070724 Lazy L&B Ranch, Dubois, WY

---

070724 Lazy L&B Ranch, Dubois, WY
Driving from Idaho Falls through eastern Idaho and into Wyoming was a great drive. Jackson, Wyoming is a cool looking town, I’m going to stop by at some point in the future as I’ve recently met someone who’s going to be living there, John, is one of the wranglers at the Lazy L&B Ranch. Coming into Wyoming and passing through Teton National Park was amazing…Dubois, the town with the ranch was only 55 miles from Jackson so I expected it to be the same amazing forested, mountainous landscape as the Tetons. I was getting excited!

The 55 mile drive between the Jackson and Dubios took 1.5 hours due to the construction they were doing on the highway. Eventually the road started going down, out of the mountains and my apprehension started to rise as the mountains and pine and fir trees gave way to tannish/reddish rocky badlands and Sage brush. The land began looking a lot like Arizona.

I turned off of the “highway” about 11 miles after passing through a small town that looked like it was out of a western movie, it had only one bar called the Rustic Pine Tavern, I would get to see the inside by then of my trip to the Lazy L&B Ranch. Turning on to east Fork road was like driving down a desert road in Arizona, except without the cactus. There was a small creek that created the valley which the road followed. The creek was lined thick with cotton wood trees. By the time I got to the ranch I had passed several similar ranches and of all things…a trial lawyer college.

The road dips steeply into the valley under the classic western ranch entrance gate, complete with skull and antler ornamentation. The steep road was fun to drive down and afforded a great view of the ponds, the creeks, the guest cabins, ranch house, corrals, and outlying buildings. My apprehension dwindled as I saw the classic desert oasis.

I arrived at the ranch at about 6:30 PM yesterday, apparently I was just in time for dinner, which was perfect because I had skipped lunch due to getting lost for a minute and spending too much time in Idaho Falls on the internet. There are about 9 or 10 separate families/singles here at the ranch and everyone was very friendly. All of the kids were on a hayride having a cookout, so the dinner was adults only. During dinner I sat next to Shannon, who is the acting head wrangler. She told me I could get up early and pick a horse and saddle it if I wanted to for the ride in the morning.

After dinner we were treated to a small western trio by the name of Prickly Pears, they played cowboy country music, it was entertaining and much more lively than modern country music. Just as the music was ending the kids arrived from their hay ride and my brother Bryce was really excited to see me. He told me all about the hay ride, his horse, the ride he’d done previously and all the animals at the ranch, including a goat aptly named Yoda.

I woke up about 6:30 just after sunrise and got some coffee then went to the stables. I picked a black and white mottled horse named Moccasin. I had never saddled a horse before, so John, one of the Wranglers showed me how. We got along great (both the horse and I and John and I) and after brushing Mocassin I saddled him and gave him some oats for breakfast, then I went off to breakfast.

The ride was great, they split the guests into small groups, which made it more fun. The kids and adults go separately. Our wrangler was a beautiful 22 year old girl from Vermont. She let us lope, which is faster than a trot but slower than a gallop, supposedly.

Unfortunately Mark’s (my stepdad), dad, Steve and another guy in our group, Dave, hurt their backs while loping so our loping was short lived. The scenery for the ride was beautiful high desert, very similar to what I experienced at work in Idaho, fun, but I was not really impressed.

After the ride we returned for sandwiches and salad for lunch, the rest of the day consisted of most of us shooting various weapons. Mark and I were easily the best shots and I blew off 2 of the 3 targets with a nice 44-40 rifle.

The big even for the night was going into the town of Dubois and going to a square dance at the Rustic Pine Tavern. An interesting sidenote is that the square dance is in a bar and sponsored by the local Episcopalian church, so kids under 21 are allowed in. I wasn’t going to go, but Qualor, one of the servers who was interesting said it would definitely be fun.

I drove into town and sat in the bar with Qualor for a while as some of the other guests and ranch workers filtered in, along with apparently the entire town. It was hot in the square dancing room and I only watched a small part, deciding I had done enough square dancing in high school when required. I proceeded to go back in the main bar and sit with a bunch of the female ranch wranglers, Shannon, Claire, & Rebecca. I got the inside scoop at the ranch and learned how they all arrived in Wyoming from places like Florida, Vermont, and Wales. Claire and I hit it off and decided to keep in touch and possibly travel together in the future.

It’s funny that it seemed that the wranglers for the Lazy L&B as well as wranglers for some of the other local guest ranches seemed of the same ilk as the people that I’m working with, free spirited and adventurous. I had more fun with them than the other guests at the ranch.

By the end of the night I was convinced that I needed to stay the next day as well and go on the all day, 30 mile ride by the wranglers. The ranch was about 200 bucks a day and I didn’t have the money to stay another day. I had about 100 I could spend so I decided I’d ask the owner if I could stay another day for a hundred. I told Shannon that if I was going to ride the next day I wanted to be in a fast group, since she was in charge of such things.

We didn’t stay out too late inorder to get up at a decent time the next day, I drove Claire and myself back to the ranch, the steep descent into the valley at night was fun. Just as we were getting back to the ranch lighting was rolling across the sky and by midnight it began to rain, something this arid desert needed badly.

Waking up in the morning I was nervous to talk to Bob, the owner, because I really wanted to stay, but was still worried about spending even $100 since money’s been tight. After getting up I saw Bob across the yard, but didn’t talk to him. A little later I found out he left to go to Riverton and Shannon suggested I ask Guidren, one of the other owners. I had met her previously, she was a very sweet older woman, but didn’t know she was an owner. I found her and told her my situation and she said I could stay another day and she wouldn’t even take my money! I gave her a big hug and thanked her profusely.

Everyone headed to the corrals at 9:30, Shannon put me in a group with Mark and 3 others. Our wrangler was John, the guy who helped me saddle Moccasin the day before. John was young, about 21 and I knew he’d be a fun wrangler.

As soon as we got on the trail we loped, his horse, an Arabian named Scout was fast and throughout the day we loped a lot, wind rushing by our faces, the ground seemingly rumbling by, dirt clods pelting us from the horses near us. We steered away from the desert landscape and entered a green valley and then up to some high mountains…this was what I was waiting for. The views were amazing. John was a great wrangler who let us basically do what we wanted to do, and we wanted to lope, a couple times I had Mocassin hauling ass and I think we were definitely galloping. I had never ridden a horse that fast before, it was incredible! We passed through grassy plains, up steep rocky inclines, crossed Bear creek numerous times, we had to duck and work our way through mazes of pine trees, and loped, and loped, and loped.

We stopped for lunch on a great overlook, we looked down on Bear Creek, which was muddy brown from the previous nights rain to the right, and some amazing cliffs and views of the Ramhorn mountains, which still had snow on them.

After lunch we stopped at a spring, where there was a fence. We tied the horses up on the fence and proceeded to fill up our water. For some reason Tornado, a beautiful black horse decided to get spooked for some unknown reason while I was filling up my water. The horse reared up and pulled the top fence bar off and flung it directly at me. The 4 inch diameter pole crashed into me. I didn’t even know what it was as the horse was several feet behind me and I just saw everyone back up and gasp all in a moments time. As the pole smashed into me, it connected with my left forearm and my left hip, I assumed I was being kicked by the horse. Luckly it was not the case. (later I’d find out that Tornado doesn’t like to be tied up…) I was no worse for wear (it’s 11pm now and I still fell ok…we’ll see in the morning…I’m sure I’ll be bruised). All the horses were a little nervous (and so were the riders) so we let them graze on the grass and nearby flowers for a little while.

John told us cowboy stories about the local area, of which all were true no matter how fantastic, he assured us. It sprinkled a bit, but nothing too bad.

We finally got into the valley where we were to meet the other groups and the ranch staff who had made ribs and potato salad for us to eat in the field. We quickly ate as black clouds rolled in, the wind picked up, and the rain really started to fall. Dinner was picked up quickly and our rain gear was donned after which everyone mounted up and headed back to the ranch.
John decided that we were going to lope most of the way back and began hauling ass, Odd Job, a massive horse was between Scout and my Mocassin as we ran up a rocky slope. John stopped Scout short because we were fast outdistancing the rest of our group. As he did so Emery, Odd Job’s, rider pulled hard on the reigns to try to stop his enormous horse as quickly as the smaller Arabian, Scout. All of our horses were moving quickly and bunched up too closely because they all had “home on the nose”. The result of this was that neither Odd Job nor Moccasin could stop in time, so Odd Job veered right, as did Mocassin.

I was not ready for this nearly instantaneous change of direction and so had to hold on tight not to fall off the swerving horse. Doing this caused the saddle to shift to the left, which apparently Moccasin didn’t appreciate too much, because he turned even harder to the right. At that point I was trying to throw myself to the right to right the saddle and gain control again, but centrifugal forces being what they are, I was being pushed hard to the left, my right foot was trying to follow the rest of my body and slipped from the stirrup and over the saddle. My weight being shifted fully to the left stirrup was obviously not helping and Moccasin was downright pissed and trying to get away from me. I realized I wasn’t going to regain control and envisioned myself being dragged with my left foot in the stirrup across rocky ground, so I decided to abort the mission and eject. I pushed myself as best as possible away from the horse and slightly kicked my left foot, hoping to completely clear the stirrup.

It worked and I gratefully slammed into the ground. My back was protected and my fall cushioned by my Camelbak. My right hand slammed into…something…which gave me a shit-ton (that is an exact amount) of splinters. I bounced up and tried to grab my nervous horse, but he wasn’t having any of it. John had to follow him a ways away before he could grab ‘hold of Moccasin’s reigns.

The horse was not happy to see me, but I said soothing words to him and assured him that wouldn’t happen again. Eventually he let me climb into the saddle again and we continued on “home” at a much slower pace.

Previously I found a pelvic bone of either some bobcat or a pronghorn, anyway I had it tied on the back of the saddle and there were two sharp points on it, which I didn’t want poking the now skittish Moccasin. I tried retying it while we were moving, but the ground was too uneven. I couldn’t get Moccasin to stop because the rest of the group was moving and he just wanted to get home. I asked John to help me by storing the bone in his saddle bag. I couldn’t throw it to him, because horses don’t like quick movements so he tried to get close, but Moccasin remembering their last encounter didn’t want to be near Scout or John. Moccasin turned sharply downhill and reared up on his hind legs. I was hyperaware of the horse’s unease, anticipated its move, and leaned forward. He came back down on all fours and we just sat there for a moment, blood pounding in my ears. Eventually I was able to give the bone to John and we made our way back to the ranch wet, but otherwise devoid of any further excitement.

Getting back to the ranch someone who hadn’t ridden had gone into town and thoughtfully brought us beers. We all sat around and told tales of what happened in our groups. It’s been a great couple of days and I still have four more before I need to be back at work. I think I’m going to try and see some of Yellowstone, which only a few hours north of where I am, or if it’s too fully, maybe I’ll check out the Tetons…..who knows…I’m just going with the flow now.

---

Comments

[Tia Reenie]

This is Fantastic
Robert, This is Fantastic it sounds like you are having a wonderful time. It makes me smile to know that you are doing something you love and we are all so proud of you. Please take care and have fun. Love ya

[rick]

What a hick you've become. Heh...