I am so glad you started this group!

Reading your post reminds me of riding through the badlands. Steep hills, dangerous crossings, etc. Challenging - exhilarating. I miss it.

I now live in the city. Moved here last year and my sweet babies are farmed out to friends, who, I am afraid,have fallen in love with them. One of my mares will foal this spring. My friends wanted a "colt" out of her so they will be blessed with the baby. I can't wait to see what they get.

I have quarter horses and bred them to be black, but if you read my post "He's a Stud" you will find the story of how I ended up with a surprise paint baby.

For those of us who have a passion for horses, how can we explain it to those who don't?

The picture below is of Sonny when he was only a couple days old.

Hi all, Today I wanted to share a picture of a great ride. Right on the Idaho Montana border is White Sands state park. About 20miles of dirt road off highway 12 is a cowboy(girl) camp. I had never seen a moose in the wild and this ride was a guaranteed sighting per a friend. Well, the first night a bull calf was in our camp and riled up the horses. A 14mile ride to a huge shallow lake yielded a sow bear w/ triplets (very unusual) and a moose in the lake. We wanted to close the distance but the skies were lookin ugly. on the return we experienced rain, sleet, hail, and snow. My canvas duster was great and so was my horse. She is a 20yr old calvary style Morgan. Smart and mountain savy,and a go, go, goer. Whenever I think I'm the man from snowy river she puts her foot down and somehow communicates "let's not be stupid".The forest ranger said they expected quite a bit of snow that night. We packed up and out

Gorgeous baby!

Living in the upper midwest offered the opportunity to experience moose at their "best" and largest. They are extremely dangerous and will charge with no notice. We had to ride carefully, especially on horseback, for they can be very dangerous.

One evening, I was driving (my car) when I saw something come out of the ditch. It was a cow moose (female). She crossed the road in front of me, and as I started to move forward (slowly of course) I saw something else move. I stopped and a bull moose, the size of nothing I have seen before, crossed in front of me and stopped. His rear feet in one lane of the road, front feet in the other. He was absolutely huge. He turned his head, looked at me as I very, very slowly reversed. When he realized I was not a challenge to him, he eventually walked across the road and into a field with the cow.

Had I only had a camera!

A few weeks later, someone in town said they had seen the largest moose - the size was nothing they could explain. Same place I had seen this one.

At that time, there had been many moose coming into the state from Canada.

While I know the history of moose charging cars, it gave me a bit of a fright. However, just to see him so close was amazing.

A few years ago I was working in Vermont in a very rural area, driving along the edge of the road. As we passed a swamp I looked and there was a huge moose about ten feet from me. The car had a flasher on top, which was whirring and flashing, and I said to my co-worker, "Gary, look -- a moose!" Gary is deaf in one ear and I had to say it louder, whereupon the moose looked at us, snorted in disgust, and moved away.

I was telling this story to a friend who lives near there.

"I saw a moose!"

He said, "Big, ain't they?"

An understatement, to say the least. LOL

"you cannot take a step without stepping on Garnets"

Isn't it wild? Idaho is the Gem state for a reason. I'd seen many outcrops of garnet schist in the Black Hills, but it didn't prepare me for all the loose garnets out here.

(I had a close encounter of the moose kind a couple summers back, but that's a story for another day.)

Great posts. Washington has a ton of great rides too. One of my favorites is in the Greenwater, WA area. Great day ride - with connections to longer trails for overnighters as well. The love of my life and one of her girlfriends planned a wonderful ride in this area for my birthday last year. My horse and I had a blast...lots of technical trails and water crossings. It was a great day, and it took my mind off that additional candle on the cake.