and beetles, the job was completed in record time and well under budget. Didn’t need a chainsaw nor dynamite neither! It’s been very interesting and informative to watch the whole process. Decomposition makes the world go ‘round. ◦◦◦◦◦
Seventeen days later: 12 Sep (Thu) ◦◦◦◦◦ Checked out the carcass, now reduced to a pile of bones and skin. Rip warily approached on his own, only mildly interested after his several visits. But he took some long, wrinkled-nose sniffs. Clearly not offended by the smell. I watched his face and body-language and wondered what he was experiencing. No idea. Not a clue. ◦◦◦◦◦
©2020 Tim Forsell 24 Oct 2020
Stan and Jan are my grandparents, what a treat to read about them in your log. My wife and I took over their llamas and now pack with them. Stan passed a few years ago, Jan is doing well.
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