I’ve been quiet on my blog lately, mainly because I’ve spent a lot of time getting ready for, and then finally riding, a four day, 65-mile trip on the Palouse to Cascades Trail.  The ride was organized and facilitated by the John Wayne Pioneer Wagons and Riders Association. There were so many topics to write about during this time, such as: preparation and fitness for horses and riders, gear to pack, revamping my camper to work from solar power with a lithium battery so we could dry-camp for five nights, surprises along the route, and more.  However, my horse Vali nuzzled his way into the front of the line.  He wanted to share his thoughts on the ride.  So I have passed the lap-top to Vali to write this blog.    

Uncle Vali’s* Thoughts on the Big Ride

I like travelling and seeing new places.  It makes me happy, almost as happy as having a full hay bag and a bucket of water in front of me.  My needs are simple. I like new trails, too.  It’s fun to see what’s around the next corner.  My human thinks my extreme attentiveness means I might spook (and I might, because sometimes you just have to keep your humans and herd mates safe from danger) but mostly I really like to see new things.

On this camping trip, we horses stayed on high-ties, these pole and bungie things attached to the side of the horse trailer.  I have been on a high-tie before, but never for a whole night.  It’s almost as good as a small electric fence, like my human usually puts me in during our camping trips. I can move around with the long bungie rope hanging from the pole above, and I even figured out how to lay down.  But mostly, I could easily eat, so life was good.

My buddy Moyfried, though, thought the bungie rope was a delightful plaything.  She pushed and turned and pulled and tested until it finally broke on our second night after some harmless deer walked by.  She just came over to visit me on my side of the trailer to feel safe from what she thought were carnivorous beasts, but our humans were grouchy from being forced out of their snug camper.  I’m not sure what is so special about that camper, they can’t see the stars, but they sure like to be inside all night.  They must have really good hay in there.  And I thought I smelled beer one night.  I like beer, it’s made of grain. Moyfried escaped again on the third night.  The humans were extra slow to catch her that night. I think they needed more hay to help them relax afterward. 

This trip had some long rides.  Luckily Moyfried and I are very fit.  We rode lots of trails over the summer.  Moyfried can be a little goofy, and gets worried about some things.  She is a mare after all, and a young one at that.  We geldings are much braver, although a few times on the ride even I got worried and my human got off to lead me.  I like it when she leads me through scary spots.  I can relax with the knowledge that she will be eaten by the trolls first. Seriously!  One of the river bridges had a troll walking under it.  The humans thought it might be an elk, but elk are not scary and they do not live under bridges.  It was a troll.  My human went first on that bridge and we all survived, luckily. I would be sad if my human was eaten, but I’m sure the other human would let me live at her farm.

There were so many bridges, and they can make some scary hollow sounds, and sometimes they have a metal strip in front that clangs like a bell when our shoes hit it.  It is disturbing.  I finally learned how to carefully step over that metal part.  Also, sometimes the bridges have cracks in the surface!  Those cracks and openings were scary at first, because trolls can get their fingers through the cracks and grab our hooves.  We needed to lift our hooves very high over those cracks to avoid the trolls.  But, late in the day, we would get tired and the trolls would take naps and all the bridges were fine for crossing. 

There were these new things on the ride called tunnels.  Tunnels are a dark hole in a mountain that we had to walk through.  The darkness is a little concerning, but the true horror was the echoing sounds coming out from way up ahead– like a bunch of loud horses and trolls drumming and singing. Badly. At the first tunnel I made my human go in front on foot. At the second tunnel I felt better; I didn’t see, hear, or smell danger so I let my human stay on my back.  On the last day, we started into a super-long tunnel.  The humans were saying it was an hour long at Fjord Horse speed.  An hour in Fjord time is the time it takes to eat a flake of hay in a haybag.  Oddly, they didn’t make us go all the way through that breakfast-length tunnel.   I could have done it!  But I was secretly glad that we didn’t.  I could tell my human didn’t like it.  Sometimes you have to give your humans a win. 

I don’t usually like the sound of big trucks, or rattling trailers, or far away loud noises.  But we spent a long time walking along this thing called Interstate 90.  I figured out that is where hay trucks and horse trailers go when they want to visit other far-away horses.  Once I determined that noise wasn’t coming from troll parties under bridges, I was okay with it.  It was kind of calming, like the sound of tractors mowing hay fields. 

My human thought that I would be worried when horses came up behind us, or passed us, or got out of sight during the ride.  But I wasn’t.  I had my buddy Moyfried beside me, and she had me, and we were a herd of two.  Our herd bond was strong.  Also, some of those other horses were weird.  A couple of the Arabs glared and called us “ponies” as they passed.  We are Fjord HORSES! Some of those flighty horses jigged and jogged for miles.  What a waste of energy. Don’t they know that these shoes were made for walking? Slow and steady wins the race.  We did walk pretty fast, though; our humans were surprised we had it in us.  Sometimes we walked slowly, too.   On the third day of the big ride we Fjords were in front for two whole miles!!  Of course we had started earlier than the others.  Eventually the faster sillier horses caught up and passed us.  We didn’t care, the views on that trail were stupendous!

There was a thing called a carriage pulled by two horses that our humans thought we would be scared of.  We were not, because we got to meet those horses the first morning.  They are steady and focused horses, and we respected them.  They had a job to do, and that was to pull a noisy rattling wagon with flags on the back.  We didn’t want to make their job harder by spooking when they came near.

Luckily the humans brought snacks in our saddle bags on the rides.  It’s a lot of miles to go without a snack.  You know the humans have food out when you hear that cellophane plasticky crinkling sound.  Sometimes they tried to hide the food from us, but we have good ears.  I always turn my head to get a tidbit.  Or I try to get some cookies from Moyfried’s rider.  I don’t know why they didn’t share the thing they called beef jerky.  It smelled salty.  I would have eaten it. 

Our longest ride was 19 miles (that’s more than six Fjord-hours).  I could have gone further.  But the humans were tired, so we quit.  Also, there was hay at the trailer.

* Vali spent the 2025 riding season at my friend Solveig’s farm, where he earned his nickname, Uncle Vali, because he was an older finished horse that could be a good example to the younger horses and humans on the farm.   Turns out that he is more like the goofy uncle that is always trying to get the other horses in trouble. He starts the biting fests through the fences with the foals.  He taunts the stallion from two paddocks away and starts the galloping fence racing.  As Solveig says, he is like that uncle that loves the nieces and nephews but gets them thrown in jail during their jaunts and escapades.

[Photo credits Solveig Pedersen]