Where I’ve been lately
No worries, this isn’t one of those lame excuse-laden filler posts to explain the recent lack of blog activity (you only see those when I’ve been lazy).  The truth is a number of things have temporarily pulled me away from blogging the last few weeks, including a business trip, Thanksgiving, and a few intense writing assignments.

Also, a sad incident occurred here last week involving a man and a cave.  While I didn’t know the man who lost his life, I am acquainted with a member of his family and I have a personal connection with the cave.  The story, which I’ll recount here at some point, is gut wrenching, and I’ve found it difficult lately to write about fun in the outdoors given the circumstances.

What’s coming up
If recover quickly enough from this latest writing assignment, I’d like to post a few brief reviews of the latest offerings from Brushfire Records.  Look for those on Thursday.  We might round off the week with a nice funny t-shirt.

Erda horseman trains mustangs and prepares living symbols of the West for adoption

The eye of a survivor: a close-up of Reno, a mustang I rode last spring.

The following originally appeared in the November 10, 2009 edition of the Tooele Transcript Bulletin.

Cliff Tipton stands beside a fence on the north end of his 5 acre ranch in Erda, taking in a crisp November morning.  Chickens promenade about a tall stack of hay bales.  A calico cat tiptoes toward a row of stalls where a collection of horses silently look on.   The setting couldn’t be more serene.

The 52 year old cowboy isn’t a man of many words—until the conversation finds focus on those horses.  Unshod and intrinsically rugged, these aren’t the average domesticated horse.  That’s why the fences are 7 feet high.  They’re wild horses—mustangs.  And for Tipton, each one represents a labor of love.

Tipton and his wife, Janet, founded the Intermountain Wild Horse and Burro Advisors in 2003.  The non-profit organization promotes the Bureau of Land Management’s wild horse and burro adoption program and works to prepare mustangs for adoption.  Cliff and Janet volunteer about 1,500 hours apiece each year assisting the program.

“It’s their eagerness, their survival instinct,” Tipton said when asked about the mustang’s appeal.  “They’re a clean-slate horse.  There’s no interbreeding.  Once they understand something, they’ve got it.”

The American mustang descends from once-domesticated horses that strayed or escaped from ranches in the late 1800’s.  Those free-roaming feral horses banded together into herds and have roamed the West ever since.  The BLM estimates that 29,500 mustangs roam public rangelands in 10 Western states.

The mustang’s frayed appearance and regal gait are the personification of independence.  In 1971, Congress declared mustangs “Living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West.”

“Mustangs have a survival instinct,” Tipton explained.  “They’ve had to struggle and fight for their food and water all their life.”

Tipton has always loved horses.  A native of New Mexico, he’s worked with them on ranches all his life.  After living in various parts of the Intermountain West, Tipton finally settled in Tooele County in 1996, when he met and married Janet.  Together they operate Flying T Acres Ranch in eastern Erda.

The vocabulary of the horseman reflects his unique view of his relationship with the horse.  Horses are trained, but they’re not tamed.  They’re “gentled.”   Tipton doesn’t call himself a horse whisperer, per se, though he studies and employs natural horsemanship techniques.  “Horse gentler” is the term he prefers.

“When you train a mustang you’re not domesticating him, you’re becoming his partner.  You’re creating a bond.  I’m not his superior, I’m his friend.  I want my horse to want to be with me, not feel like he’s forced to be with me.”

Tipton gentled his first mustang a decade ago.  He says working with a mustang as opposed to a domesticated horse involves a definite learning curve.

“A mustang’s thought process is totally different,” he said.  “The basics are the same, but you have to break it down a little better for a mustang.  It took me time to learn that.”

Approaching a mustang for the first time is a challenging task.  After all, he’s lived his entire life to that point in survival mode.  He’s keenly aware of his surroundings and is exceptionally cautious.  Acclimation to human presence is the first step in forming the relationship.

Tipton uses a bamboo pole to touch the horse while maintaining a safe distance.  He inches closer as the horse’s natural fears gradually give way to trust.  Working on the horse’s own timetable is paramount; he does everything on his own terms.  Once the distance is closed, Tipton reaches out to give the horse its first human touch.  The partnership begins.

“I get a halter on him, then we start the leading process and it all takes off from there.”

Tipton then works on trailer loading, saddling, and riding.  He still remembers his first ride on that first mustang.

“We didn’t quite know what to expect from each other,” Tipton recalled.  “But there was a definite point when it clicked, and it was just like somebody handed me a million dollar bill.”

That joy wasn’t Tipton’s alone.

“The horse was same way,” Tipton said.  “His eyes were big.  His whole demeanor changed.  He moved lighter—he was happier.”

Thus began a long and fulfilling career of mustang volunteerism.  The BLM sends Tipton about 30 mustangs per year to be gentled.  He and IWHBA’s 85 member volunteer force train each mustang as much as time will allow before they’re adopted out.

“We have adopted out over 130 horses in the last 5 years,” Tipton said.  “We want to instill a partnership with the rider.  It doesn’t make a difference if you’re inexperienced or if you’re the most advanced rider out there—you listen to each other to do what needs to be done.”

Training mustangs to the halter point can take anywhere from a few minutes to two weeks, depending on the horse.  On average, Tipton halters a mustang within 4 days, and he’s proud of his work.  In 2007, he was selected from a pool of 220 horse trainers from across the United States to compete in the Mustang Heritage Foundation’s Extreme Mustang Makeover in Fort Worth, Texas.  The completion allows horsemen to showcase the results of their gentling techniques.

For the completion, Tipton was assigned a 4 year old bay named Hercules from the Warm Springs Herd in Nevada.  Tipton and Hercules were given 100 days to form a partnership and train before performing in Fort Worth.  They placed 17^th overall.  Hercules accompanied Tipton back to Erda after the competition and has called the Flying T home ever since.

Last weekend, Tipton served on the organizing board for the Mountain Valley Mustang Makeover in Heber.

“We had an awesome course up in Heber.  We had mountains, trees, running waterfalls, and other obstacles.  It was a very unique trail,” he said.

While he specializes in mustangs, Tipton works with all breeds.  He creates courses similar to the competition courses for his summer training series, which is geared toward helping horses gain the trust of their handlers.

“It’s a passion,” Tipton summed up.  “I love all horses and I love the mustang because they’re just a clean pure slate.  It’s their purity, their heart.”

Ok, I know this request sounds strange coming from a man blog, but I’m in desperate need of some recipes, and I’m specifically reaching out to my outdoor friends.  Here’s the deal:

For my newspaper column next week, I’m cooking up a Thanksgiving feast– outdoors style.  Yep, no microwaves or indoor stoves.  This will be a feast fit for the true outdoorsman.

Problem is, I’m having a hard time coming up with thanksgiving recipes for the Dutch oven, foil, or over the fire.  I realize there may not be a lot of this type of recipe out there, but I’m hoping somebody’s got an idea or two for adapting regular recipes for the outdoors.  If you do, feel free to leave a comment or drop me a note via the About page.  If I end up using the recipe, I’ll credit you in the article.

Thanks!

I’ve been back East on business for the last few days and so far the week has been an adventure.  I spent almost the entire day Sunday stuck in terminals in Salt Lake and Atlanta.  The other night I was stuck in a D.C. metro station for almost an hour after a man jumped in front of a train and was killed.  Barring any of the same technical difficulties that canceled my original flight here, I’ll be able to sleep in my own bed tonight.  Until my next post, I’ll just say this:

• Delta isn’t my favorite airline, but I’ll concede they did a pretty good job of re-routing an entire 737’s passengers through other flights in fairly short order.
• To the restaurant billed as ‘Southern cooking’ in Atlanta International’s A Concourse: your meatloaf was decent but your cornbread was horrible.  But what do you care?  You’ve got a terminal full of captive customers whose only other choice is Domino’s.
• Humidity in late autumn/early winter makes me very happy.

The apple shaving accident

Riding high on the unprecedented success of my Funny T-shirts series (and by ‘unprecedented success’ I mean the fact that I’ve actually followed through, kinda), I’m floating the idea of launching another ongoing series called “Idiots in the Outdoors.”

We at the Outdoor Bloggers Summit always say the outdoors is for everybody.  Maybe it’s not.

I’m big on safety in the outdoors, and I’m grateful for the technological advances that take some of the worry out of enjoying the wilderness.  The personal locator beacon (PLB) is one of those.  Get into trouble?  Push a button, and in swoop the rescue helicopters.  Chalk it up to savvy or luck, I’ve never been in an emergency situation in the outdoors– at least not one serious enough that I would have activated a PLB.

But then of course, I’ve never been faced with a situation so dire as one party faced in the Grand Canyon in September.  In fact, their trek on the Royal Arch Loop was so harrowing that, according to this AP piece, they activated their PLB no less than 3 times in 3 days.

Wolf Cry #1: The group activated their PLB for the first time when they ran out of water.  A legitimate reason if– IF– you’re about to die.  Never mind that no hiker with half a brain would try to tackle a desert canyon without making certain he had enough water to sustain him.  No worries, though.  By the time rescuers arrived in their emergency helicopter, the hikers had found a nice stream.

Wolf Cry#2: Later that night, the party (whose members’ names I can’t find anywhere) pushed the red button again.  This time it was for a far more serious reason:  the water they had collected from the stream “tasted salty.”  The hikers declined the offer for evacuation, so the rescue team left them fresh water.

Wolf Cry #3: The hikers activated their PLB again the next morning (AP doesn’t mention why, but I’m sure it was an absolute emergency).  This time, frustrated rescuers forced their evacuation.  They were finally cited for endangering rescue crews with their wolf cries.

I’ll leave the debate over PLB’s to the comments section.  If I were the National Park Service and the Arizona Department of Public Safety, I’d charge these hikers for the costs incurred by these rescue missions, right down to the water that was left for them.

Then I’d ban them from the outdoors.  Forever.

Ursa Major, the Big Dipper, was the first constellation in focus.  Then there were Sirius, Ursa Minor and the North Star, and a few planets I couldn’t identify.  Blinking earth-orbiting satellites zoomed across the celestial sphere.  As the minutes passed, the visible star field multiplied until the sky was filled with points of light.

La Luna (photo by Scott Crosby, Salt Lake Astronomical Society)

The following is a blog-friendly adaptation of my piece that appeared in the November 5, 2009 edition of the Tooele Transcript Bulletin.

“You can’t study the darkness by flooding it with light,” wrote naturalist Edward Abbey on the folly of using a flashlight while exploring the wilderness at night.  It’s one of my favorite outdoor quotes.  Unfortunately, the concept’s profundity sometimes outweighs its practicality.  Take, for instance, my bumbling pre-dawn trek at Timpie Point last weekend.

I could chalk it up to the darkness or the abnormal terrain or the fact that I didn’t bother looking for a trail up to the large limestone outcropping.  Yes, I should have brought a light– or at least waited until my eyes adjusted.  Then I might have noticed that huge mud puddle just outside my car door.  I also might have caught on sooner that those two out-of-place looking boulders I was heading over to check out were really two nervous cows.

But there I was—my ankle twisted, my ears frozen, and my agitated bovine companions looking on—under an extraordinarily clear sky.  “Well, whaddya know,” I told told myself, “those Internet sky charts were right.”  Now to find a rock flat enough to lie on.

I’ve been thinking a lot about space lately.  It started with a visit to the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. last summer.  I love aviation history, but whenever I visit that museum I tend to spend most of my time in the space wings.  Nothing’s quite as exciting as seeing Buzz Aldrin’s space suit or studying the exterior of the actual Apollo 11 Command Module.  And my inner nerd doesn’t miss a chance to gawk at the original Star Trek production model of the USS Enterprise.

I tend to look up at the night sky with a little more contemplation after visiting that museum.  The fascination sparked by last summer’s trip has yet to wear off.  Perhaps it’s sheer curiosity about what’s beyond our world or the mysterious appeal of that cold, dark void.  Somehow in its mind-blowing infinity, the view of space from Earth always puts things into perspective.  Nothing’s quite as peaceful as looking up at the stars for a good, long time.

USS Enterprise original production model at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum (photo by Clint Thomsen)

“You’re a little late for stargazing season,” local pros told me a few days prior when I contacted them to ask for tips.  An entire astronomical viewing community is centered on the Stansbury Park Observatory Complex (affectionately referred to as “SPOC”) where scores of pros and amateurs spend the warmer months examining the heavens through a collection of high powered telescopes.

My sons and I attended the last star party of the season there in October.  The boys thrilled at the opportunity to view nebulae and planets through the telescopes.  Equally captivating to me was watching the hushed crowd of stargazers politely line up to peek into deep space.

The area surrounding the complex is intentionally kept as dark as possible.  “Things that are interesting in the sky are very faint,” Salt Lake Astronomical Society (SLAS) member Scott Crosby told me.  “In order to see any detail [in an astronomical object], you have to intensify it using a telescope.  But the problem is when you do that, you also intensify sky glow.”

“Sky glow” is a type of light pollution.  Usually seen as a dome of light over population centers, it’s the brightening of the sky caused by excess artificial lighting.  Crosby chairs SLAS’s Dark Site Committee, a group that seeks out locations with low light pollution for optimal astronomical viewing.

The term “dark site” is more of a description than an official designation, though the International Dark Sky Association has established several International Dark Sky Parks throughout the world.  The first place to receive the designation was Utah’s Natural Bridges National Monument in the Four Corners area.  Light pollution prevents most places in our part of the state from competing for the label, but Crosby said there are several decent dark sky locations in Tooele County.  They include the mountain ranges and spots along the Pony Express Trail and in the Great Salt Lake Desert.

When online clear sky charts predicted excellent viewing conditions on Halloween Night, I couldn’t miss the opportunity for stargazing.  Since five kids plus five costumes plus five plastic pumpkins full of candy made for a rather exhausting Halloween night, early the next morning was the best I could do.

The goal was to isolate myself from Tooele Valley’s sky glow behind the Stansbury Mountains, so I drove to Big Springs at the north end of Skull Valley during what the kids call “early dark time.”  Eager to test out the night vision maximization tips I had read, I parked next to the spring and immediately started hiking, sans flashlight, toward the large rock outcroppings at Timpie Point.

Clear sky chart for the Stansbury Park Observatory Complex (SPOC) (screen cap from cleardarksky.com)

Dark vision adaptation involves a complex anatomical process wherein the rod and cone cells in the retina become more and more light sensitive.  It takes between 20 and 30 minutes for the eyes to completely adapt to dark surroundings.  With practice, dark acuity can become quite developed.

In hindsight, I would have been wise to stay by my car until my vision had fully adapted.  Instead, I adapted while boulder hopping (I’ve always been a multitasker).  I didn’t see the cows for what they were until I was almost face-to-face with them.  If I wasn’t fully awake before, I was now, and I perched on a cold slab nearby.

Ursa Major, the Big Dipper, was the first constellation in focus.  Then there were Sirius, Ursa Minor and the North Star, and a few planets I couldn’t identify.  Blinking earth-orbiting satellites zoomed across the celestial sphere.  As the minutes passed, the visible star field multiplied until the sky was filled with points of light.

I watched the sky until the sunrise upstaged the stars and cast a soft glow across the Great Salt Lake.  I hiked around for a while before driving back home, my space fix satisfied.  Satisfied enough to stop collecting Cheez-It proofs of purchase for that free Captain Kirk t-shirt?  I’m not making any promises.

Facebook:  Where everybody knows your name

I’m very tempted to break my personal policy of not posting direct, recognizable pictures of the babies.  Why?  Because I took a priceless photo of Miss Ella Saturday night.  She went as Mickey Mouse for Halloween.  No, not Minnie.  Miss Ella has a love/hate relationship with Minne.  She wishes she were Minnie; she’ll wear Minnie outfits.  But she sees Minnie as the one thing coming between her and her man, Mickey.  If Mickey Mouse had a lunatic stalker, it would be 2 year old Miss Ella.

Miss Ella and her man (February 2009)

So Miss Ella was Mickey Mouse for Halloween.  This was the first year she’s really caught the gist of trick-or-treating, and she happily walked for hours Saturday night collecting bucketfuls of the only thing she may like as much as Mickey: candy.  In fact, if memory serves, “cany” (candy) was one of Miss Ella’s first words– somewhere close behind “Da-y” (Daddy) and “mouse.”

After she had made her rounds, she sat on the couch and commenced the Great Candy Binge.  Before we could intervene, she had eaten a good fourth of her stash.  We found this little gem on the floor.

No time to unwrap. Must consume it. Now.

By the time her brothers finished their extended trick-or-treat session, Miss Ella was sacked out on the couch, laying upside down in a pile of candy wrappers with blank stare.  I had to take a picture, and maybe some day I’ll post it.

Here’s the amazing thing:  That night, Meadow covertly gathered up the rest of Miss Ella’s candy and hid it away.  Yet Miss Ella continues to bring us suckers, Tootsie Rolls, and mini Snickers bars with the same demand delivered in almost zombie fashion:

“Op’nut” (Open it).

We were certain that by now even her secret stashes must be depleted.  Nope.  There’s apparently still plenty of candy to go around.  My theory?  She’s raiding Coulter’s  candy bucket when he’s not looking.  It can’t be Bridger’s– his is already gone.  And Weston carefully inventories his candy.

So we’ll be confiscating Coulter’s candy today and rationing it to him personally.  It’s the only way to destroy this monster.