第5章

But further, for the sake of the highest efficiency, you should add, as finish to your mountaineer's education, certain other items.A knowledge of the habits of deer and the ability to catch trout with fair certainty are almost a necessity when far from the base of supplies.Occasionally the trail goes to pieces entirely: there you must know something of the handling of an axe and pick.Learn how to swim a horse.You will have to take lessons in camp-fire cookery.Otherwise employ a guide.Of course your lungs, heart, and legs must be in good condition.

As to outfit, certain especial conditions will differentiate your needs from those of forest and canoe travel.

You will in the changing altitudes be exposed to greater variations in temperature.At morning you may travel in the hot arid foot-hills; at noon you will be in the cool shades of the big pines; towards evening you may wallow through snowdrifts; and at dark you may camp where morning will show you icicles hanging from the brinks of little waterfalls.

Behind your saddle you will want to carry a sweater, or better still a buckskin waistcoat.Your arms are never cold anyway, and the pockets of such a waistcoat, made many and deep, are handy receptacles for smokables, matches, cartridges, and the like.For the night-time, when the cold creeps down from the high peaks, you should provide yourself with a suit of very heavy underwear and an extra sweater or a buckskin shirt.The latter is lighter, softer, and more impervious to the wind than the sweater.Here again I wish to place myself on record as opposed to a coat.It is a useless ornament, assumed but rarely, and then only as substitute for a handier garment.

Inasmuch as you will be a great deal called on to handle abrading and sometimes frozen ropes, you will want a pair of heavy buckskin gauntlets.An extra pair of stout high-laced boots with small Hungarian hob-nails will come handy.It is marvelous how quickly leather wears out in the downhill friction of granite and shale.I once found the heels of a new pair of shoes almost ground away by a single giant-strides descent of a steep shale-covered thirteen-thousand-foot mountain.Having no others I patched them with hair-covered rawhide and a bit of horseshoe.

It sufficed, but was a long and disagreeable job which an extra pair would have obviated.

Balsam is practically unknown in the high hills, and the rocks are especially hard.Therefore you will take, in addition to your gray army-blanket, a thick quilt or comforter to save your bones.This, with your saddle-blankets and pads as foundation, should give you ease--if you are tough.Otherwise take a second quilt.

A tarpaulin of heavy canvas 17 x 6 feet goes under you, and can be, if necessary, drawn up to cover your head.We never used a tent.Since you do not have to pack your outfit on your own back, you can, if you choose, include a small pillow.Your other personal belongings are those you would carry into the Forest.

I have elsewhere described what they should be.

Now as to the equipment for your horses.

The most important point for yourself is your riding-saddle.The cowboy or military style and seat are the only practicable ones.Perhaps of these two the cowboy saddle is the better, for the simple reason that often in roping or leading a refractory horse, the horn is a great help.For steep-trail work the double cinch is preferable to the single, as it need not be pulled so tight to hold the saddle in place.

Your riding-bridle you will make of an ordinary halter by riveting two snaps to the lower part of the head-piece just above the corners of the horse's mouth.

These are snapped into the rings of the bit.At night you unsnap the bit, remove it and the reins, and leave the halter part on the horse.Each animal, riding and packing, has furthermore a short lead-rope attached always to his halter-ring.