Mishaps, Crazy Critters, and General Backcountry Foolishness

[Kevin Dill]

Anyone who's spent time around livestock in the backcountry has seen their share of wild mishaps. From bucking packstrings and flying panniers to spitting lamas and everything else...animals keep it interesting. Here's a story I posted elsewhere on the forum but seemed appropriate to have a thread dedicated to the topic of critters-gone-wild. Post your own.


About ten years ago I went on a horseback hunt in eastern Yukon for moose and bear(s). We took an entire packstring about ten miles up-drainage from the permanent basecamp. I ended up killing a bull and a blackie with my recurve in a 4 day span. I took the bear on day one, and we rode into camp at dusk. The next day was given to fleshing and preserving a very gorgeous hide, so we...and the horses were fairly idle. Evening rolled in and the horses (8 of them) didn't show up for their feed. Rod went for a walk to find them and check the portable electric fence. He figured to find them close as they were all hobbled. I stayed behind and worked on gear for the next day. It got dark and Rod didn't return. I recalled he had a Harris tweed jacket, basic Bean boots, no gloves or chaps and a felt hat. He also had no weapon, the only firearm was laying in the tent. I had no way to contact him. I guess it was midnight before I finally gave up the watch and laid down in my bag for a sleep. I figured to get up in the morning and assess things. If no Rod by 10:00 am I would get on the sat phone and notify...somebody. Then I would prep a pack and get ready to hike down to basecamp on the White River. I fell asleep...

I woke to a distant sound and dreaming of Christmas. It turned into a gruff command and the sound of neck bells jingling into camp. It was 3:00 am, and Rod was back with the stock. Turned out they had breached the electric fence sometime the previous day and despite the hobbles had started for basecamp. When he finally found them in the dark he was unable to gather them all and get them turned. After much trying and knowing he was far down from our camp, he simply mounted one and proceeded to drive them...hard...into basecamp. He wore them down, gave them some feed and then gathered a few things from the camp. He saddled one properly and tied them all together then rode them all back up to camp. He had one little Petzl headlamp, some Skoal and I believe 2 cans of beer when he walked in. He covered all that distance and terrain in the night...in big grizzly country...and nary a scratch from a tree branch.

We picketed the horses after that during the day, and had no further problems. It was an interesting ride out several days later. Like an Easter egg hunt....a full Skoal can...couple AA batteries...handkerchief....all found along the trail. Dang horses...always interesting and never boring.

 

[robby denning]

Love that story.
It's real, I can tell.

One time guiding some hunters in Colorado's Sangre De Cristo's, we camped at a lake with NO TREES. I hobbled the horses and picketed one to a rock (didn't have a picket stake). Well of course you know what happened. 2 AM we caught up to them. They'd made it to the road and started down canyon. After a 3 mile run they decided no one was chasing them and the tracks slowed and turned into a meadow that sat below the road. I walked out in the meadow and in the starlight stood the SOBs. They were tired and let me walk right back up to them. Got back to camp for like an hour of sleep then a day of guiding. Of course my hunter kills a good buck at dark on that day. I think I slept like 1 hour in 36 hours.

Stinkin' horses

 

[rayporter]

how long would you chase a mule?

we were headed into the weminuche and came to a meadow with 2 guys on horses chasing a white mule. each had a rope but the mule was pretty good at ducking. they could have been chasing it for 5 minutes or 5 hours or.......

and fast forward a week as i packed out and said mule was still being chased in the meadow [ by one guy, i figured the other was hunting]


if that meadow could talk i know of a few more it could tell.

 

[Kevin Dill]

Good stories for darned sure. And then there was the time my partner's horse went psycho way up on the mountain.....

 

[Kevin Dill]

We had gone far up-drainage and then on to a low mountain in search of moose. The day turned into a long ride...felt like we went 12 miles one way, but I'm sure it was shorter. After locating several big bulls and determining we'd be better to come back tomorrow, we rode for camp. I was on Ranger and Rod was riding Suzie. Picture an idyllic scene of two hunting horsemen riding through a sub-alpine area of short spruce, grasses and low willow. The sun was nearing the horizon and we were coming to the edge of the old burn as we neared standing timber and the downhill trail toward camp. What a gorgeous sunset and beautiful evening this was turning int....

And just like that Suzie was jumping and Rod was whoaing hard on the reins. It had no effect. Suzie was rearing and leaping off her back legs as Rod dug in and tried to plant her nose in her breast strap. She began crow-hopping and spinning like a rank bucking bronc...squealing like the demons were in her brain. They were. Rod was wearing a JanSport pack of about 3000 ci and it held his optics and other gear. It didn't take long... Suzie was pinwheeling and jumping when Rod finally got off-center and the extra bulk of the pack was too much to control. He ejected and landed hard on his shoulder and side. I figured he was hurt, but knew my gate was about to fly open. Ranger was twitching and snorting...stamping and getting ready to show Suzie how it's done. I had eased my boots back in the stirrups and was already looking for a moss patch to aim for. Ranger was a bundle of nerves and muscle just needing one little...something...to light his burner. I talked to him and managed to quietly swing out of the saddle and make it to terra firma; then I snugged him nicely and looked at Rod.

Rod had jumped to his feet and immediately ran into the timber after Suzie. Once he caught her and led her back to the clearing edge, he tightened everything up...HARD...and then immediately mounted her. He called her every bad horse-name I've ever heard and rode/bossed her around the area until she submitted. He was rough on her and she got the message. I mounted back up and we finished the last mile. It took about 24 hours to figure out what happened.

The next evening as we rode in the same way, we headed toward a large rockpile which served as a marker. When we turned the corner at the rocks the horses both got weird instantly. About 20 yards ahead was a spruce stump...uprooted and burned black...which looked exactly like a 600 pound bear broadside. It was obviously the culprit but we had no time to see it the previous day. Suzie saw it in a flash and the fireworks started before we had an inkling of the cause. Rod was lucky his injuries were basically bruises and abrasions. I think he had a thumb badly sprained by hyper-extending it. To his credit, I saw him giving old Suzie an extra handful of feed the next morning and checking her for soreness. Good man and best horseman I've ever ridden with.

 

[mntnguide]

Ive definitely had and seen my fair share of wrecks through the years. Luckily never anything that ended in a hurt animal, but definitely a few that you were nothing but angry when they happened, and I look back now and laugh. . . One thing about wrecks, you rarely get a picture because you are to busy trying to stop them or fix the aftermath...Well last year on my first pack trip in late june, we went way up into Yellowstone Meadows and had plenty of tough pass crossings in areas that still had 4-5 feet of snow in the trees...Once we got to the meadow half way through the trip, we had to cross the Yellowstone river and it was late night and it had already been a hell of a day, and I tried to find a spot to cross even though it was incredibly high water. I ended up swimming my pack string across, and told my employee to head further down the meadow with their strings and the guests and find a better spot...well they ended up finding a shallow spot, but little did they know the area that looked like hard ground on the other side was a full on mud marsh that ended up in a pretty funny wreck. Had to unpack every animal to get them out, and they were all stuck and just laying there looking at us, so we even had time to snap a pick.

 

[rayporter]

something like that is what i imagine the folks in alaska have to worry about every trip- a nightmare every time.

the year before last some guys got a mule stuck in a bog in colorado. after 2 days he was still still stuck [ that was the story ]

 

[charvey9]

Nothing epic, but I was 1/1 on my first trip out with my own pack stock this past weekend. Until recently my packing experience and knowledge had been limited to a few drop camps, where I was basically just along for the ride and didn't have to worry about the packing or the animals.

Sunday was my first ever solo trip with my own pack mule in tow. About a mile into our hike I noticed the manty on her right side had settled a bit, and stopped to adjust it. Just as I loosened the sling rope and began to reposition the load she spooked, reared up, bucked a little and took off. (In hindsight I think it was a bee or maybe a horse fly bite that got her worked up.) I had the manty resting on my chest and didn't have a firm grip on the lead rope, which she pretty quickly ripped from my hand and was off down the trail. Of course, the manty I had loosened came off immediately leaving her with an unbalanced load. Within about 30 yards of romping she had her saddle rolled to the left with the other manty barely hanging in there as she tore off around a corner.

This was about my worst fear, but all I could do was take off down the trail after her. I found the second manty just around the corner and set it off the side of the trail. I caught up to her the first time within a quarter mile, and was relieved to see that she didn't have any rigging or ropes tangled up in her legs. However, at first sight of me coming up the trail she swapped ends and trotted off in the opposite direction. This repeated 3 or 4 times over the next half mile until she finally came to some windfall across the trail and couldn't go any further. When I finally got close enough for her to see it was me coming up the trail, she was like "Oh, its just you", and walked right up to me so I could catch her. I thought I was going to be in for a fight getting her saddle righted and loads back on, but she couldn't have been calmer or more docile during the recovery. After getting things straightened up I looked her over and all she had was a little hair rubbed off the front of her right leg where the shifted rigging had been riding awkwardly during her romp. No worse for the wear, we headed back to get our lost loads. After getting everything back together I decided we'd had enough fun for the day and headed back to my father-in-laws for the night.

I wish it wouldn't have happened, but in a way I'm glad it did. It was a learning experience. I'm not sure how you guys do it with a long string, but I'm never going to mess with her loads again without tying her off first. I also think we bonded since she did not seem to associate me with whatever spooked her, but was happy when I came to the rescue. She was a different mule after the incident.

I'm also happy to say that we rallied the next morning and gave it another shot. Although some impassable windfall kept us short of our goal, we did a great 9 mile trip the next day with no issues. She was great and followed me "off-road" through some tough spots as we worked around at least a dozen snags on our way up and down the mountain.

 

[rayporter]

get a set of the figure 8 hobbles and keep them on her neck. if there is no tree near at least hobbles are very handy.

i keep a set on my rider -just in case there is no tree handy and i have to adjust something.

 

[MULEPACKHUNTER]

A few years back me and my hunting partner made plans for a packin with our own stock into a wilderness area. We spent alot of time building up to this trip with pre rides, backpack scouting and packing the animals on other trips for tune ups. I had some new pack gear and my 2 best animals. Well 6 hours from home we spend the night at the trailhead and set off ealry in the morning, all the packing and saddleling goes well until my buddy throws a leg over his mule with his bow lashed to his backpack and I guess this mule didnt like seeing that bow over his head and went to bucking, I was talking with another hunter at the traihead and he just starts yelling rodeo rodeo until i turn to see my buddy mid flight off the back of his mule and on his ass. gathering things up he gets back on with authority this time and all goes well. We head on down the trail with 4 nervous animals for about 3 miles and we hit just dead fall after dead fall and we are finding the ground going around these to be very soft, the mules are sinking and getting more nervous as we go. Mile 4 we find a low spot in the trail and as we walk on through a very small puddle my pack mule sinks to his belly, looked just like mntnguides pictures. He fights his way out of this bog and tosses his load all crooked, all the while my buddy and his string are all over the side of the hill nervous postholeing and fighting for hard ground. We get em settled and correct loads and keep after it. Now we are getting rained on and switchbacking up the worst of the trail when my pack mules load slips slightly and he has had enough of our rookie moves so he yanks the lead from my hand and yard sales every pc of pack gear off his back cutting trail straight down back into the nasty canyon until he was out of sight. I manage to get my gear stashed next to trees since the rain was really coming in now and we head back toward the trailer. We find my mule eating grass with 50 foot of lash strung behind him. Fix him all up and throw in the towell and head back for the truck. Dont forget that bog, yep took 30 minutes to fight back through. The next 3 miles we just talked about the whiskey in the cooler. We were all safe and thankfull we came back "not just because of the whiskey" but the heavens opened up that night for 3 hours. In the morning I switch to riding my pack mule and pack my big mule with new saddle and we head off to yep that same bog, Another sinking bucking crazy trip across this sucker and we grab my stashed manty loads and off to camp. 2 days there rained on each day we downed a bear and packed him back out through that dam bog again and another sinking crazy rodeo back to the trailer into town and back to the trailhead then another whiskey celebration with dinner. Yep back up in the morning and down the trail now with headaches and another rodeo through that dam bog. "a learning note goes here, I left my bow on the mountain since its a pain to carry horseback, of course giant mule deer stairs us down from 30 yards on the way back in" a few more days of hunting were uneventlful until we came down the hill on our way out towards that bog, this time we decided to just get em running before they noticed where we were, it worked and for ounce we went right through on top of the muck without much trouble. That dam little valley looked like a wildabeast migration had gone through there. LOL We tried every inch of ground to not get sunk in , back and forth , What a mess. Other than not having my bow at all times I wouldnt have changed anything.

 

[Kevin Dill]

I have laughed (brayed!) at every mishap story told here. It's not always the critters that are to blame for wrecks and derailments!

 

[rayporter]

i have been trying to get some miles on the animals. i was thinking of a fellow that went with me once that always tied the pack horse to his saddle horn. i gave up on convincing him not to.

we were headed for the truck and he had an empty packer tied hard and fast. i heard a thump and a loud grunt. when i turned around his rider was right beside me---empty. he was sitting on his saddle in the trail with his packer looking down at him. i guessed the packer stopped to take a dump and the rider kept on walking. it took some backcountry engineering to get the saddle to stick until we reached the truck. at least it was level ground.

he still ties hard and fast yet.

 

[MTguy0341]

I used to work for an outfitter up in Idaho for a few years during my high school summers. Had a good horse named Red that we never had any trouble with for 2 years. One day just using him to load firewood near camp. 3-4 loads later we notice hes getting really agitated. Next piece of firewood goes in the paniard and he loses his mind. Try to load him back up after we re situate his pack saddle. Keeps losing his mind each time we load him up. We had about a week left before we were gonna go back to the trailhead. Each day we would try to load up his pack bags and wouldnt have it. Well we decide the day we were heading out, just put on his pack saddle and put him in the string between two bombproof mules on our way out. About halfway out of the 16 mile ride back Ol' red in just about the steepest part of the trail loses his mind. He breaks off the pig tail and goes running down the mountain with Molly one of the mules still attached. He loses his footing and goes rolling down the mountain all the while Molly is just casually trotting behind him. Get down to where he wrecked dropped his saddle and pig tailed him to Molly. Never saw another saddle go on that horse or go out on another pack string. Boss had too much stock to work with anyways

 

[6mm Remington]

These are some awesome stories. Very funny too!

One year a good friend Jeff and I got two bull elk together out of a group of 9 bulls we spotted and stalked. That was pretty cool. We had gone quite a distance to get these bulls and had started our day a couple hours before daylight hiking in about 10" of snow. Got the bulls down and dressed out and had a rough hike back to the truck about 5 miles with a lot of it nothing but UP! Got back to his place and grabbed a bite to eat then loaded up the horses and trailer and road back into the elk from a different side. Again had about a 5 mile ride. Got back to the elk with about 40 minutes of light left. It was an easy drag out the way we rode the horses in and Jeff figured each horse could just pull an elk behind them. No problem. Only problem is he had never done it before with these animals.

Jeff hooks up to his bull and his horse pulls it about 30 yards and plants his feet and tells Jeff that there is no way he is going to pull that elk out whole! Horse talk for he sets his feet and WILL NOT budge! He cuts his bull in half about 3 rib in from the back thinking that will work. Still no way is his horse going to budge. Horse was plenty big enough to do this, but he would have no part.

While Jeff is having his horse experience, I'm over trying to get my horse close enough to my elk so that I can get up on the saddle and wrap a couple wraps around the saddle horn before he gets to the end of the rope. It's a race each time! I get him as close to the bull as I can and as soon as he feels me put weight on to get up in the saddle he explodes and takes off. So while he's running I swing up and get on and try to quickly wrap a couple loops before he hits the end of the rope I have around my bulls head. This goes on with several attempts made.

Finally I get up in the saddle and get her hooked up before we run out of rope. The horse things this elk is chasing him and she is wanting to run while pulling the bull. I have her head pulled back as hard as I can and I cannot stop her. She is running as hard as she can go while pulling my bull. I cannot gain control and just know if I don't release I'm going to have a huge wreck on my hands. I cannot get her slowed and I'm losing the grip on the rope. It is stretched tight to where it feels like it going to break. After we travel about 100 yards I know I have to stop this. I let the rope loose and it zings off the saddle horn and under my leg like missile.

Well this old broad had sucked a bunch of air back at the horse trailer when we had left and because everything had been peachy on the ride in, I had not noticed that the saddle was not as tight as it should be. When I raised up on my left leg with all of my weight on it so the rope could zip out under my right leg, I instantly found my and the saddle being dumped over the horses left side. I hit the ground and managed to somehow hang onto the reigns. The horse was jumping around with the saddle hanging under its belly while I'm still on the ground in the snow. Somehow through all of this, the horse never jumped on me!

My buddy Jeff is about 50 yards away dealing with his knot-head horse while I'm picking my battered body up off the ground. I hear Jeff yell at me to smack my horse, so I smacked her pretty good on the nose and side of her face with my hand. He yells at me, NO I SAID HIT HER, so I pull her head down with short reigns with my left hand and giver her a HARD punch right on the end of the nose to let her know who is boss and her behavior was really bad. (Yeah that will show her! ) She just explodes and now I'm fighting to get her under control again.

We get everything back together and horse all squared away and start riding back the 5 miles to the truck in the dark. Well besides being dark, it's snowing so hard that if it was light we still couldn't see, and the wind picked up and it's blowing like crazy. We cannot even see the horse tracks in the snow from when we rode in it's coming down so hard. We finally manage to find the truck in the dark after a couple hours or more. Now the trick is to get them loaded.

Jeff drops the lead on his horse and lets it stand there while he opens up the back of the horse trailer. He barely has it opened up and has not even went to his horse and his horse walks in and trailers-up on it's own. He shuts the side his horse is on and I lead mine up to the trailer. She won't load so we spend the next hour or more leading her up and trying to get her to walk in. Finally we resort to getting her as close as we can and while I'm holding her tight to me Jeff ties a rope from one side of the trailer to the center with her butt up against the rope so if we make ANY GAINS she can't back out and we lose ground. We try and try and try again on this new way to get her in. Finally I'm in the trailer pulling on her reigns and Jeff is out there pulling as hard as he can on his rope which is putting pressure on her ass trying to convince this knot-head to load up.

Without any warning the light comes on in her head and she lunges into the horse trailer. I don't stand a chance and had no opportunity to slip out the suicide door on the front of the trailer. The horse I was riding pile drives me into the front of the horse trailer. At the same instant I was just slammed into solid metal by a 900 pound horse, I hear the trailer door being slammed shut and latched. At least we are loaded anyway! Now the trick is get out of the trailer! We are at the truck safe and not sound with not an ounce of elk meat to account for!

Bruised and battered we head back home and do not get horses and trailer unloaded until after midnight. It's up again and loading horses in the dark so we hit the trailhead at first light. We rode in 5 miles and quartered our elk and loaded them up in packs that slipped over the saddles. We then lead the horses back to the truck, off loaded the quarters and rode back in to get the second bull. Repeat same once more. After walking 10 miles and riding 10 miles we finally get back to the truck at dusk. My horse loads like a champ that night!

David

 

[wyosteve]

Love the story David. Been there, done that!!

 

[MULEPACKHUNTER]

Man that smacking the horse thing reminded me of when I learned not to do that, I had a real turd of a horse that was ruined by its previous owner and one day while riding we stop with 4 other horses for a bite to eat and tied up, 20 minutes later I dont know why but this dummy decides to just blow up rare back and snap off half the tree he was tied to. It just struck a nurve in me but luckily my cool headed partner grabbed me by the back of the hair and yelled, "if you hit that horse Ill hit you". LOL He calmed me down and explained its not the horses fault I should drive over and smack the lady who wrecked him.
I never did do that but I did picture it for a moment.
I managed to work that horse into a good barrel racer for a teenager a few years later.

 

[MULEPACKHUNTER]

I prolly already told this one but if not heres the short version, I was coming out from a solo pack in and had to pee, stopped to pee and my saddle Mule walked off jerking my rein arm, i peed on me a little before finishing then followed him on foot with the pack mule in tow for a short while. Im thinking some old cowboy spirit on that old trail was prolly laughing hard at that scene.
The funny thing was this trail was serious single track clif on one side so there was no passing and every time I would get close he would pick it up a little. LOL Love that Mule, I could see him looking back letting me get close like when your best freind pulls the truck forward 4 feet every time you try to get in. HA HA

 

[rayporter]

kevins story of ol red brings one to mind i would rather forget.

my bud raised a mule. a nice 15-2 molly that i broke and would do it all. figure 8's, stop, back up, pack, a real keeper.

we took her elk hunting and i rode her and packed her twice. then i wanted to pack in here to go pig hunting. i packed her up and a mile later she tore loose and ran to the truck. fetched her and went in to pitch camp. she tore the halter up and ran off again. finally cornered her and made camp. she stood tied to a tree fighting most of the time. so when we got ready to leave i packed the other mule up and saddled molly while snubbed to the tree then had my bud turn her loose and she went out ok.

but after that she was impossible to catch or handle. i tried but gave up. when sam died his widow gave her away.

the only reason for the original blow that i could imagine was the hogs.

 

[MULEPACKHUNTER]

Hey Ray, I had a "cheap Mule" I picked up a few years back that had the same story, He was one of the best mules Ive been around, perfect in the round pen, perfect on the ground, trims were a breeze, perfect size, Worked with him 2 or 3 weeks before riding and then took him out on a great ride. Ride 2 was no different. Ride 3 I went to get on him and he tore in 2, I got back on him in the round pen 2 more times and could not hang on to him, he was twisting and spinning and bawling like a bancheee. I worked him on ground moves until he was calmed down and then tied him up for a bit. I never rode him again, he packed a few times with little issue but for the next year I worked on him and he never made it out of that. I sold him with full disclosure to an outfitter who called me 3 days later and chewed my ear about him exploding when he started to put his leg in the stirrup. Never heard any more but saw him for sale not long after. Who knows what they are thinking.

 

[elkguide]

It always seems like every year you get at least one guy in camp that knows everything and is so much smarter and such a better hunter than all of the rest of us. Never have understood why that person would ever pay an outfitter to hunt with them since they are so much smarter than any of the guides in camp. This camp was no different. Eight hunters and seven of them were great but the eighth........ WOW!!!! Even his buddies warned the boss that he could be a little bit overbearing.

Fortunately for me, I didn't draw him. Unfortunately for me, my two hunters both filled their tags the first day. After the fourth day of the six day hunt, the boss asked me for "a favor" to take this guy out. I took him out but before we had even left camp, he was already telling me that we shouldn't be going the direction that we were going because the wind was wrong and we were heading into the sun. I calmly tried to explain that we would be going about four miles in, in the dark and then we would begin hunting but that was all wrong.

We finally made it to the area that I had planned to hunt, but there weren't any long enough openings for him to try out his new long range rifle. We moved into the next valley and spotted a nice six point but the wind was too strong and I didn't give him enough time to get his rifle set up properly before the elk moved out of the park they were in. Then he challenged the readings my range finder gave! Sadly enough, he did get an elk in front of him, long enough that he was able to take it. The saddest part was that it was the largest bull taken that week.

The hunt was over and it was my turn to take the hunters the thirty miles back to the trail head. We got the pack horses all loaded and sent them down the trail while some of the other hands got the hunters all saddled up except for "the hunter" because every horse that was presented for him to ride was just not right. It finally came down to me giving up my horse. That left me with a horse that was a decent horse except that she didn't like to be followed closely.

Now thirty miles with a bunch of dudes can turn into a long day. I've made the ride out by myself with a six horse pack string in five and a half hours but I have also taken twelve hours with a group of dudes. We started out quickly and things went smooth for the first mile or so till "the hunter" decided that he should be up front and proceeded to ride past two other hunters and then ran his horse's nose up my horse's butt. Rodeo city. Fortunately, I was able to control my horse after a brief rodeo and sternly told him to back off. We went about two miles farther and he did it again. Once again after calming my horse down, I told him that things were going to get ugly if he did it again. A couple miles farther we came to a tight spot on the trail and he nudges my horse again and as the rodeo came to it's end, I found myself right beside his horse's head. I looked up only to see him with a smirk on his face and without even thinking I pulled a "Blazing Saddles" on him and punched his horse right in the nose. The horse backed up and spun hard and he rode the rest of the ride out at the rear of the train.

When we got back to the trailhead, I immediately found the boss and told him what happened because I knew that "the hunter" was going to be sure to complain. And complain he did. He actually demanded his money back! When it all settled down my boss asked me how close that I was to shooting the horse out from underneath him! The boss new me well..... lucky my fist came out first.