Why horses, why the wild

People ask us: why leave a perfectly good city to keep horses more than three thousand metres up?

Every one of us has heard that question many times — from family, from friends, and from ourselves at four in the morning when the water in the stable has frozen.

What the city gave us

We all lived in the city for real. One of us spent seven years at a stove; one ran a restaurant and a team; one built a campsite. The city gave us plenty: rules, efficiency, bills — and a feeling that every day had been arranged for us in advance.

Then the restaurant closed, the campsite was gone and the mountain shut its trails. It was a hard time. But strangely, once every arrangement had fallen apart, we could finally see what we wanted.

We didn’t want a better arrangement. We wanted not to be arranged.

A horse won’t lie

Horses are honest animals.

When you’re tense, an ear swivels back toward you. When you’re afraid, its steps lose their rhythm. When you finally relax, it lets out a long breath and its neck goes soft. You can fool a boss, a friend, even yourself — but not a horse.

In the saddle you can’t pretend. That’s probably why we fell for it: it makes you honest. It pulls your attention back to the moment — the trail ahead, the reins in your hands, the warm, breathing creature underneath you.

The wild isn’t scenery

People think the wild is a view: the snow peak, the lake and the blue sky in a photo.

Ride into it and you find it is first of all an order. Night falls fast, the wind arrives without warning, the stream is deeper than it looks and the horse knows long before you do where not to step. Out here you aren’t the hero; you’re a guest.

The odd thing is that once you admit how small you are, everything gets lighter.

So, why?

For this, more or less: waking to a horse snorting outside, riding a long way in the wind, sitting by a fire at night as the Milky Way rises over the hills. Tired, cold, dirty — and every moment of it chosen.

That’s our idea of freedom. Not going anywhere you like, but knowing why you’re here.

If you want to try it, the horses are waiting.