The beginning of the guiding season always carries a little nervous energy. Not because I haven’t saddled up a hundred times before — some days I feel like I could ride these trails in Dubois, Wyoming with my eyes closed. It’s more the step back into the rhythm of business and scheduling: coordinating rides, preparing horses, making every effort to keep everyone safe — guides, guests, interns, our children, the cats, etc.

I think about Captain Rudy every night as he heads out on patrol, barking at shadows that look like wolves…and  sometimes, actual wolves, or mt. lions, or whatever.

There’s a good kind of energy that comes with this work. Getting to know the guests. Exploring the trails again to see what winter left behind — which paths are passable, which are still buried under snow. Preparing to step into the unknowns each day brings.

It’s not often that I get to start the season with a full-day ride. Usually, I’m the one holding down the office. But this year I wanted to show our newest guide, Joy, the full-day loopty loops around Warm Springs, so I popped some ibuprofen and stepped in to guide a seven-hour tour (back/butt/thighs are really thanking me for that now..)

Our guest, Kristin, hailed all the way from Germany— a lovely human and an excellent rider-fitting since she’s also a mounted patrol officer in Berlin. She showed us photos of her very tall warmblood, Pixel, and his tiny English saddle. In return, we showed her the highest mountain we could reach, a view of the very tips of the Tetons, some grizzly tracks in the mud, the canyon floor, and all the open space in between.

My favorite moment came when she turned to me, smiling broadly, and said, “I have never ridden so steep before.” That’s a compliment from someone who makes her living working on horseback.  She had also never ridden in a western saddle, which she found incredibly comfortable. I imagine it felt like a Lazy Boy compared to the patrol saddle in her pictures, built to be sat posture perfect.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…Christiana and Evan were out touring guests from Cape Cod in the side-by-side. Leah and Joe were riding with our Greenbrier County 4-H Auction Winners!!! and my children were sword fighting on the trampoline. And yes, all cats are alive and well, for the moment.