Jacob and I made a quick trip to Wyoming a couple of weeks ago. We took half a dozen young mules that needed some mountain trail time and we took our carpentry tools along to update our building a little.
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This is a 16 hand blue roan mule. She is a 2 year old out of a percheron mare, just a baby with lots of filling out to do. She is the most laid back young mule I have ever had. She is big and powerful enough to carry me around all day but she will end up being a dude mule for one of our hunters since she is so gentle.
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We framed in three bedrooms in our building and made 7 sets of bunk beds. Each room is wired with a 20 amp circuit so we can have electric heat for everyone. This will make life easier while we are staying here and gives our hunters a place to crash before and after their hunts.
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This is a young mule I broke to ride this spring, on his first trip to the mountains. He isn't big enough for me to ride hard for a long time in rough country but will do fine with someone of less girth. He is a keeper. We rode up to the snow fields one morning. Drifts were still several feet deep at 9000 ft. but melting fast. We saw lots of wildlife, mostly elk, but some moose,deer and bear.
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We are in the heart of grizzly bear country now and was not too surprised to run into this guy. We did not used to have much bear activity in our area but the hairy buggers have moved in and stayed. Adds to the excitement of hunting in those cool, dark, shady holes on a hot day. I think this is a young bear, but I don't like being any closer than with a 200mm zoom lens.
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The elk have pretty good horn growth going now. It is hard to get pictures but these shots should give you an idea. These elk were feeding in one of the burn areas. We saw more elk up high. I think the elk follow the snow up the mountain to keep away from the bugs. The mosquitos were voracious at lower elevations. The mule deer and Moose don't seem to be quite as far along with their antler development. We saw a lot of pronghorn down in the sage, as many as I have ever seen in this area over the past 5 years. Still hard to get tags for antelope in our zone. Looking forward to getting back out there in late August.
AWESOME!!! Is that snow I see in the background?
Awesome. Thanks for sharing
Thanks for posting, great pictures!!!
Great photos! Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for sharing!
Beautifal!
That's a dream hunt of mine for sure! What a beautiful place.
Glenn
Looking good John & Jacob. Hate to see the shoulder hump on those bears, but that does look like a young one - Grätsche could handle that one. How does the new camp look? Did you get up in that area to scout?
thanks for the pictures, and very nice looking mules.gib
Very Cool pics! :clapper:
Very nice!
Hopefully next spring I'll be adding another "hay burner" to the barn for myself and have really been eyeing up the riding mules since I've been reading about them.
You are lucky to have such a place.
Shaun,
With all of the snow melt there was so much water coming down the Hoback we were not able to get back in there. There was so much water that there were people whitewater rafting on the upper Hoback. We will have to wait until August to start checking out the new area. We were riding up South Beaver over the saddle and then down into the South Fork of the Hoback. That would be the next drainage over the hump from the trailhead where we pack in. There are more bears there than I like to work around but we are stuck with them.
I have become an advocate of good saddle mules. They can do anything a horse can do, on less feed, live longer, work longer days, have less vet bills than horses etc. You just need to get used to them, cause they are not horses. They are smarter than horses and most of them will test you on a regular basis.