Snowride

Yesterday I went for a ride in the snow. When I decided to ride, it wasn’t snowing but the sky held the potential. As I fetched Ranger from his pasture, the first flakes were gently drifting down around us. By the time I had him saddled, I had to brush a layer of snow off the seat of my saddle before I lept on.

We went out the back, into the vast BLM where all was silent, except for Ranger’s hooves swushing through the snow, and everything was still, except for the flakes swirling around us.

On dry terrain, the four gaits of a horse are: walk, trot, canter, gallop. In the snow, a magical fifth gait appears. It’s somewhere between a trot and a canter, but so much smoother than each; like swimming, like floating, but with a power that comes with being joined to the earth. To be astride this fifth gait, to be a part of it, is to be utterly and completely carried away by it.

Ranger was as happy to be out as I was, snorting steam, his shoulder muscles rippling evenly, easily, steadily. With a thick layer of beeswax balm on my lips, an angora hat, a wool sweater, jean jacket and silk scarf, wool socks, corduroy pants and tall boots, the weather was on my side. The weather kept everyone else inside. The falling snow kept everything quiet. The world was ours; a communion between Ranger and the sagebrush and every snowflake and me.

As we turned to head home, the trail curved and took us into the blowing snow, the flakes melting as they hit my flushed cheeks, and so I closed my eyes, and let Ranger fly.