The Wagonteamster Channel has it’s first video production - Journey To the Valley Of the Wild Horses

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10-9-12, Crowley, CA (Coord. N. 37 deg, 34.062 min; W. 118 deg, 44.217 min).

Bill and Doc gave a tremendous performance yesterday as they trekked 27 miles to pull the wagon to the shore of Crowley Lake.  Tonight, I’m settled in a suburban setting with friends here in Crowley. All day long, I had the honor of meeting some fantastic people.

When I set out in the morning, it was through a Ponderosa Pine forest. The altitude was around 8000 feet above sea level and the air was crisp and fall-like.

In a couple of days, I’ll be descending to 4000 feet, so I’m enjoying the pine forest while I have it. My travels in the next few weeks will be tantalizing close to the forest and mountains, but I should be at a lower altitude.

The terrain was up and down, but the team was strong and handled it with no problem.  At 10 am, I stopped at a nice roadside park and filled up on water. As always, the wagon and horses drew quite a crowd.

As my route was through the National Forest, there were several turnoffs into the woods. I took advantage of one of them to have a nice lunch, a couple of hundred yards off the highway.

It’s always a pleasure traveling through a forest with a great view of the mountains.

The rugged Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Back in Mono Lake, US-395 became a divided 4 lane road with wide shoulders.  There were numerous at-grade intersections and no stock fence or cattle guards leading to the highway. This changed at the turnoff to the City of Mamouth Lakes.  As I continued southward, the at-grade intersections became fewer and all of the intersecting roads were now protected with cattle guards. There were go-around gates at all of the cattle guards, but the first few had locks on them. Fortunately, as I continued southward the locks disappeared but the brush was too high in front of the gates to drive the wagon through. This meant that if I was to traverse a cattle guard, I would have to unhitch the horses, lead them through the gate, then use the horses to pull the wagon across the cattle guard with a chain. This was the technique I used when I finally left the highway, but I had some help, as a nice guy pulled the wagon across with his truck.

A very light dusting of snow and the setting sun gave the illusion that the mountains north and east of Crowley Lake were covered in deep snow.

Tonight, I’m settled with the same folks that I stayed with on the night of the Burning Lamb Festival, Saturday night. They have a home here and one near Bridgeport, CA. The lads are happily resting in an electric playpen on the side of the house.

After a long day in harness, the lads are enjoying some downtime in a suburban type neighborhood. B.O.B. really digs the vista of the rugged mountains.

Last evening, as I was rushing through town to beat the failing light, I received no less than 5 offers to camp at different places.  I also had some great folks make some nice donations to the travel fund.  People are Great!

I’m taking a day off here in Crowley to rest the team, put some shoes on Doc and enjoy this fine community.