Trail Riding in the Wilderness 



543 



along. Almost always there is a theme 

 song for the trip that, if it does not be- 

 come too monotonous, long after re- 

 calls wonderful days in the mountains ; 

 this will be anything from "She's Com- 

 ing Around the Mountain" to "Only A 

 Rose," usually with only one phrase 

 that is sung over and over. 



At the campfire, the leadership may 

 come from the head guide, one of the 

 wrangler-musicians, or from a natural- 

 born master of ceremonies. Sometimes 

 the leader, representing the American 

 Forestry Association, takes over. More 

 often the entertainment is spontane- 

 ous, with no lack of talent or of things 

 to discuss. What the day's ride has 

 shown in the way of new high-altitude 

 trees, shrubs, and flowers, or in the way 

 of game animals, birds, rodents, or 

 predators is sure to bring a flood of 

 questions to the forest officer or park 

 officer. He may be a local cowman 

 type, a scientist, a practical forester, a 

 "90-day wonder" on his first national 

 park assignment, a ranger-naturalist, 

 or, in rarer instances, a forest super- 

 visor or a park superintendent or a rep- 

 resentative from a regional office of one 

 of the two bureaus. 



National forest and national park 

 policies come in for thorough discus- 

 sion. The riders carry back to their 

 homes and their friends such factual 

 gleanings as the real difference be- 

 tween a national forest and a national 

 park, the strange ends to which adap- 

 tation can go in animal forms, the fact 

 that the marmot actually "makes hay" 

 in his rocky fastnesses, the reasons be- 

 hind fish and game laws, the difference 

 between fir trees as a group and spruce 

 trees, the way forest fires start and are 

 controlled, the age-old and little- 

 changed procedures of burden carrying 

 by pack animals, the strange realiza- 

 tion that the amount of snowfall in 

 the mountains the previous winter may 

 mean water or no water in the next 2 

 years for the valley below ; the fact that 

 coyotes, vultures, eagles, and hawks 

 are good sanitary officers, the economic 

 value of many flowering plants hereto- 

 fore considered only beautiful, the in- 



dication that plants give of soil char- 

 acteristics and range condition, the in- 

 evitable use for recreation of any land 

 that is sufficiently attractive to tempt 

 the adventurer. 



Amateur botanists and students of 

 other nature lore find ample interests 

 and have at their disposal some forestry 

 or park official or the leader of the trip 

 from whom advice and actual identifi- 

 cation of specimens may be obtained. 

 The photographer, amateur or profes- 

 sional, keeps busy and may, if too in- 

 sistent on photography, find himself 

 left behind and robbed of his subject or 

 roundly berated, but the total collec- 

 tion of artistic action and even funny 

 photographs over the years is impres- 

 sive. Frequently an exchange of pic- 

 tures is arranged by the Forestry Asso- 

 ciation, and black-and-white prints are 

 sent in by various riders, labeled and 

 priced per copy, for a round-robin cir- 

 culation among members of the ride. 



BUT ALL THIS TIME, the increasing 

 consciousness of rocks, rills, woods, and 

 templed hills has made both new and 

 old trail riders appreciate more fully 

 their own country and the bureaus of 

 their Government that are responsible 

 for managing the wild lands. Their 

 association has put them in touch with 

 this wilderness and made friends of 

 them for the movement to conserve the 

 resources which it represents. 



In this day, these natural resources 

 of solitude and life and beauty and 

 freedom and grandeur, integrated into 

 the one natural resource we call the 

 wilderness, are no easy things to con- 

 serve and defend. The wilderness, with 

 its characteristic of vastness, combined 

 with cover which could be translated 

 into profit, may sometimes be ques- 

 tioned sharply from the viewpoint of 

 equitable distribution when it is real- 

 ized that relatively few can ever make 

 use of such sources of strength and in- 

 spiration. Moreover, if the million peo- 

 ple who have an incurable taste for 

 wilderness travel all decide to penetrate 

 one wilderness at the same time, they 

 can trample it to death. And there are 



