I met an interesting man

[AWS]

Skeet is a sociable sport, kibitzing behind the shooter is acceptable. Yesterday at the range I met an interesting man. He grew up in NM and on of his first jobs was a trail rider for the forest service. He spent his days making sure trails were open, sheep camps accessable, looking for fires etc. A couple times he had to ride to areas that he would direct arial water bombers. He spent most of his years as a trail rider in the Gila national forest but did spend some time working out of Chama. He finally quit because it was a pretty lonely life back in the 60s and 70s.

His stories of breaking horses and riding horse over cable bridges in the mountains were fascinating.

My sister was a horse person and I used to own a Percheron that I used to skid logs and ride on some of my near home traplines.

 

[GC]

The old breed. In the book "Unrepentant Sinner," Colonel Charles Askins tells of his time doing that work for the Forest Service. Askins was young, maybe 20-ish, and this would have taken place in the late 1920s. He speaks of skirmishes with the Apache Indians and Mexican bandits. Askins was the very definition of salty! He was a shoot first, let God sort them out kinda guy.