Day rides exploring short trails have only whetted your appetite to embark on longer adventures. You’ve gone on treks with experienced outfitters, watching them load the pack saddles and strap them onto seasoned pack animals.
Now, you’re ready to explore the wilds on your own, but the mysterious pack-saddle process eludes you. The good news is that the days of tarps with ropes spider-webbed around a horse, and the need for a PhD in knot-ology, are long gone. Today, it’s easy to get a pack saddle that’s a breeze to use, is waterproof, and is easily adjusted to correctly fit your pack animal.
The current demand for pack saddles is quite small, limited mostly to active outfitters and trail riders. This is reflected in the overall modest number produced each year, by just a handful of manufacturers. In such a small sphere, only a little homework is needed to prepare for proper, state-of-the-art packing on the trail.
Here, we’ll give you a basic pack-saddle primer, with help from members of The Long Riders’ Guild (www.thelongriders guild.com). Long Riders frequently use pack horses on their continuous equestrian travels of a thousand miles or more in all kinds of environments and conditions. Their feedback is useful to recreational trail riders curious about the best pack tack and practices.
We’ll first tell you why you should pack light, even when using a pack animal. Then we’ll give you rundown of saddle types: the sawbuck, the Decker, and the Canadian adjustable saddle.
Plus, we’ll give you seven ways to avoid pack-animal injuries and a handy resource guide.
Pack Light
If you’re embarking on an equestrian journey, using a pack animal is a great way to save your saddle horse’s back and energy. Any extra ounce carried on a saddle horse is an unnecessary burden. Consider using a pack animal for your tent, cooking utensils, food, bedroll, etc.
But don’t pile that pack animal high with every kind of unnecessary item you can find because you seem to have the space and "might need it." Overburdening a pack animal is, quite simply, an inexcusable mistake.
The LRG is known for its motto, "The more you know, the less you need." Some Long Riders even cut handles short on hammers (and even toothbrushes) to shave extra ounces from their beloved mounts’ burdens.
It’s often cited that 20 percent of a horse’s body weight (if the horse is healthy and sound) is the absolute maximum that can be carried — but beware of this advice.
"While a horse could carry [that amount], no Long Rider ever would," warns CuChullaine O’Reilly, a founding member of the LRG. "Only a packer journeying deep into the mountains to set up a base camp or a hunter carrying back a load of game should ever resort to burdening a pack horse in this manner."
