Year end Staff party

Last night was the year end staff party.  Last year, we had it ina JPl (Jasper Park lodge) building, but this year, we decided to have a BBQ in the barn.  It was a blast.  There was steak, chicken, salads, pie, ice cream...then we all stood around and goofed off for about two hours.  Sabrina was showing us her gymnastics, and Eric was doing ninja stunts.  It was so much fun.  Dave is camera shy, so the challenge was to get a picture of him.  As you can tell, I got a few.  In one of the pictures, Sabrina stole his hat (big no no in cowboy world)  In one of the other pictures, Sabrina, Brad and Eric were pretending to be gangster.

More pics of Shovel Pass trip

Shovel Pass 2008

For those of you who have not read my stories of Jasper 2007, Shovel Pass Lodge is a bunch of cabins in a valley on a mountain. My boss owns the cabins, and leads riding trips, and pack trips up to the cabins. If you are a hiker, and do not want to carry your big bag with you, we will pack it up, and you only need to bring a day pack. If you want to ride up, you can ride up, and have your stuff packed up. I went last year and had a blast. So I decided that I would go again. The last time I went, I went with a pack trip, there were no riding guests, so we did not get to ride anywhere. This time, we had two riding guests, so we went to Watchtower. It was a pretty amazing ride. On the way back, we dropped of the two riders, as they wanted to do some hiking. Dave ponied Red Eye back, I rode Rocky, Rita (the cook)rode Beaver, and Johnny was loose. It was my job to herd him down the mountain. It was a blast. Dave left to go back to the trailhead after that (to get ready for the staff BBQ), and Eric came up with another rider. On the way back down today, Eric led the ride, and I brought up the rear. It was a lot of fun, but there were a few scary parts. I am going to shower now (have not showered since thursday)

Nutcase

Yesterday, on our two hour ride, we had fourteen guests, so Dave sent three guides.  It started out with me in the front, Sabrina in the middle and Alex at the end.  About fifteen minutes into the ride, Sabrina comes up to trade places, becuase her horse needs more front guiding experience.  I went to the middle.  About ten minutes later, Alex wants to trade with me.  I did not know why, but I did it.  I soon found out why.  The woman on Redeye was crazy.  Redeye is one of our best horses because he never eats on the trail.  He was eating like crazy on this ride.  Alex had tightened the lead rope so that he could not get his head down to eat, but the woman had loosened it.  She claimed that she did not believe in animal cruelty (this is not cruel at all).  She complained the wholed ride, then about forty five minutes from the end, I told her that we were going either tighten the lead rope or she could walk.  She wanted to walk.  So, she had to walk behind the ride.  She walked really slow (she was 60) so I called and asked Dave what to do.  He said that the middle guide had to go and stay with her.  Sabrina gave me a "thanks a lot" look, so I said that she could backguide, and I would go with crazy lady.  The whole way back, she talked about PETA, animal cruelty Reiki, spiritual connections with animals.  She said that she had done Reiki on Redeye and told him that he could eat grass, because there was none in the field.  She said she could tell that our horses were unhappy, and that the basic needs were not enough.  She caused so much trouble.  I was so mad at her.  Thankfully Redeye does not seem to eat on the trails (I guess it was just with her).  She even thought that it was mean to ride horses, and only came cause her grandchildren really wanted to go.  She also told me that she made a huge mess of her room so that she could show her grandchildren how clean the housekeepers can make it.  

Edith Cavell

We also went to the Edith Cavell Glacier on the same night as Edge of the world.  We hiked the small hike to the lake, it was pretty neat.  Here are the pics from there.

Edge of the World

So, Sabrina, Jamie and I decided that we should see everything that there is to see in Jasper.  We are going after work, as we are not seeing them on our days off.  So last night, we went to The Edge of The World.  It is a little path off of Marmot Basin.  It was so pretty.  The view was better than the Tramway.  The pictures above are from this point.  

Stupid dog owners

On Thursday, we had a fifteen person ride for our two hour trail.  We had three guides (Carly, Sabrina and myself).  That makes eighteen horses in total.  We were about forty five minutes into the ride, when I moved up to go on the backguiding trail.  My horse (Rocky) stepped on a log, and then he spooked, hopping, spinning, crowhopping.  I looked to the right and saw that the other horses were doing it as well.  Some were even fully rearing.  I thought "I am in big trouble for spooking all these horses"  Then movement on my left caught my attention.  There was an elk running towards us.  And there was a big husky standind there with his tongue hanging out.  As soon as he saw the horses, he ran back into the woods.  So, what happened?  The owner let his dog off leash (illegal in a national park), and the dog chased the elk right into the middle of our ride.  Thankfully only one little girl fell off, she was fine, and all fifteen guests got back on and finished the ride.  We radioed in to the stables, and she called security on the dog (this is not the first time we have seen the husky).  Security called Parks, and they came down just as we were starting the trail again.  I told him what happened, and they are on the lookout for the dog and owner.  Carly said that she saw the owner come and leash the dog, and walk away, not even caring what just happened.  The moral of this story is to keep your dog on a leash when there are wild animals, other people, and horses in the area.  

On another note, I had to ride a different horse yesterday (Friday) as Rocky was taken to the back country because they needed more horses.  They had a bunch of guests riding in , so they took Baldy, Redeye, and Rocky.  I rode Copper, who is an okay horse to ride, but has no ground manners.  he breaks ropes, spooks at everything...

Today is my day off, so I went to church, did my laundry, and am now going to watch a movie.