Moonshadow Rides the Bus
by Michael Shealy
We waited in the van, Moonshadow and I. I'd had him out to saddle him up, but it was starting to rain hard and he was getting soaked, so I jumped him back in. It was one of those Colorado afternoon thunder storms that come up in a few minutes, spitting and sparking. Not a good day for a hike on the ridge where we were planning to go.
The panniers were loaded with water, treats, rain ponchos and gear for the three hour day-hike. The group of Broadmoor Hotel guests coming up the canyon in a bus to meet us were expecting a scenic sunny day-hike. We almost always take the ridge trail to the scenic overlook on Mt. Cutler, but today may be different, I think. Fifteen minutes and still the rain and lightning. The bus should be arriving any minute and I'm beginning to wonder if we'll have a hike today, more lightning strikes as the bus rolls up. Darn, if we have to cancel we don't get paid. Everyone piles out and we talk as another bolt of lightning smacks the ridge.
The guide and I discuss alternatives and she suggests that we hike a canyon route from the bottom up. That way, if anyone wants to board the bus, it will rendezvous with the hiking party at strategic locations as the trail crosses the road along the way as we climb up the canyon. So, I drive from the trailhead of the ridge trail to the bottom of the canyon following the bus and disembark the van with Moonshadow. We load up and start walking up the canyon trail. Well, by the time we reached the first crossing, wouldn't you know, the storm had passed completely. One of the guests suggested, "lets do the ridge trail, now!".
I saw the guide collecting a consensus, everyone was looking at Moonshadow and the Broadmoor bus. The Llamasine (Chevy Window Van with the seats removed) was at the bottom of the canyon, at least a mile away, by now. I hear them all agreeing, so I ask the guide to check with the bus driver to see if Moonshadow could get a ride on the bus to the ridge trailhead? Of course, the driver said "OK"! Everybody onboard, panniers in, hup, we go!!!
ALL ABOARD!!
You should have seen the faces on the folks in the bus. All mouths open. Moonshadow was calm as a monk. I stood next to him with my arm around his neck and he did great on the ride up, just looking around at the folks in the bus and the scenery going by outside. No big deal, he rides often in the Llamasine.
What makes this all even funnier is that this day we just happened to have scheduled a reporter and photographer from the local newspaper to ride along for a little story on llama packing/hiking with llamas. Wow, and what a nice picture she took. When he finished climbing in, she followed and stood next to the driver until we reached the ridge trailhead. When we got there, I couldn't turn Moonshadow around in the bus, so he had to back out down the stairs. He hesitated for a few seconds, seeming to size it up, then he just started stepping back. No problem.
The picture was in the paper a few days later along with a nice article about our day-trek business. The Broadmoor Hotel loved it and the picture was in the paper again when they ran a feature on The Best Staff Photos of the Year, which found Moon's moon at the top of the page, posing as the best picture of the year.
If any of you detectives in the readership are asking how we got (Moonshadow) from the ridge trailhead back to the canyon bottom where the Llamasine was parked, it was easy (whew!!). Just our luck for that day, and we had plenty. We had another scheduled hike departing from the same trailhead an hour later than the first. They didn't even see the storm. Another bus, another llama/guide and trailer was there for the second hike and we could hitch a ride with them after a short wait.
Warm fuzzies,
-mikey
See: Moonshadow, w/other Geldings and Trained Packers