Watch out, a storm is coming!
Our destination is on the horizon. A beautiful, bright blue lake in a mountain basin, just before a rising slope to a grey rocky pass at three thousand something.
But… pitching a tent with three horses on an expedition isn’t easy. You have to – firstly – find a place with fresh running water and also enough good grass for three horses. And good grass for grazing three horses at night – that’s a circle with a diameter of about 60 meters of good grass. Then – secondly – to unsaddle the horses, thirdly to take off the saddle bags, fourthly to tie the horses to the pasture, fifthly to blanket them, they start to roll, so the sixth time to collect the lost blankets and blanket them again, then to take out the mat and the tent from the bags and start to build the tent. Next, build the vestibule for the saddles. To put all my things in the tent, to put all the equipment for the horse in the vestibule, then to unblanket the horse, to clean the hooves, then to boil water for the meal and at the twenty-fifth time to put my completely finished self finally in the tent and start to have lunch. All in all, from stopping the horse to lying down in the tent this is THREE HOURS of daily work.
So how fast are we going to make it, with the storm in our backs?
At a hysterical pace we hurtle along the beaten track on the slope in a broken-down trot, desperate for any sign of running water. The horses understand the urgency of the situation and I don’t even have to urge them on. The black clouds are thundering fiercely in the back and the gusty wind occasionally blows a small taste of the future ice-crust storm towards us.
In the distance, a small lake appears on the horizon at 3,200 metres above sea level, our planned tent site. There! If we could get there, it would be beautiful! But this horizon, it’s about an hour’s ride. There’s nothing we can do, we need to camp somewhere sooner. On the left side of the slope, a beautiful plain opens up with a small flowing river, just enough for three horses. Hooray, jump off and build! Horse, boom, second, boom, third, boom, stuff, toss, water, scramble, tent, toss, stakes, boom, poles, click, water, fade, tent, whoop.
Twenty-five minutes. We’ve cut three hours of camp preparation down to a glorious twenty-five minutes. As if waiting for a command, the storm suddenly opens the floodgates, with the first hail I jump into the tent, hot water for food already ready in the tent’s vestibule, hail furiously pounding on the tropico… only oops.
I’ve pitched the crookedest tent in the history of mankind.
“Your tent is so crooked, you need a seat cushion and a sash to go from left to right!”
“Your tent is so crooked that if you leave it upwind in the winter, you can open a ski resort in it!”
“Your tent is so crooked that if you set it up in Pisa Square, you’ll collect the budget for a new one on the entrance fee!”
I subsequently used exactly six horse blankets, stacked in a triangle on one side of the tent during the hailstorm, to modify the tent’s surface, giving the impression that maybe you could lie flat.
But that’s it, the horses are happy with their grazing today, and that’s the main thing.
