Border to Border: Ready, Set, Roll (Episode 2)

are you ready to hit the road [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] breakfast is ready there's that field downstairs we need strength i got the rivets and stuff around the truck already first day we planned for a shorter day because we had a lot of last minute preparations we had to get done that morning and we were only going to be traveling from topolo pass at the idaho border we had about 30 some miles to go to get to the dun roving ranch so we figured it only is going to take us about a half day for our hopes anyway having as many people as we had and as many things as needed to make it on the truck and on the trip um it was pretty essential to make sure that we were trying to stay at least a little bit organized okay is the generator on no welder no wood tools no generator i guess they're putting the generator in the welders on and that's about all i can check off oh i gotta get matches [Music] [Music] how are you feeling about this trip one thing to keep in mind as you watch this documentary is we're all a little camera shy so if you see someone acting funny or running away you'll know why say something shot come on for the camera hi dan what do you think about this trip i don't know what do you think about this trip i think we're doing it good we got one good answer zeke say something quick about the trip well i don't know what to say just say something that sounds professional you're looking forward to it [Music] zeke just said it's gonna be one good ride say it we are blessed to say it one i just don't know i don't know why [Music] all right john how do you feel about this trip oh i'm pretty excited this is hard when you're on camera i'm pretty excited we're just rolling down the road taking the first load of horses up to little pass the first leg of the day so let's see how it goes i feel about this trip this was exciting very exciting what do you think promised good grace very adventurous adventurous all right let's go get to the adventuring then so we left saturday night drove all through the night um got to montana early in the morning exhausted and we're waiting in the parking lot to i guess meet up with the crew we're sitting there and all of a sudden there's a huge line of like trucks with hay and water and horse trailers and all these things and i was a little caught a little off guard um it was just unexpected yeah i had no idea just how much work is involved and actually what you do need to make a successful trip and that it does require um much more than just the simplicity that i thought in my mind we got to uh lolo pass and that's when they took the food coach off the truck uh started teaming up the horses and we were kind of just like okay let's say out of the way because we have no idea what's going on it's very important that the harness fits properly especially the collar because the collar is what carries the whole load i guess and it's like a shoe that doesn't fit if it's too big or too small you're gonna wear blisters on them it's kind of that same same idea the team we decided on for leading we had rosie and shine as leaders and then thousands of gear of the four wheel team [Music] and it was a cold morning you know the harness was cold it was a lot of excitement so we kind of had a little rough start there [Music] once we got out on the road it was pretty smooth from there on out [Music] [Applause] we rolled into montana on the pavement of highway 12. long before pavement or coaches this route was a main passageway through the rocky mountains for the native people journeying between the western coast and the great plains eventually natives would guide lewis and clark across this route and it would start being used by trappers prospectors and other travelers by the late 1800s a stagecoach would bring visitors up the path to the lolo hot springs every other day [Applause] we set the first stage stop at about eight miles the first thing we learned is it's going to be a lot of waiting how close are you doing should we harness nothing by the time we can talk we're about five minutes into it how do we feel about the sitting game what do you do it's about how we feel yeah how do you feel about the sitting what do you think about it yeah the very next thing we learned is there wasn't near as much waiting as we thought the first swap out was pretty bumpy we underestimated how long it would take the coach to get there [Music] [Music] we definitely gonna have to get faster at swapping horses out if we were gonna make it in the time we wanted to okay hey make sure all of this is organized very well with each team with each team it's downhill all the way from the idaho border to olo so we decided it was kind of a waste of a team putting the front team on there if they're just holding back anyway so i ended up switching to just a team [Music] and that worked so good anyway that was downhill or level ground we pretty much just used a team anywhere we could after that we had a friend right along from the idaho border to the first stop and then pretty much the rest of the way down we gave rides and it's always fun giving an old-fashioned experience to folks one of these paper articles written about us before we took the trip mentioned that if anybody wanted to host us if they were potentially along our route to go ahead and reach out to us give us a call see if that was something that might work out we had quite a few people reach out one of those was the dun roving ranch in lolo we had talked about several different ideas for going to missoula and the denver river ranch ended up being the perfect place to overnight there um and then be able to get a head start first thing in the morning to be able to go through missoula with less traffic [Applause] [Music] arriving at the den road ranch earlier in the day meant that we had the time to get the horses settled in introduce them to their pasture and get ourselves set up so that we would be ready to hit the road in the morning after we'd been at the dun roving ranch for a little while and got settled in we were able to get a chance to give some more folks some rides probably about a dozen or more people we really enjoyed doing that everyone was really excited we even got to let some of the kids drive the stagecoach and could definitely see the excitement on their faces some it was hard to get them on but once we got them up there it was hard to get them off [Music] so the first day we went 34 miles we're all pretty happy with how smooth it went we got to the dun roving ranch the folks there were super nice they fed us supper and had a campfire ring so we sat around and sang some songs and roasted some marshmallows then we set our clocks for 3am day two i got up about three a.m because we wanted to beat the traffic through missoula so we got the horse's grain well not for prayer we're gonna pray for safety as we're going down the road this morning that you just uh keep it safe and just uh the cookies and work smoothly you just go with it throughout the day and then we meditate kitchen crew got some food together and set it out for people and then we scrambled around and got ready for our first full day that morning was the first time either yoshi or i had got a chance to drive the coach during the trip and even though it was starting to rain lightly we were both glad to be the ones that were climbing on top we had bought some battery operated flashers ahead of time and we were putting them to good use they were definitely a good investment the blinker truck was also something that was proven to be very useful especially going through all the traffic in missoula that morning elissa was driving it and she pretty much took on that job the rest of the trip it's 5 14 actually and we are almost all the way through missoula things are going good we've uh tanzan the year ran from lolo to missoula it was pretty miserable this morning shai was wondering if he could get hypothermia in his hand in the time it took them to get from lolo to missoula it was raining a little when we left that morning but about 10 minutes down the road we were completely soaked through because brain just kept picking up and got worse every time a car would drive by get more splash up from that and stage coaches lean forward and there's water running off the roof onto the seat down our backs it was pretty miserable but thankfully coming into missoula we couldn't have been more happy to see the girls that got us some hot coffee made it a lot better from there on out but it really made me think of the old-time drivers they didn't want to have warm coffee like that but just gave me a big appreciation for them driving for a stage line would have been a far cry from a spring picnic schedule was very important to stage lines so there was no slowing up for weather additionally because of wanting to keep the best handle on their horses drivers often wore very thin or even no gloves even in the coldest of weather for this and other reasons drivers receive very high salaries for the times sometimes even up to 125 dollars per month well we've got one more mile to go until there's a trailer with horses this team is getting pretty tired so i thought it was interesting for all the boys griping about the little teams the big team is the one that's getting tired the fastest all right brian update us on how we're doing update us on how we're doing well it's still raining yeah but we're getting closer to somewhere somewhere that's not here so are we farther along than you thought or about where you thought we'd be so you're running them 10 miles [Music] [Applause] good boys [Music] because there was a bowl in it when we [Music] started [Music] how do you feel john i feel wet i feel real wet [Music] back he was arguing with me about how we left him up there he knows all right [Music] four minutes guys good job originally we had planned on whoever started out in the morning driving the stage coach is just gonna run all day take all the teams but that morning john and i both i think about 20 miles into it we're hoping for either blue sky or new set of drivers at the next stop thankfully we got the new drivers all right zeke what's the verdict from the top of the coach verdict means the the outlook what does it look like up there oh good we planned on running all day but it was wet and cold enough we decided well we may as well pull off and make camp at the next spot we find so we did that we set up our panels we turned the horses out to graze the water down gave them some hay so pretty much after that we decided well that's it actually works out pretty good breaking the day in half like that it's things easier on the animals and it's nice to take lunch then anyway everybody's there so it's pretty much how the rest of the trip worked out we were all wet at this point each of us guys had taken our turn getting soaked on top of the stagecoach and the girls got their fair share of water climbing through the bushes and up hills with their cameras we were miserable in a way but sharing this experience with family and friends made it worth it all what to do even though we joked around about being too cold and wet to go any farther none of us would trade this experience for anything so when we were almost a clearwater junction i looked down and the pin was coming out of the tongue and when we were climbing a hill winding alongside the river worst place for this to happen i wasn't scared but i looked over at john and he was white as a ghost i i couldn't believe i mean he thought we were gonna die so we finally got to a place where we could get pulled off the road thankfully we had a whole truck full of tools behind us we had a 220 well or acetylene torch or just about any tool we could need we had and so we got that fixed no problem we just wrapped some duct tape around and kept going we were all really impressed with how the horses handled the traffic especially the teams we had in augusta i mean they've really been around cars and stuff until we got on the road so i'm pretty good [Music] springtime meant high waters for the blackfoot river that we were traveling along the nez pierce's name for the blackfoot river was kokohaliskit meaning river of the road to the buffalo though we weren't quite to the great plains yet we were breaking out into some patches of open country we had been running the teams 10 miles twice a day but we started realizing probably get more out of our horses if we ran them like five miles and more times a day because then they would probably even get tired on iran and we started doing that about obama i guess we also started fine tuning our swap out process a little bit well some people were hooking up we'd have the other people on harnessing and putting horses away and cooling them up and everything else oh [Music] after spending an entire day in the flasher truck going 10 miles an hour it was a really exciting sight to see lincoln and the lincoln rodeo grounds all right here we are we just came down onto the flat into lincoln montana so we made our goal for the day yeah as we found out rodeo grounds were one of our favorite places to overnight with the horses they were already set up for stock and we just got to unload and relax usually [Music] yes [Music] with all the rain we were getting we figured after dinner we'd all hop in the pickup and drive up stemple pass we had a few options to cross the continental divide that one looked more promising the snow line had melted enough to get through and the country looked really good so we are really happy with how well our horses held up our power wagon team pulled one of the longest steepest runs of the day all together we covered about 90 miles so even though it was a little wet and miserable the beginning part of the day that evening the clouds broke and promised us good weather for the journey up temple pass in the morning [Music] [Music] so [Music] you

Channel: E Heart Livestock

Views: 22,533

Keywords: Border to border, Zion Stage Line, Stagecoach, Montana, Big Sky

Id: GoSx904HMjc

Length: 25min 22sec (1522 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 17 2021