Woodbrook Hunt (WA) takes hounds for a new adventure — a day at the beach. / Emily Rang photo
The temperature was seventeen degrees when we rose at 5:30 to begin our day with horses and hounds. The promise of the day’s adventure outweighed the desire to stay warm in bed. The pack could feel it even in the dark. They bugled excitedly as horses were fed, stalls cleaned, and ice chipped away in the buckets.
The pack always knows when they are going somewhere. Even when the routine is the same in the morning, their hive mind senses the excitement of something different. On this inky black, frozen winter morning typical of the Pacific Northwest, they felt an adventure coming on and sang out a beautiful song to the entire neighborhood: rise up, gather your hunting kit and your best horse, and join us for some fun! Not all appreciate the early, noisy invitation, but the jongleurs, undiscouraged, serenade the neighborhood anyway, hoping to be loaded and on their way as soon as possible.
The Woodbrook Hunt Club (WA) is fortunate to have our hunting country located literally out of our kennel door. The kennels are on a military installation, part of Joint Base Lewis Mcord (JBLM). We have a lot of access, but we must acquire a permit, or the area must be open to recreation. This weekend we had neither permits for the area, as it was Thanksgiving weekend, and the ground was so frozen and slick, it would be galling on our steeds. Our clever huntsman, Jennifer Hansen, who never misses an opportunity for hound action, planned a trip to the ocean with our pack where the weather could be cold, windy, and rainy, but surely not frozen. And we were permitted to ride to our hearts content.
No one was sure what to expect. We’d all seen pictures of packs of hounds at the beach—horses and hounds riding down the sand, playing in the surf, and it looked like fun. We’d performed what recon work we could from home, calling a popular horse bed and breakfast, Ocean Acres in Greyland, used by many members of the hunt. Trailer parking is available, horse accommodations, and, best of all, it’s dog friendly. Dave and Carol, the caretakers of Ocean Acres, had told us numerous stories of people traveling on vacation to their B&B with everything from birds to goats to llamas. So, in the off season, five couple hounds was no big deal. Also, striving to be environmentally conscious hunters, huntsman Hansen called Dave to check on the migratory bird situation, since their nesting sights are among the dunes near the beach and roped off to the public during the spring and summer months. The reply to Hansen: “There ain’t no birds around here this time of year, lady.”
After checking all possible obstacles, we poured hot water on the hitch to unfreeze it from the truck, loaded our best behaved hounds and horses, a gaggle of terriers and one lurcher, and crawled into two heated truck cabs, one with our huntsman Hansen and her famous partner, a show jumping superstar and honorary fox to our humble drag hunt, Tami Masters, and a second truck with honorary whipper-in Celia Fritch, our dedicated friend in any adventure; social graces expert Emily Rang; and me, the Kennel Madame. With coffee and scones in hand, provided by the ever mothering Emily, we headed west, an hour and forty minutes toward the coast. We were a small group, the only people nuts enough to get up that early the day after a holiday and head out on a freezing quest.
As daylight gathered and the sun came up, it was proving to be a clear, dry day. We watched the dashboard indicator as the outside temperature climbed in leaps and bounds: 25 degrees, 33 degrees, and by the time we stopped near Aberdeen for a pit stop it was 45 degrees and balmy! It was starting to look promising as we pressed on.
We arrived at Ocean Acres at about eleven o’clock, the temperature reading 50 degrees! We hadn’t been so warm in weeks. We unloaded horses and were immediately swarmed by the resident guard donkey, Ginger, infamous for getting into campers and trailer tack rooms and eating whatever she can find. Ginger got in with our horses and (as donkeys are wont to do) chased our terriers and lurcher around. They, in turn, sped off to inspect the new smells, disregarding the offended donkey, who settled for inspecting all the goods and giving the animals her critical approval.
Our hunt horses were fairly nonplused by the donkey and accepted her as another dog, goat, child, or any one of the number of bothersome things we put in their path. The other, more important entity meeting us at our destination was long time Woodbrook Hunt member and avid Back Country Horseman Lori Lennox, who frequents Ocean Acres sometimes with friends and sometimes just a woman and her horse. Lori knew the lay of the foreign terrain better than any of us there, and we quickly saddled and moved off to inspect our country before we turned hounds loose.
Emily Rang photo
The first thing Lori told us is that we would have to cross a lot of water. This was fine for most of us, especially the hounds, who loved water, and the huntsman’s horse, who I often would see laying in a puddle in her paddock during a down pour, eating grass from deep within the water. A real water horse, that one. My horse, however, was a desert-bred who didn’t believe in water, and would leap, spook, or scoot around anything that even looked like it might be wet. I immediately removed my cell phone from my pocket and congratulated myself for bringing a change of clothes. Even though it was a balmy fifty degrees and no wind, I still had a feeling that the water was icy, and if anyone ended up swimming, it would be me.
Horses tacked, we mounted and headed out, everyone eager to get to the beach. The horses seemed unsure of why we’d left hounds behind, as was the pack, but we promised them we’d be back quickly. The lurcher came along for a run and to be a test subject for hounds. Almost immediately we hit water. The recent rains that were nowhere to be seen on this gloriously sunny, dry, and windless day were still lying in the low spots, spreading across at least a football field of water with no way around but through. The water had a thin layer of ice lining the top that broke easily enough as the horses waded through. My pretty little desert horse—bay with a white face and four white legs—cocked an ear at me questioningly, but stepped in behind the huntsman’s water-loving hippo mare. She sniffed and snorted her disapproval of the miles of water, and stepped with high, arching strides in an attempt to walk upon the water instead of in it. Being a desert animal of high intelligence (which has proven to be mostly helpful, and only sometimes a hindrance to our relationship), my mare decided it was better to follow in the water and stay with the group rather than stay out of the water and be left behind.
Her only real protest came when we strayed off the road and the water was deep enough to touch her belly. She leaped straight up when the cold water hit her, and I was certain we were going down, but she settled back to a walk once the shock was over, and, in the end, her four white legs have never been cleaner or tighter. Our horses all got superlative leg icings from all the water trudging at the beach, not to mention the salt water action, which, ever since I saw National Velvet as a kid, convinced me that there’s “nothing like salt water for his legs.”
Once we finally made it to solid sand, the beach itself was awesome and infinite in its beauty. The sun was warm and the ocean rolling gently. The tide was low and the beach stretched before us for what looked like eternity. My desert mare, lulled by the feeling of sand for miles, relaxed into a zen state, and we trotted and loped easily down the beach as a herd, the lurcher running circles around us easily in glorious athleticism. Save for a dog and two people who looked like little specs about a mile down the beach, it was completely empty on this November day, our own private playground for hounds. Realizing our path was clear enough, we navigated the waters a second time back to the trailers to fetch hounds and finally get out on the beach.
Hounds called to us excitedly from the trailer, ready to go, and jubilant of our return, certain that we had forgotten them the first time out. We released the pack and headed out to cross the water for the third time—my desert horse was getting so broke—but hounds stopped and hesitated at the water for a moment before the promise of fun and the siren song of their huntsman led them into the icy water for a noon swim. Once again on the sand on the other side, we got ourselves organized.
We picked up a trot southward. The sound of soft sand under hoof and paw was meditative as we cruised down toward the surf, hounds excited but obediently staying with their huntsman. Once we hit the waves, the huntsman’s horse became uncertain. She balked at the moving arms of the ocean sweeping in across the sand as if trying to grab the beach and pull it out to sea, but Emily’s mare, an experienced beach combing ottb mare, trotted bravely into the surf, showing everyone it was safe. Horses and hounds moved into the water and after a few moments of finding footing amongst the rolling waves, we were off and trotting down the beach—warm, happy and enjoying our unusual day.
After a few minutes down the beach we spied an ATV approaching, it’s contents an elderly couple wearing camo outfits that matched their little camo vehicle. They asked us excitedly if we were looking for a fox. We stopped and chatted for a moment with these kindly folk, who were obviously hunters themselves, as they didn’t even blink an eye when the dog hounds marked their vehicle as their own. In fact they offered to lay a drag for us with their ATV next time we came to the beach to hunt!
We continued down the beach, hounds now feeling bolder about their new surroundings. One of the young entry, Kent, a white Welsh wooly coated hound drafted to us from Fox River Valley (IL), decided the seabirds were too tempting and took off into the ocean after them, diving through the waves. The rest of the pack, getting caught up in the excitement began to string out a bit, lead hounds running faster and faster as we pushed our horses into a canter to keep up. Tami, the forward whip and show jumping mogul is never one to back down from an adrenaline rush, and, with all the space before us, allowed hounds to move out and race down the beach. The excitement and galloping carried on for a few moments, but before it got completely out of control, the huntsman called her hounds back in, and the staff regrouped and continued our trot through the surf to the south and our trailer, which had been driven ahead and was now parked on the beach at the public access.
No one could stop smiling, and hounds were keen for more. Our ground crew wanted pictures and video of us galloping with hounds down the beach, so we decided not to load them there, but head back north from whence we came—galloping of course. It went off better than I would have guessed a staged gallop would go; hounds were happy to accommodate us, and all the horses were settled and happy to gallop easily through the soft footing and easy landscape. It wasn’t a hunt, but it was the most glorious hound exercise we’d ever had, and the setting could not have been more brilliant.
Our last time navigating through the water, Ernie, a young entry, got stuck on the high ground and left behind while the rest of the hounds swam confidently through the water—belly deep on the horses—after their huntsman. Ernie began to panic about being left behind and cried pitifully in the shallow water, jumping back and forth. After Ernie’s second piteous appeal, two of the older entries, Hobbit and Homer, turned back and swam toward him. There was not much that we, having reached dry ground, could do as riders but watch and wait while our huntsman blew her horn and called them in to her. The older hounds reached young Ernie, and we witnessed something phenomenal.
I had assumed Hobbit and Homer were blowing us off and going to head back through the shallow waters to the beach or wander off in search of the dozens of game trails we spotted through the dunes, but that’s not what happened. The two older hounds got to Ernie and swam with him to the next shallow place they could find. It was a longer route, but they brought him back to the huntsman!
We have seen improvement in our pack working together in the short time they have been hunting, but we didn’t realize they had that kind of cameraderie. It was a beautiful moment…followed by a hilarious moment.
We arrived back at the trailer, once again parked at Ocean Acres, thanks to Celia and Lori. As huntsman Hansen dismounted to load hounds, the pack was quickly rounded up by Ginger, the mule, who did not approve of our hounds on her property. Ginger, quite possibly our best new whipper-in, got hounds collected and into the trailer in record time so that in the best hunting tradition, we could have more time for our tailgate hunt breakfast, of which, it turns out, Ginger is very fond. She ate crackers, cookies and inspected all of the prosciutto and beer. (She wanted us to drive responsibly, no doubt.)
We traveled home as the afternoon November sun was setting, the darkness and cold returning, and leaving us to wonder if the warm, sunny day on the beach had been real, or just a dream. But now we know: when the base is closed and the ground is frozen, where do we go? The Beach!
Posted January 16, 2016
Emily Rang photo