silly horse.

06/09/2007

Yesterdays point count was even more epic than the morning before. As Matt and I were driving to the midway between our two starting points he pointed out a steep mountain with a rocky bluff on top and said:
“That would be awful if you had a point up there!”
In a half asleep stupor I mumbled some sort of agreement. Ten minutes later I was hiking up that mountain towards the bluff. My first point was within 100 m from the summit and the bluff. Awesome. Up and down to all my points. The topography here is insane. The mountains just rise out of nowhere, and canyons suddenly appear in your way far too frequently.
My last point yesterday was even more epic than the first. As I was approaching it I could see a small outlying group f about five horses from a larger herd of probably close to 100 in about the spot I knew I was headed to. They left when they saw me coming. My point count was uneventful, it only got interesting when I started to do the vegetation analysis. As I was walking around, taking stock of what species were there a stallion and 2 mares, one with a colt, accidentally stumbled upon me. The mares turned to walk away, but the stallion decided I was on his turf and it would be a good idea to challenge me. He was making snorting noises and zig zagging, walking towards me, tail lifted high. I immediately began yelling at him, waving my arms around, swearing, etc. he especially didn’t like it when I waved my clipboard around. I had to run at him a few times, and hold my ground. Nothing like being in a staring contest with a huge horse about 3 feet taller than you and who knows how much heavier. Eventually, after probably about 3-5 minutes of our staring contest he reluctantly decided that the small obnoxious yelling human was not to be messed with, and decided to leave me alone. I finished up my site reg. and took off as fast as possible.
Apparently Matt was challenged by another stallion in the same large herd. Except it was during his point count. So the horse was charging at him when he finished, threw down his clipboard, and began hurling rocks and yelling.
I told Aaron about our exploits and his reply was “Yeah… That’s about right… Generally the yelling scares them off.” Awesome.
Today was epic due to the fact that I somehow dropped my compass and then spent the next hour searching for it in the sagebrush and wild rye. Insane. Somehow I managed to finish my counts on time.
It’s off to Catnip for 2 nights tonight…
~me