I finally have a few minutes to write about the holiday we both enjoyed in Montana and Wyoming. Things have been a bit busy since I got home and I didn't want to write about the experience until I had time to fully digest what I learned.
There is so much to pass on this will have to happen in chapters !
The holiday was to Yellowstone for three full days and then to Rocking Z ranch in Montana for 5 1/2 days.
First Yellowstone
Brilliant is the best way to describe it. We went there to spot wildlife and do a bit of hiking. As a result we did not go to the favourite tourist spots this time. We saw Old Faithful last year.
The best place for wildlife spotting is the Lammar Valley so we stayed in Gardiner which is reasonably close by American standards. Up before dawn to get to the best viewing site by sunrise at the latest. The trick is to cruise along the road looking for lots of folks with spotting scopes and then park there.
We saw everything we wanted to from Brown Bear with cub, Black Bear, wolves, coyotes, etc etc. One tip if you are going there is to at least hire a good spotting scope. We bought one this year and it made a huge difference to what we saw compared to last year.
Rocking Z
This is a horsemanship blog so lets get onto the riding
Rocking Z is near Wolf Creek in Montana. There is another one in the USA so be careful you choose the right one! They are a 5th generation family on this land so know it rather well. Patty and Zac own the ranch but they leave the riding to their daughter Maria and her husband Ben.
Breakfast at 8am. Out to the horses around 9am. All the horses have come off the mountain by then and are in the big corral. All 70 of them together. A few bites and kicks, nothing serious, but other than that they all get along fine. So different to the custom in the UK to keep all the horses separate or maybe with a carefully chosen field mate. I have to say that given the choice I prefer the communal method, so much more natural for them and it avoids all the stable vices that so many in the UK system wind up with. The big advantage the USA have is space of course. I think the ranch was about 30,000 acres !!
So we then went to the corral to get the horse we where allocated for the day. On day 1 I spent some time playing online with a lovely quarter horse called Coco. A dapple grey. I was told to go and get her. Well there are 70 horses and several dapple greys. How do I find the right one !!!?
No problem. As I entered the corral Coco whinied and came straight up to me to stick her head in the halter. I like to think it's because she liked me. Actually those chosen get to go into the barn to be groomed and tacked up AND get given some grain. I guess they all know that so are desperate to be chosen.
We would then ride until around midday or just after before stopping for lunch. A leisurely lunch and then back out to the horses for another session of riding. Finally finishing around 6pm with dinner at 7pm. So all in all we got to ride for around 5 or 6 hours a day.
Very varied riding it was to. Some work in the school, more out in the big home fields. We also did some hacks into the surrounding hills where we found exactly what terrain horses can travel over. I'm too protective of Filly I've discovered. On the hacks we often herded a few stray cattle back to the field they should be in which made it all the more interesting.
That's all I have time for today, but I will be returning time and again to what I learnt in those 5 1/2 days. It's fair to say that I have entered a whole new area of conscious incompetence now and I'll write about my progress towards conscious competence and, you never know, even unconscious competence.
Would we go back to Rocking Z. Absolutely. But it isn't cheap, especially with the exchange rate now. Besides I have at least 2 years work ahead of me to assimilate what I've learnt.
There is so much to pass on this will have to happen in chapters !
The holiday was to Yellowstone for three full days and then to Rocking Z ranch in Montana for 5 1/2 days.
First Yellowstone
Brilliant is the best way to describe it. We went there to spot wildlife and do a bit of hiking. As a result we did not go to the favourite tourist spots this time. We saw Old Faithful last year.
The best place for wildlife spotting is the Lammar Valley so we stayed in Gardiner which is reasonably close by American standards. Up before dawn to get to the best viewing site by sunrise at the latest. The trick is to cruise along the road looking for lots of folks with spotting scopes and then park there.
We saw everything we wanted to from Brown Bear with cub, Black Bear, wolves, coyotes, etc etc. One tip if you are going there is to at least hire a good spotting scope. We bought one this year and it made a huge difference to what we saw compared to last year.
Rocking Z
This is a horsemanship blog so lets get onto the riding
Rocking Z is near Wolf Creek in Montana. There is another one in the USA so be careful you choose the right one! They are a 5th generation family on this land so know it rather well. Patty and Zac own the ranch but they leave the riding to their daughter Maria and her husband Ben.
Breakfast at 8am. Out to the horses around 9am. All the horses have come off the mountain by then and are in the big corral. All 70 of them together. A few bites and kicks, nothing serious, but other than that they all get along fine. So different to the custom in the UK to keep all the horses separate or maybe with a carefully chosen field mate. I have to say that given the choice I prefer the communal method, so much more natural for them and it avoids all the stable vices that so many in the UK system wind up with. The big advantage the USA have is space of course. I think the ranch was about 30,000 acres !!
So we then went to the corral to get the horse we where allocated for the day. On day 1 I spent some time playing online with a lovely quarter horse called Coco. A dapple grey. I was told to go and get her. Well there are 70 horses and several dapple greys. How do I find the right one !!!?
No problem. As I entered the corral Coco whinied and came straight up to me to stick her head in the halter. I like to think it's because she liked me. Actually those chosen get to go into the barn to be groomed and tacked up AND get given some grain. I guess they all know that so are desperate to be chosen.
We would then ride until around midday or just after before stopping for lunch. A leisurely lunch and then back out to the horses for another session of riding. Finally finishing around 6pm with dinner at 7pm. So all in all we got to ride for around 5 or 6 hours a day.
Very varied riding it was to. Some work in the school, more out in the big home fields. We also did some hacks into the surrounding hills where we found exactly what terrain horses can travel over. I'm too protective of Filly I've discovered. On the hacks we often herded a few stray cattle back to the field they should be in which made it all the more interesting.
That's all I have time for today, but I will be returning time and again to what I learnt in those 5 1/2 days. It's fair to say that I have entered a whole new area of conscious incompetence now and I'll write about my progress towards conscious competence and, you never know, even unconscious competence.
Would we go back to Rocking Z. Absolutely. But it isn't cheap, especially with the exchange rate now. Besides I have at least 2 years work ahead of me to assimilate what I've learnt.
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