Mobility in the Way Back

A life lived year-round in the high mountain wilderness isn't for everyone. It is the only life we can imagine for ourselves, but it has its significant challenges. 

Getting in and out of our remote valley can be tricky during the mud-seasons, spring and fall. This year was an unusually wet one; the spring mud lasted three months! Five miles of wet, slippery road that was daunting, time-consuming and hard on our jeep. The Forest Service is apparently putting their money into fighting fires rather than maintaining remote, little-traveled roads. 

But with our Morgans, we manage to get through difficult times with the weather and the trail. They are simply the best all-terrain vehicles ever built! Sure-footed and hardy and willing, with sound feet and legs, they carry us calmly on long trails, even when we doze off in the saddle. They don't mind if we reach for berries on the bushes as we go by or if (gasp!) we even text and ride....yes, we get cell service in many places! They can go up steep hillsides and through thickets that no noisy, gas-guzzling-and-smoke-puffing motorized 4WD can manage.

Hauling a log out of deep timber from a mountainside for firewood? No problem!

Finding a group of errant sheep up in woods thick with downed aspens and bracken ferns? Easy!

Packing groceries in and out, riding one mare and trailing one behind with a pack saddle loaded with a stash of goods? We can do it! They can do it!

People ask me sometimes: "I want to live like you, in the backwoods, the wilds. How do I manage to 'get there from here'? From city life? Where to start, what skills do I need?" And my reply is always: Start with Morgans. Take riding lessons. Learn how to care for and train a horse so that, if you *need* to get around on one someday, like we do, you'll have the confidence to move forward with an adventurous life.

The mares are our backbone here and worth their weight in gold.