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Leona was a good mule. She was in a
fabled minority in the pack station realm of mules, as she was a
riding mule as well as a pack mule. She was also … well …somewhat
notional in nature. There was how Leona pictured her world, and
there were the rest of us, who were wrong, of course.
Mules are worth a lot more than a horse in the eastern California
High Sierra, and there are reasons for that. They usually live
longer than a horse, they learn fast and never have to be shown
twice, and they won’t jump off a 300-foot cliff just because a
40-foot pine tree sneaked up on them.
When they learn something, it’s learned. Period. This includes bad
things as well as good things. It’s up to the packer to discover
just what these atomic boogers are in the life of each mule and
avoid them.
With Leona, it was one spot on the Kearsarge Pass trail between
Kearsarge Meadow and Slim Lake. Yes, as I told every kid I packed
in, it was named for me because of how good a cowboy I was. Some of
them asked why Slim Lake was 200 yards long and only 20 feet wide,
but you know kids.
But just at the top of the little
divide there was Leona’s booger spot. There was a short piece of
trail that was level and maybe five feet wide, which would have made
it flatlands anywhere else.
Well, one night I was riding Leona and leading some horses and mules
down that stretch of trail. Leona knew how to get back to the pack
station, so I was just making sure UFOs didn’t hover and suck us up.
We were good.
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When we got to that little stretch
of trail, close to midnight, I discovered, through pack station
Braille, that three hikers had rolled their sleeping bags across the
trail and sacked out. I didn’t become aware of this until Leona had
walked straight over the first two. All three dozing backpackers
then saw mules walking over them, jumped straight up, and mules
began knocking hikers down like ten pins. It was beautiful.
Every time after that, if I was riding Leona, when she came to that
spot, light or dark, she wouldn’t go through until she’d thoroughly
blown nuclear snot all over it.
Mules are the greatest manmade animal. [Text from file received from
Slim Randles]
Brought to you by
all the aging packers of the eastern High Sierra. Having cameras
along sure would’ve been a plus.
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