Horses, Hay, Fences, snow and ice.

I am back in Wells, NV. I am the horse guy for a few days while the regular horse gal is off skiing. I noticed that the coral fence is being eaten away by the horses. There were 8 horses but 2 horses were given to another federal agency in Idaho and they left this Thursday. Now, I am feeding 6 horses. One more horse will be sent off to an independent horse retirement farm because he is old and crotchety. He does not want a pack on him and stays well away from people. Five horses will cost less to maintain and they will get more packing/ riding trips.

the horses here are work horses. They are for packing things into wilderness areas and they have to be ready to go whenever there is a need.

We found some metal fencing in a back pasture and we put it in front of the wooden fencing which the horses are eating. What is amazing is that the coverage of what we needed was almost perfect. The metal fencing is used at times to make a coral near the wilderness areas.

I have been chopping wood and it was a pain. First, I had to get the foot of snow off the pile. Then I had to get the tarp loosened. The stupid tarp was frozen to the ground. Frozen wood splits pretty good once you get to the wood though. I also had some logs set aside and we untarped them (a pain) and now i am splitting them.

It is sunny and beautiful today. It is sunny and started at 25 dgrees which is well above the 7 degrees we had yesterday. I hope to get pictures up tomorrow. I have some of the horses, etc.

12 Degrees - Wells, NV

It was 12 degrees this morning in Wells, NV. I went to feed the horses and they had snow and ice on their hair. They looked cold. They were happy to see me since I was the one to give them feed.

Mt Meadows pictures

I am sore.... the constant falling, shook up the bones. It was fun though.

Here are real pictures of Mt Hood Meadows on Sunday. It is white. This is kind of mild, it actually was totally white in some places. Those totally white spots just happened to be the places which I needed to go down.

The mountain kicked my butt!!!!

I went snowboarding today and the mountain kicked my butt. I fell a few times....
I got off the lift to a white cloud and I could not see very well. There was powder snow with ice underneath. I could not see the snowboard because it was hid under 10 inches of powder. I would hit ice and fall on my butt!!! There were also moguls and I would hit ice and fall on my butt. Did I mention, I fell a few times. It got old.
I have only been to this ski area one time before so I do not know the ski routes which was a problem when I was winding down the slope in a white cloud.

On the way up the mountain, I passed 4 great cross country ski areas and as I was driving by I thought, the conditions are great for cross country but I was set on snowboarding. Next time, If we had frozen conditions and no new snow and the first day with snow, I will cross country ski.

Snowboarding in powder is not my cup of tea. i like the groomed slopes.

It was a very good day but it sure was a workout. Snowboarding in a white cloud without knowing the run - not my favorite thing.

Coming off the mountain they had the highway blocked. There was a head on crash on the way to Portland, so they advised people to go the long way around Mt. Hood. I drove an extra 60 or so miles at 25 MPH for 1/2 of the way to get back to Portland.

Pictures: The pictures are of Snoqualmie Pass, WA. I have not downloaded the ictures of white from today.

More Yakima River

I have to say. Now that I spend time floating the Yakima. I want to go back. I went to college in Ellensburg and I spent many hours floating the Yakima. It was such a great, relaxing time. I hope to spend some quality time camping and floating the Yakima, the Sandy and the Clackamas in the future.

Mountain Sheep

The other picture did not have the Mountain Sheep in it.

Can you see the mountain sheep? It just stood there and did not move while we floated by. They generally are in groups but this one was alone.

Mountain Sheep and eagles

Yakima River float

Yakima River Float - pictures

The float on the Yakima River was pretty amazing. I had better weather on this trip than I had during the summer back when I floated the Yakima all the time. I never floated the Yakima in the winter before though. It was an amazing day! More pictures later.

Floating the Yakima River

I have pictures but they are in the camera and i do not have a device to download them.

IT WAS A GREAT DAY! We had good weather too which was kind of amazing. Ron and Conner caught and released 3 Rainbow Trout. One trout was a big fish. It was close to being a record. It was a beautiful fish.

While floating down the river, we saw about 8 eagles, ducks, a goose that was only 5 or so feet away from us before he flew off. We did t even see the goose until he flew off.
Saw 3 or 4 blue Heron. Even saw an Osprey and a hawk. We also saw deer and a mountain goat too. The mountain goat just stayed there and looked at me.

The scenery in the Yakima Valley is pretty amazing too. We had snow and ice since it is January which was quite beautiful. The mountains are enormous and they shoot up from the river - what a way to spend a day.

I got to row much of the trip. Ron and Conner have fishing licenses and are quite good at fishing so they got to fish. Yesterday, 3 professional guides went down the river and caught 3 fish. Ron and Conner caught 3 fish with a shorter time on the water and one was a trophy fish.

I went to college in Ellensburg and floating down the river was a regular passtime for me, so I felt so good rowing the boat. Also, Conner has a wonderful inflatble raft with a frame which is so great. College days, I floated with an unframed raft which is so much harder to work than a framed raft.

What can I say. It was great.

I drove over to Seattle and will put a hitch on my car - hope it goes on smoothly.

Mt Hood Snow

These are pictures of when we had snow on Mt Hood. Ash and I went snowboarding.