Dianne L Stallings

Ruidoso News

Sometimes life gives a mother a glimpse of what her child will become as an adult.

Ashley Martin-Ivins caught that glimpse on a ride last week that she thought would take about six hours, but ended up spanning a nine-hour period. She recounted that on the way up Aspen trail, she and her son Grady encountered a large fallen tree that was difficult to get around.

“It scared Grady and he scraped his knee, but we made it,” she said.

Because of tall and thick grass, downed trees and rock slides, they also had a hard time finding the Bluefront trail.

“It was nothing like I remembered,” Martin-Ivins said.”We ended up turning back and retracing our steps as a storm closed in. We decided not to go back down Aspen, because of the tree, and headed for Bonito. There was lightening and we were on the big open Crest (trail), so we had to take a shortcut down. The shortcut proved treacherous. Our horses are a bit too round and they were very sweaty and we were dealing with saddles sliding so we ended up having to lead our horses down, but we avoided being struck by lightning”

The storm was moving in quickly and they found some good tree cover and waited it out without getting too wet.

“On down Bonito we went a short ways when we met a dog heading up,” she said. “It was overweight, limping, hot and panting. The dog was happy to see us and we petted it and called for owners to no avail. It tried to follow us, but he could only go 20 yards or so before needing a long break. Finally, I put the dog on Grady's saddle so we could pack it down.”

They took turns with the dog as a living saddle pack all the way down Bonito trail about five miles, not an easy task.

“At one point, it nearly caused a wreck with my horse and I was ready to leave the dog and let it find its way back,” Martin-Ivins said. “Grady cried and told me ‘Mom, I just know that dog is really special to someone and we can't give up just because it's hard’ So we kept on. When we got down to the horse camps, we asked the first person we saw if they had lost a dog.

“Turns out her neighbor had, and a search party was out. The dog's owner was moved to tears that we carried him back and it all made me cry too. Grady said ‘See Mom, sometimes God just puts a big ole stupid tree and some more little trees in your path to make you go the right way after all.’”

Despite the setbacks, the two riders saw about 100 elk, deer and the a shiny black bear cub, Martin-Ivins said.

Most importantly, “We reunited a family with their hurting dog and I heard exactly the wisdom I needed to hear today. Man I love that kid.”