The last day on the ranch was anti-climatic. The day before a group, including my teenaged son Seamus, had gone on an all-day ride through torrential rain to get to a prime fly-fishing river. Apparently the mud was so slick and grade so steep that Seamus’s horse had ended up sliding a distance on his knees before standing up again. But the fishing was good and the group came home late with the glow of having accomplished something hard and significant.
We all felt that glow in our own ways. For me it was just a deeper sense of comfort on Trio as we rode rugged terrain in a kind of man-animal bond. The last day we got up early to go for one last serious ride before a kids’ redo of barrel racing and tug-of-wars. We rode up to a particularly beautiful peak to have cocktails overlooking needle rock and then down to eat rib-eyes along the Smith Fork itself.
In Boston I often go to a very challenging form of yoga when my mind is full of seemingly important clutter. I go because I know when I leave I will have a changed perspective. For at least a little while I will be completely unable to remember what I had thought was so important.
The last day on the ranch was like that. Our minds had already turned to getting home and practical issues of schedules and tasks ahead. But the week had changed my perspective. Coming back with a clean slate, I really had to ask myself what was more important than breathing clean air and riding Trio. I felt sure I would remember but by the time we were driving to the airport I still hadn’t.
In the national forests that occupy huge parcels of the Rocky Mountains, there are very strict rules prohibiting all kinds of human behavior but cows can do just about anything. This is “open range,” so cowboys are permitted to let their herds graze across the mountains freely during the spring and summer months when grass is plentiful.
Riding those same mountains on Trio, we often encountered these herds of cattle in a stream or on our trail. Given the steep incline we often had to chase the beasts with a friendly, “Hey cow! Hey cow!” for quite a stretch before they found a spot to veer off into the woods.
On the ranch we practiced trying to move a few young cows from one end of a ring into a pen at the other. Moving cows quickly sharpened our riding skills and proved that cowboying is serious business.
The real cowboys just as often drove pick-ups as rode horses, one of the Ranch wranglers, told me. But they are a particular toothless variety of human being. The wrangler had happened upon a real cowboy miles from any form of civilization sitting on a rock with his head in his hands while his dogs kept the herd in place. When asked if he was okay, the cowboy raised his head to reveal a nose smashed to one side and a cheek turned to mush by a bull’s hoof. “Doin’ fine,” he said before getting up to go back to work.
Aspen Grove in Little Elk Canyon
A cowboy from West Texas leads Elena and me on an all-day ride deep into the Colorado wilderness. We trailer our horse as far as we can go and then mount up for a ride from eight thousand feet to well over twelve. We are headed into Little Elk Canyon.
Horses have four gaits: walk, trot, lope and gallop. Trio is a compact gelding. I concentrate on the movement of his massive shoulders under me as he trots, keeping my weight back and my ass in the saddle. I click my tongue and give the slightest kick and the bumpy ride glides out into a lope-smooth, fast, powerful.
Just before lunch we come over the lip of the mountains into the canyon. There’s a huge aspen grove. They are all one tree connected by the same root system. The aspen is the largest living species on earth. I lean back on Trio and take a picture straight up at the sky (see above).
After lunch on a river bank at the bottom of the canyon we mount up and head home. By the time we get back to the ranch I really can’t remember anything other than the freedom of Trio loping through the aspen grove.
My son Seamus, our friend Dan and I are casting fly rods along the Gunnison River just south of the Black Canyon. The river moves quickly through desert rock walls that extend up on either side of several hundred feet. The sun is in our eyes and we are being swarmed by enormous flies. It’s a spot every fly fisherman dreams about.
Salmon flies live for several years as nymphs. Then one June day that take flight as three-inch long brightly colored flies. They sole purpose is to find a mate. In fly form they have no mouths. Within a week they will perish. As flies their only job is to reproduce and then feed the fish. ”85% of the grey trout’s protein for the entire year gets consumed in this one week,” our guide Otter tells us.
The feeding frenzy is legendary, attracting fisherman from all over the world. Today there’s only one problem: the fish aren’t biting. Over the course of the morning we go from huge dry flies to smaller dry flies to underwater nymphs, the final act of capitulation. Seamus and I each catch one fish by lunch. But nothing like the dozens we had been expecting. “They let a bunch more water out of the dam yesterday so it’s changed the currents,” Otter explains. ”Maybe that has ‘em spooked.”
The honest truth is I am miserable. I don’t really like fishing all that much and getting skunked on what is suppose to be the best day of fishing on the planet is just deepening my funk. But then I realize I am in the gorgeous spot with my 13-year old son-something I don’t get to do every day.
We strip down to our boxer shorts and dive into the frigid river. We eat a huge lunch on the river bank. On the 3 mile float down river to home Dan finally catches a nice sized grey. But mostly we ask Otter to tell us stories about guiding in Chile and Alaska. We laugh and relax in the boat, turning a bad day of fishing into a good day of male bonding.
–Tom Matlack
In competitive rowing, the sport I spent my of my young adulthood pursuing, the natural tendency is pull on the oar with white knuckles. The hands have to twist the blade and rise to put it in the water all in one motion at the start of each stroke. The key to boat speed, even in a tight race, is to row with relaxed hands. It’s one of the paradoxes that I have spent way more time thinking about than I’d like to admit: why relaxation amidst chaos is so powerful. Even though the legs and back may be at maximum exertion, watch world-class oarsmen’s hands. They are light. The sensation is gentle amid violence.
I’ve discovered that riding a horse is very much the same paradox. Sitting atop a 1,500 pound beast the tendency is to get pretty nervous, especially at a gallop. But heavy hands cause a horse to become confused and angry. The key is to stay relaxed in the fingers while maintaining heightened sensation. Minute adjustments allow rider and horse to work in concert and become one entity. The more calm the rider, and relaxed the hands, the more the horse pays attention. After all, the rider’s hands are directly connected to a metal bar in the horse’s mouth. So the connection is immediate and physical.
Even now that I’m home, off my horse, I try to remember the importance of relaxed hands in my life and the paradox of calm in the eye of the storm.
–Tom Matlack
