Pack Trip

Most of you are reading this righ now becaue you saw that we had a new post an got excited that you would get to hear a funny story from Julie, but alas, it is just her less funny husband. I know I don't usually do this but Julie was not on our family pack trip up into the Rockies of northern Wyoming. It was just the original Gary Reynolds clan, all eight of us. Mom, Dad, and their litter. And I will just say that it was UNBELIEVABLE. That is all. Our wives were kind enough to allow us this time together - let me take a moment to give a shout out to them. Thank you Angi, Kat, Morgen, Julie, Jessica, and even you Jason, who for the first time got a little taste of what it means to get involved with this crowd. Heck, MaShay was probably the worst of any of us, she missed her Beau so badly!!! Anyway, we started at a place called Boulder Basin and ended up coming out of the Greybull River valley near Meteetsee(sp?)So I will try to tell the story mostly with pictures. You may think there are a lot of pictures, and that's because there are. Well, it's my blog and I'll do as I please. Enjoy, and be jealous.

Dad was the only real cowboy in the bunch, and he looked the part too. Just look at him, in his element.

A lot of the forest we passed through had been burnt out by forest fires in previous years. It was pretty cool to see actually.

This was Cap, Dad's horse on loan from Uncle Steve. Ryan just wanted a picture with the coolest looking horse we had. Personally, I think it just makes Ryan look scrawny.

When we got to our biggest top out on Day 2 you could look back and see where we had come from. Somewhere out there.

I love this pic of D and his horse PD. We thought it was Petey, not P.D. (meaning "Painted Desert") Whatever. We called him Hidalgo anyway.

This is the morning of day 2. You wouldn't know it, but it snowed the night before.

We did a lot of climbing on day 2. And sometimes on foot because one of the horses hurt himself on day 1 so we gave him the day off.

This is how the evenings were spent. Sometimes with a guitar singing some James Taylor of Simon and Garfunkle tunes. What can we say, we are our father's children.

We did have one mule along with us. Cora was her name. And while she was a great pack horse, she was also a Jackass....HA! You could count on her wiggin' out at least once every morning while we piled the weight on her back. The best was the day she jumped for some reason and we had just put the guitar on her back, so when she jumped the guitar would slap her butt so she would jump again, and so on.....Can't believe that guitar made it out alive.

This was on the side of the river that was running by our campsite on days 3,4, & 5.

Getting all that junk to stay on the horses was not an easy process and we only mastered in on the last day. We spent 3 hours packing up camp every day that we relocated.

That is MaShay and that stud kissin' on her is named Chrome Dome.

As you can see, Mom couldn't care less that her daughter is wiping her snot on her hood. Just an indication of our concern for cleanliness by day 3. Personally I could have gone all week without a bath. But when we took off the layers one night in the tent to play some card games, the family kicked me out until I was clean. I must say, there was something liberating about standing stark naked next to that river washing myself with ice cold water. Natural as the trees around me. I didn't even feel the cold.

One of the mountain tops we reached. This one had a mountain sheep runnin down the side when we got there. Yeah, it was cool.

We found a killer campsite at the end of day 2. Plenty of grazing for the horses and a river running right by us. Kinda wish we had hung out there longer.

Not the best pic, but we had to take one with the whole family on their horses. Notice Cody's cute green tights. He fell in the river in his jeans....twice.

Just getting ready to head out.

Reese and a pack horse affectionately named Rockstar. We didn't know his real name, just that he was one of Bob's three stooges. But look at him, with the hair and all that. He just screams Rockstar.

Never again will I play regular paint ball. Wrist rockets are soooooo much cooler. Hurts worse and way more action. Not to mention cost efficiency.

Climbing the mountains on day two. These horses were awesome. They just kept chuggin along. As did Daman, who had to climb the largest mountain on foot. You DaMan, Daman.

We all slept in the tent because, well, heaven forbid we spend any time apart. I love being us.

This was my first introduction to my mate for the week, Fireball. He was awesome and we had a great time. I miss him.

This was the coolest ridge we topped out on. Beautiful views....

Packing the paniers. They had to be equally weighted for the horses' sake.

Our first night in the snow came down. It was beautiful! And really not that cold. And it was gone by morning.

The end of the trail. All of us in one piece. The only accident of significance was when Reese got hit in the head with a branch he was trying to break and Cody had to (I use the phrase "had to" liberally here. It was more for entertainment than anything) staple it shut with some skin stapler. I think it was out of the Horse First Aid kit. Awesome.