Horsebacking Over Mt. Nebo

Horsebackin Over Mt. Nebo A View of Triple Peaks of Mt. Nebo I AM built by nature six feet four inches long and three axe- handles across the shoulders, yet, not content, I have added upon what I had been given until now about the only thing I can buy ready made is a handkerchief. For that reason I have felt so sorry for my friends, the horses, that what hiking I have done in recent years has been mostly on two legs rather than four. Two or three years ago, how- ever, I came upon a Forest Ranger built after my pattern, but with reservations in both directions, who gave me to understand that he owned a mule that could carry me to — well, to the summit of Mt. Nebo and back. I doubted his word, though I knew him to be an honest man, but told him I wouldn't mind trying the thing. This summer I turned scientist enough to attempt the experiment. TN COMPANY with James JR., "*• hereafter to be known as Jim, Kennard and Charles J. "Chic" Hart I went up Salt Creek. What now seems generations ago, I used to sing campaign songs about go- ing up Salt Creek, but at that time I had never had that thrill. We left Provo in a car; Chic and I in the front seat, Jim and a pair of white roosters in the rear. The roosters were Chic's idea. When we arrived at Mt. Nebo Ranger station we found Aaron Christianson, the ranger, hereafter to be known as Chris, and Earl Worthington, his assistant, sad- dling the horses. Right there I met with my first disappointment. That mule which Chris had declared "to be as easy as a Pullman and twice as steady" had developed a limp and, there- fore, had been excused from acting as my mount. She was instead to carry a nice light pack of a few hundred pounds and I was to ride a black horse whom I named Sin- bad, because he was to act as the center of my thousand and one nights' entertainments. (^HRIS demonstrated the fact ^ that at least some of Uncle Sam's foresters know how to throw on a pack. He had a choice pack outfit. Though I hadn't thrown a Squaw or Diamond hitch for more than a quarter of By HARRISON R. MERRILL a century my hands itched to get at the ropes. His pack-bags were leather covered, had flaps to buckle over the top, and a stick along the side next the saddle to keep them straight. They were quite differ- ent from the ones into which I used to chuck our tin dishes and bake ovens. O, by the way, Chris had a bake oven, but it, like the pack bags, was a blue-blooded piece of machinery with long legs and a deep pot. What to do with the live roost- ers? That was the question that troubled everybody but Chris. Nothing troubles that gent of the green forests, I discovered. "We'll put 'em on top," he said briefly as he threw the paste- board carton containing them on to the top of the gray mare's pack. With wire and rope he tied the box solidly while the roosters looked on. Occasionally, while he worked, they would crow; why shouldn't they? They were on the top of everything. We left the Ranger Station

The Improvement Era for November, 1930 11 Chris throws the pack on T\7E LEFT the Ranger station around 3.30 p. m. and be- gan our ride up the final exclama- tion point of the Wasatch Moun- tains. It was a glorious afternoon and even my horse seemed to enjoy the scenery. Far up the mountain we rode around from that never-ending "hog-back" that has been the des- pair of many hikers, into some timber. There we saw, set among the trees, a sheep camp. No one was at home, but Chris helped himself to a hind quarter of mut- ton saying that we'd need it and that he would see the herder as we went along. Sure enough, like a lonely fig- ure on the rim of a whirling world, he sat far up against the sky as we climbed toward him. Chris told him of the mutton and then suggested significantly that the sheep should be kept below the hanging valleys made by the pre- historic glaciers. A T DUSK we found ourselves nearly to the summit in a sort of scooped-out valley. Here the Ranger stopped and we unpacked and unsaddled. Sinbad, I think, felt much as his namesake must have done upon one of his returns alive to Bagdad. I liked Sinbad, however; he was a true and con- scientious friend. The roosters were quite sub- dued. They had been shaken and scared half to death a hundred times. Once the old pack animal actually tried to scrub them off under some aspen limbs and did suc- ceed in nearly tearing the box to shreds. A scramble for wood and water be- gan. Such an ambi- tious group of ram- blers I had never rid- den with. Each seemed eager to out- do the other. It may have been the effect of the mountain air — -we were nearly 11,000 feet up. Earl, I think, was the most ambitious; he went after his wood on horse- back. "DUT what a supper! We were - just ready to sit down to that bake-oven full of potatoes, onions, and bacon cooked in the most ap- proved sheepherder style when over ones. Chic and Jim and I made one group; Chris, DeMoisy, and Ralph, another; and Earl curled up in his quilts alone by the fire. Chic slept between Jim and me. Each of us two outside ones took a grim hold on the blankets and held tightly, stretching them over Chic until next morning he de- clared that it was like sleeping in a tent without covers except the ridge-pole. There above the smoke and grime of the world we lay faces up to the stars, There was no moon and the constellations whirled in glistening droves across the fields of heaven. The Milky Way was like a never-ending river of foam in which Cygnus, the Swan, was almost engulfed. All night long the animals of the Zo- diac, like a heavenly Barnum and Bailey parade, tramped above us, matched dimly by the lights of Fountain Green, Moroni, and Ephraim which we could see like stars in the world below. how BUT wind Single file along the protruding ribs of the world the ridge behind us came a horse carrying two fellows. They were Charles DeMoisy and his son, Ralph. Charlie is supervisor of the Uintah National Forest and had told us that he would ac- company us if he could. There around that two-mile- high fire we ate. Mt. Nebo, how- ever, was blowing his head off. Whether he was actually bragging or merely objecting to our presence we never learned, but he certainly did blow. But mutton! — Cooked in deep fat! My memory of the supper fails at the mutton! A FTER supper, bear stories — *■ and such tall ones! Then we began looking for hard places to sleep — no one expected to find soft and my hopi the the did howl. If Mr. Yip-yap attempt- ed any serenade he was complete- ly drowned by the howling of the wolves of the air that barked 'round our pil- lows. The wind gnawed and tore and scratched at our canvas cover without cessation all night like bands of wild predatory animals. I used hat for a night-cap thereby ng to keep my head away from flashing teeth of the hungry (Continued on page 24) With mountain appetites