Rodeo Wrapup

I’ve been meaning to blog about last week’s rodeo, but it needed a little time to sift its way through my consciousness (that and there was a big fat literary party last week that kind of threw me off my center for a few days — those things always make me feel like Sally Field at the Oscars — I still can’t believe the French editor had read my book, had remembered it, and had liked it. Of course, it would have been nice if he’d published it, but perhaps when the next one comes out).

So anyway, the rodeo. It was, without a doubt, the wildest rodeo I’ve ever seen — and I’ve been to a lot of rodeos. The stock was incredibly rank — the bawling calves kicked themselves loose and invalidated most of the calf roping, the steers mostly either stopped short or outran the ropers and bulldoggers, the bucking horses (both bareback and saddle bronc) defeated the vast majority of the riders, and the bulls allowed only one or two successful rides per night (yeah, I fess up, I went all three nights). The bucking horses were completely out of control — climbing the bucking chutes, going down on the riders (and often coming back up with them still on). In one case, after going down on a rider, then stepping on him hard coming back up, a bucking horse managed to elude the pickup riders long enough for them to get the hurt cowboy out of the ring, then as they were herding this still-bucking horse out of the arena, it somehow managed to flip himself backward over the gate by the buldogging chutes, nearly landing on the cowboy he’d just hurt and the two paramedics who were treating him (the paramedic was quoted in the local paper as saying “I ran one way, and my partner and the patient ran the other). The ropers were all on that end of the arena since their event was next, and it took 15 or 20 ropers two whole minutes to catch that horse. Two minutes is a long time when you’ve got a freaked-out horse with its bucking strap still on running loose.

And then a horse broke his leg. It was terrible. The ride was clearly all off from the beginning, and then the horse landed and its right front leg bent the wrong way and came back up with the leg dangling and the whole arena got really quiet. The pickup guys managed to get the rider off, and get the horse calmed down, then a swarm of guys who must have come from the bulldogging chutes got him to the ground, strapped him to a gate and carried him into the trailer. They took him out of the arena before the local vet put him down. The whole thing took maybe three or four minutes. There’s nothing you can do with the image of a horse’s leg dangling like that. And as much as I love rodeo, and as much as I know that animals get hurt all the time — as much as I know that a horse can break a leg in the pasture, or the show jumping ring, or when you’re out on a trail — there’s a culpability in knowing that that horse, that really really rank horse, broke it’s leg for our entertainment. Unlike the many cowboys who got the shit kicked out of them over those three days, that horse couldn’t choose to be there — and that’s where it seems, we’re collectively responsible for that broken leg.

And then the rodeo went on, and a 41 year old guy was in the chutes, and that horse came out and that man did the most impressive piece of riding I’ve ever seen. The horse nearly went down twice, and shifted directions at least three times — this was not the buck-buck-buck-buck rhythm a rider hopes for, this was utterly unpredictable riding, and that horse wanted that guy off him. And that guy, that old guy (not in regular life, but to still be riding bucking horses at 41?) kicked into some other zone — it must have been sheer muscle memory and he rode that horse. It was astonishing. It didn’t in any way make up for the horse with the broken leg, but it was one of those moments where you see someone perform some amazing athletic feat and it reminds you why people do these things at all.

And that’s what I mean by the wildest rodeo I’ve ever been to. All sorts of things happened, most of which were pretty much out of the control of the human beings involved. There was that one moment where that older guy got up there and rode the wildness, but he wasn’t controlling it, he was just somehow synched up with it for a few seconds. As much as I’ll always feel partially culpable for that horse with the broken leg, I’d also hate to see rodeo get too tame, too safe, too tidy. It’s like having predators here to deal with — it sucks that I can’t hike alone because there are grizzlies and mountain lions and wolves, but it’s important that there are things out there bigger than we are, and that we have contact with them. Thoreau’s dictum was “In wildness is the preservation of the world,” a phrase so opaque that it has fueled a thousand doctoral exams (including mine), but it’s what I’m arguing for here — leaving some wild space, some space unmediated by regulations designed to protect us from disaster, some space in which the truly wild ride can occur.

Well, we didn’t see a bear up in Suce Creek last evening, but we did come across a mountain lion. We’d had a nice hike; I was with my friends the Campbells — and had been talking a lot about bears, since Bill is the guy who has spent so much time filming them. Had our bear spray with us, but with four dogs, and general conversation, we weren’t really worried. After we got back to the trailhead, we grabbed a picnic table in the campsite — a really nice one up in the trees, a lot of brush around (which now doesn’t seem like such a great thing)– and proceeded to enjoy a little early-evening beer and cheetos. We were hanging out, the dogs had been exploring around and were all back, flopped around the picnic table when all of a sudden they all leapt up and started barking. There was something in the brush, although we thought maybe the folks who’d left their horse trailer at the trailhead were simply returning. The dogs were very excited, and we called them back and made them sit while Maryanne stood on the picnic table to see if she could tell what had them so worked up. We couldn’t see what it was, but the dogs continued to sit and stare fixedly into the brush for five or ten minutes, and so, since we were done with our beers anyway, we packed up and headed back to the cars. Bill and Maryanne were in the car ahead of me, and I was sort of spacing out listening to the radio when I noticed they’d pulled over ahead of me on the access road. Turns out, they’d seen the lion — it had run alongside the road for about 50 yards, then crossed over. Bill and Maryanne lived in Africa for a long time, and Maryanne was very funny — “I didn’t know they were so big!” she said. “It looked like an African lion.” Then she turned to me and said “No more hiking alone for you.” Which is kind of a drag, because I love hiking alone, but I think she’s probably right. And on the other hand, I also love living in a place where I’m not the highest thing on the food chain. So, time to find a hiking buddy …

To Blog or to Ski? Blogging has been hampered by the belated but beautiful snowfall we’ve had this week. I bought a season’s pass for Bridger Bowl this fall, but I haven’t gotten as much use out of it as I’d hoped. I thought I was going to be able to sneak out a little more during the week than I’ve managed, and I might have been more inspired to make the drive over the hill had our friend Bill Campbell not lured me up to Suce Creek for some cross country action earlier this week. I haven’t cross-country skiied since I came west in 1988, but I did a fair amount of in in college because, well, it was the midwest and it’s flat. But I kept my old skis, which my grandmother gave me ages ago (she bought them thinking she’d ski around our farm, but decided it was too much work and went back to her snowmobile). They’re nice old wood skis, so when Bill called on Monday and said he was taking the dogs up in the afternoon, I dusted them off (literally), stopped and bought some wax on the way out of town, and decided to give it a whirl.

It was great! Twenty minutes out of town we were at the bottom of the road. Confronted with a foot of fresh powder, the dogs went wild with joy. I strapped on my old woodies, laced up my lovely, beat up old leather telemark boots, and off we went. About forty minutes later we’d skiied up through gorgeous pine forest, dogs romping up and down the hillsides, tunnelling through the snow and then bursting out with a big Broadway-baby ta-da as if to show us how unbelievably clever they were. It was a workout to be sure, but even someone as aerobically-challenged as myself could keep up and have a good time. And then we got to ski down the road … which on skinny little wooden skis with no edges, and four dogs, some of whom didn’t really understand the concept, romping in front of me, well it was as much challenge as anyone could want (although I did collide with my Raymond, my 2-year old dog. He just freaked out and panicked when he saw me coming up behind him … but what’s the fun of skiing if you never fall down and roll around in the snow?).

I love downhill skiing, because I’m essentially lazy and appreciate having a lift to haul my sorry ass up the hill, and because I have a bit of the speed freak in me, and I really love the sensation of flying down the hill, making good turns, that feeling you get when you fall in with the right rhythm and it’s all coming together. But I have to say, as someone who has to work more than I did when I was in my twenties and could ski every day, I really like the option to sneak out of the office and be back at my desk two hours later, having had a great time outside, having gotten a little exercise and some astonishing views of the Paradise Valley, with tired dogs flopped on their beds, redolent with that smell only happy wet dogs give off. I’ve been up there every day this week, seduced by the light equipment, the easy access, the exercise for me and the dogs, the happy faces of my fellow neighbors who have also bugged out of work a little early to catch the last daylight up in the mountains.