Chapter 13 ~ Page 170
Ahead was a trail built, maintained, mapped, just for us. Trail crews were at work clearing out windfallen logs, cutting back brush. We had priority over any other use except backpackers. No motor bikes were allowed, anywhere. We wouldn't have to worry about log trucks on trail number 2000.
A ranger came by our camp that night to welcome us. He asked if there was anything we wanted to know about the trail for his office received a weekly bulletin on it's condition. Accompanying him was a forester from the Weyerhauser Timber Company. The official trailhead actually started at The Lake of The Woods, which was our supply stop, thirty-eight miles north from the border. Instead of having to fight our way through this section of private tree farm and forest, we were invited to camp wherever we wished, and advised that the trail was marked and maintained just as if it was located on public land. Unbelievable.
This called for a celebration. It just happened that Colette's birthday was upon us once again. Her tenth. So, the next day, riding out into a meadow that had it all—grass, a swimming hole, a stout tree to rig a swing—I declared that one of her presents was to be a double-day off. Compared to the previous July 13th, this indeed was a wonderful gift, for all of us.
As I remember it, Bernice started off with a Dutch oven coffee cake for breakfast, followed in the next 48 hours by anything our birthday girl wanted out of the overloaded panniers, topped off with a special honest-to-goodness cake with candles, and freeze-dried ice cream. We had balloons and noisemakers too, which helped disguise the fact that this was the third birthday in a row where all of the guests wore boots, instead of barrettes. Rather than playing pin the tail on the donkey, it was keep The Colonel out of the cake.
Looking back, Colette admits that her wilderness birthday parties are the ones she remembers as having the most meaning. Sure, there wasn't the thrill of answering a doorbell and greeting school friends laden with presents. Yet, walking out into the meadow and snuggling up with a horse laying in the warm sun had a quality impossible to duplicate.
Many people are under the impression that a horse always sleeps standing up, that he never lays down. Some horses are stabled in a stall so small this would be impossible. It is true that an equines number one fear is that of being held down, helpless to resist an attack by their defense of running away. Our horses laid down. We could sit on their reclining bodies, use them for pillows (and vice versa), and bring them breakfast in bed.
A ranger came by our camp that night to welcome us. He asked if there was anything we wanted to know about the trail for his office received a weekly bulletin on it's condition. Accompanying him was a forester from the Weyerhauser Timber Company. The official trailhead actually started at The Lake of The Woods, which was our supply stop, thirty-eight miles north from the border. Instead of having to fight our way through this section of private tree farm and forest, we were invited to camp wherever we wished, and advised that the trail was marked and maintained just as if it was located on public land. Unbelievable.
This called for a celebration. It just happened that Colette's birthday was upon us once again. Her tenth. So, the next day, riding out into a meadow that had it all—grass, a swimming hole, a stout tree to rig a swing—I declared that one of her presents was to be a double-day off. Compared to the previous July 13th, this indeed was a wonderful gift, for all of us.
As I remember it, Bernice started off with a Dutch oven coffee cake for breakfast, followed in the next 48 hours by anything our birthday girl wanted out of the overloaded panniers, topped off with a special honest-to-goodness cake with candles, and freeze-dried ice cream. We had balloons and noisemakers too, which helped disguise the fact that this was the third birthday in a row where all of the guests wore boots, instead of barrettes. Rather than playing pin the tail on the donkey, it was keep The Colonel out of the cake.
Looking back, Colette admits that her wilderness birthday parties are the ones she remembers as having the most meaning. Sure, there wasn't the thrill of answering a doorbell and greeting school friends laden with presents. Yet, walking out into the meadow and snuggling up with a horse laying in the warm sun had a quality impossible to duplicate.
Many people are under the impression that a horse always sleeps standing up, that he never lays down. Some horses are stabled in a stall so small this would be impossible. It is true that an equines number one fear is that of being held down, helpless to resist an attack by their defense of running away. Our horses laid down. We could sit on their reclining bodies, use them for pillows (and vice versa), and bring them breakfast in bed.
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Text and Photographs © Barry Murray 1971-2007 Mac&Murray Multimedia