Part Two: in the tracks of a legend. Hunting with the Red Rock Hounds, Nevada

Steep hills at speed? No problem. Ditches, gullies and assorted chasms? Check. Rocks, sage bushes, rabbit holes? Present and correct. Endless open country? Absolutely. 

Uh oh...

Not the most reassuring of signs to be greeted with on arriving in a new hunt country... At least our potential last meal before we set off into the wastes of Hungry Valley with the Red Rock Hounds was a good one: a feast of Angela Murray MFH's slow-cooked pork (easily the best meat of the trip) and assorted tipples to be wolfed down in the hunt club house the night we arrived. We had been greeted by huntsman Lynn Lloyd MFH herself, plus her 45-year-old cockatiel with a frat-house vocabulary, before unloading the heaps of goodies purchased by a certain photographer at Cabela's earlier in the day and returning to the club house for sustenance. There was a riotous crowd on hand to greet us, including, to my delight, Carolyn Colson, who was shrugging off the mere matter of a broken foot to whip-in on the handsome Tomahawk (hero of my Western riding lessons from Carolyn's son Chris) after a spell on crutches. It was hard to drag ourselves away, but a good night's sleep appeared to be in order.  

Ready, Cary? Yes!

Friday dawned crisp and cold, with clearing skies and white peaks on the horizon. A convoy of vehicles set off from the barn to an unassuming collection of shabby houses, scattered apparently at random along a Cheshire-cheese road. After a goodly application of Dutch courage from a dedicated sommelier basket, we stood in a circle and introduced ourselves, a custom that could make buttoned-up English visitors cringe, but which actually made everyone feel welcome and brushed off the butterflies. I was impressed by Robin Keith, the senior of three generations that included daughter Amy Lessinger and granddaughter Sydney, who decided to take up hunting on her retirement because she didn't want to sit on a sofa all day. A sensible woman. Finally, we mounted up - me on the incredibly handsome Chancellor who stayed in his box like a Targaryen dragon until the last minute because he gets a little grumpy on the ground, but who gave me the most fantastic ride and a view that was definitely the finest in Nevada through his grey ears - and set off over a ridge and a coop into a 100,000-acre pasture. No fear of running out of country here!

Alabama visitor Cary McWhorter safely in the saddle!

Once in Hungry Valley, Lynn spoke a word to her hounds and they were off, drawing continually as we moved. There are no coverts for quarry to hide in here! The hounds in question are Tennesse Walker, a type that originated when English foxhounds were crossed with a Kentucky black-and-tan hound called Tennessee Lead by the brothers Walker in the 1850s. Lynn got her first Walker from a local mountain-lion hunter, who didn't want him because he would riot on coyote. Perfect! Walkers have a reputation for being less than biddable, but although they probably wouldn't work in a country criss-crossed by roads or pockets of forbidden land where they would need to be stopped quickly, out here their independence is ideal. They have excellent noses, crucial in a dry desert where coyotes are exactly the same colour as the sandy soil. Coyotes will use anything to mask their scent, to the extent of travelling within a herd of antelope or cattle. It would usually be assumed that hounds were speaking on the herd in such a case, but Lynn knows to wait and make sure before calling them off.

A pair of handsome Walkers

One thing these hounds can't help but riot on are jack rabbits - they are everywhere. When she first started hunting out here, 35 years ago, Lynn tried to stop the rabbit-chasing, but she soon realised that all she was doing was wearing out her voice and her horse. The rabbits keep things interesting and hounds will immediately switch to a coyote, often put up by the action, if one appears, which is the main thing. Her best hounds are Vinnie and the brilliantly named WTF - as Wende Crossley joked: 'Protocol? Where'd he go?'

Camo-Sarah in action, fully kitted out by Cabela's

Swapping camera thoughts with Nancy, otherwise known as Where's Waldo?

No long-tailed critters were to be found for the first part, so we reconvened for a cheeky Margarita and loo stop (just find a handy bush!) and a chance for the photographers to compare notes. Sarah Farnsworth blended in well with the landscape, resident Red Rock snapper Nancy Stevens-Brown less so. It's not easy to take pictures round here, as it's nigh impossible to get close to hounds and followers in a vehicle. Poor Sarah was consigned to a track a mile away over several ridges, but still managed to get some gorgeous shots. Do visit her website for more!

 

Off again, in my favourite position, right behind hounds

The finest view in Nevada - with the mountains of Tahoe beyond

Note the steepness of the slope that hound is ascending...

Yes, that's right, we went down that. No threading the ridge 

to find an easier spot, no Ma'am!

Moments later, things swiftly improved as hounds hit on Wil-E Coyote and were off like butter sliding off a hot knife. Gosh they can fly! Cary and I slotted in behind first-flight field master Jane Cozart, until her horse cast a shoe, at which point she waved generously and cried 'Kick on!' Who were we to argue? Armed with useful tips such as not to gallop along the tracks left by motorbikes as they can be hard and not to jump ditches in case the landing side is soft we hared towards Lynn's dust cloud, flat out across treacherous ground that our horses took with sure-footed leaps and bounds. If you brought a show horse out here they would stop dead in horror, but these clever beasts never let anything stop them. When we eventually checked, panting in air thinner than any I'd hunted in before (we were about 8,000ft up) Lynn paid us the enormous compliment of commenting that not many visitors stay up with her - praise indeed! No one batted an eyelid at the cliff we slid down on the way home, naturally, so steep it was impossible to aim my camera with any success. The sun got uncomfortably hot as time edged on, so we called it a day and ambled back through clumps of juniper bushes. Hounds still had their noses down, but Wil-E had found cooler corners. 

Tired hounds heading out of Hungry Valley

Carolyn Colson and the nimble Tomahawk

Lynn calls up the last of the pack as the rest take a well-earned nap

Very happy survivors! Does this mean we can ride?

Job well done: Carolyn and the brilliant quarter horse Tomahawk

After an enormous Mexican feast at a restaurant that seemed perfectly happy to be invaded by a dusty, booted horde, we drove back to the kennels to feed the hounds. Lynn designed the kennels herself, with central feeding area, bitch, dog and puppy corrals leading off, a large tree-dotted pasture behind and the nifty hunt logo above the door. Hounds were clearly content, and they obviously love Lynn as much as she loves them. Despite being a legend in hunting circles, she is remarkably modest, asserting that she isn't a good huntsman, she just listens to her hounds, who are quite capable of doing their job without her. I think it takes a little more than that, but that they share a passion was obvious. When she first founded the Red Rock - after driving west and running out of petrol in Reno, looking round and deciding that a hunt could do rather well in the coyote-filled high desert - she was told by the MFHA that her Walker hounds couldn't be registered because they didn't have three generations recorded as hunting. Her joint-master Scott Tepper took on the bureaucracy and won the day by pointing out that they did have three generations of hunting, and foxes weren't specified, so there was no reason why the pack shouldn't be registered. The Red Rock was registered in 1983 and recognised in 1987, a certificate of authenticity that, although welcome, wasn't the be-all-and-end-all for Lynn. 'I just wanted to hunt, and I would have done anyway!'

A stylish touch atop the kennels

Hungry hounds!

A tender moment

The Red Rock Hounds are Lynn's world, and of vital importance to the wider hunting and equestrian community in Nevada. This is a vast, bleak landscape, where people live widely scattered, and the Red Rock barn has become a centre for social life as well as equestrian activities, not to mention supporting other Western hunts such as the Tejon in California. The club house is seldom empty, and even outside the hunting season there are frequent events, from horse shows to cross-country clinics with Irish-hunting legend Aidan O'Connell. There may have been some opposition to Lynn's lifestyle, especially, in a less-than-liberal state, due to her preference for female company, but her fearless demeanour and single-minded devotion to her hounds have won over the critics. This place shows that anything is possible, and if one is ever in need of stimulation, the words carefully carved on numerous benches around the barn are sure to send a shiver down every hunter's spine. Words of wisdom indeed. Now, let's go hunting!

A bench that should be outside every huntsman's office

Words of wisdom by the clubhouse

Lynn's method: trust the hounds

Hear! Hear!

The dream!

If you're not sure where the meet is, find the name

of it on this post and drive as the crow flies...

No news on who the personal attendant is...

We'll be back!

From California to Montana via Nevada, behind hounds all the way. Part One!

Have you seen the great gallop of The Man from Snowy River? I ask because that classic film has been mentioned quite a few times in recent weeks. Breathtaking as the Australian cowboy’s plunge down the mountainside might be, the likes of Lynn Lloyd would give him a run for his money any day. I have been whizzing around California, Nevada and Montana in recent weeks, hunting behind some intrepid huntsmen and setting hoof where no foxhunter has hunted before.

Across the wide prairies with, er, six couple of foxhounds...

The whirlwind began with the Tejon Hounds in central California, hunted for the first time this season by Tyce Mothershead, formerly of the North Hills in Iowa, and ably assisted by his wife Hilary as first whip and two-year-old daughter Finley. No hound would dare stray when being walked out by Finley and when the family saw a coyote on the road, her immediate reaction was ‘Tally-ho!’ It’s easy to see where her enthusiasm comes from, as in only a few short months her parents have absorbed the magic of this vast ranch with its dozen different fixtures, from the lush grasslands above the orchards to the north-west of the ranch’s central hills to the flower-strewn meadows on the southern desert side. Three days after closing hunt, Tyce, Hilary, Cary McWhorter of Full Cry and Mooreland in Alabama, Tejon cowgirl Kristy Pedotti and me mounted in the foothills to the west, with the great central Californian plain with its endless lines of almond and pistachio trees stretching out below and cloud-shrouded slopes above. Following on quadbikes were acclaimed photographer Sarah Farnsworth, perched behind Mike Campeau MFH, Sam Andrews, first whip of the Santa Ynez and soon to be of the Essex in New Jersey, with his photographer girlfriend Tiffany, and HC Bright, also of Alabama. When we awoke at 5.30am, the lashing rain and freezing winds were reminiscent more of England than California, where only a few weeks previously my car temperature gauge had read 82˚ after hunting with the Santa Ynez, so we got ready in a more leisurely pace than originally intended, and by the time we unloaded the horses the rain had stopped. I mounted tall Thoroughbred Joe, Cary the giant draft-cross Dutch and hounds were released.

The vast 270,000-acre Tejon Ranch

So far, so normal, but Tyce and Hilary were wearing jeans and cowboy boots, Kristy was in full Western gear on an impressively chilled and responsive quarter horse (he’s for sale, by the way!) and the hounds were not a typical pack of foxhounds. In collaboration with Peter and Amanda Wilson of the Grand Canyon Hounds, the Arizonan desert of which bears similarities to the dusty Californian slopes (at least, when El Niño isn’t chucking a last bucket down), sighthound strains are being introduced to this pack, making for an attractive and effective mix. When the grass is short and dry, coyotes are often more easily seen than scented, and the speeds attained by these leggy, fleet hounds can be spectacular. A patchy run got us all going, horses as keen as hounds, before we hit on a coyote and reached top gear in seconds. I overran a gate, Joe’s brakes not being his most finely tuned aspect, which opened up a gap between me and Tyce. A gap that gave me one of the thrilling runs of my life, as we left Cary and Kristy far behind and tore to the top of a hill, slowing momentarily before Joe sighted Tyce ahead and took charge, speeding down a stone-strewn slope, up to a deep ditch that reminded me briefly of Ireland before we flashed up the other side and caught up with Tyce, popping a coop and viewing the coyote as it raced along the side of a gully. It darted left and out of our sight, hounds in hot pursuit as we kicked on and upwards to the base of the hills, where Hilary viewed the coyote into a deep tree-lined gorge that led into a ravine. We gave it best, not wanting to lose the pack in the steep-sided hills, and stopped to gather the hot, tired and very happy hounds. The three of us were the only ones visible in the landscape, our horses far faster than the others and the quad-bikes. They eventually caught up!

Come on Dad, let's go! Horses and hounds keen as mustard

Pit stop at a handy pool

Full speed! 

Calling up hounds after Wil E. Coyote disappeared into the ravine

The photographers arrive at last and get to work!

The day wasn’t over by any means, and it wasn’t long before we found again, racing west down the grassland. I stayed on Tyce’s heels (not that Joe would have had it any different – being a huntsman’s horse, he couldn’t understand why he had to keep his nose behind another horse!) and was duly impressed when Tyce didn’t bother with anything as dull as slowing down before crossing ditches and steep gullies – man from Snowy River personified! As the sun came out, we hit another line in a rough covert that led past the orchards, circling at speed til the scent dried and we stopped for a welcome drink at a stream excitedly scampering with more energy than any watercourse I had seen in California. One last draw was in a great green field that led up to the foothills, inviting but treacherous, the unusually long grass concealing large rocks that prevented any speed faster than a careful trot. If hounds had found here, an aerial view would have looked uncannily like the velociraptor chase scene in Jurassic Park… It drew blank, but we were treated to glorious views as the clouds parted and a conveniently positioned herd of cattle took Tyce back to his cowboy roots. Hilary and I swung the long way round, following the fenceline down a slope that made the Hickstead Derby bank look like child’s play. Honestly, I don’t know what those showjumpers make such a fuss about!

Bit o' weather

Just your average hunt follower...

Cowboy Tyce heads to the last draw

Glorious grass, until you realise there are rocks lurking amid the green

As the sun began to sink across the central plain, we piled into Tyce’s truck for a magical drive up into the mountains in the centre of the ranch, stopping for windswept photographs amid slopes crowded with Californian poppies. Heading off-road to one of the highest spots on the ranch, the full moon rose behind bare trees as the sun sank in a blaze of gold and dusk turned the deep dells and pine-clad slopes purple. The wind meant the elk and wild boar were sheltering far below, but the wild beauty of this landscape, managed entirely for the game and thus unblemished by the hand of man, needed no embellishment. The Tejon Ranch is a magnet for hunters, who come to stalk the huge elk that grow to enormous sizes in these temperate climes and the gigantic wild boar, a pest throughout California for the damage they do to the land. The animals to be taken are carefully chosen, every hunt led by an experienced guide, and there is a strict limit to the numbers shot, so the resident populations of elk, deer, boar and turkey are as healthy as can be.

Into the wilds

Not the most expected sight: the giant pipes carrying two million

gallons of water a minute to the taps of California

A California poppy struggles to open in the gale

Photographer Sarah at work amid the poppies.

No colour adjustment done!

We hunted down there - the great run began from the knoll in the centre

Evening light on the central plain

Looking forward to seeing the results of this shot...

The wild interior

Tyce Mothershead: lord of all he surveys

The Moon rises

Tyce, Sarah, Cary and HC as the light falls

Happy quartet! Me, Tyce, Sarah and Cary

The following morning, yet another and very different side of the ranch was revealed to us, as Tyce and his trusty truck took us far from the road on the south, desert side of the ranch, past the ‘African savannah’ where Taylor Swift filmed her music video for Wildest Dreams, and into drifts of wildflowers, hundreds upon hundreds of vivid yellow and blue flowers carpeting the high-desert slopes. Tyce related stories of coyote runs into the valleys, remembering every twist and turn of the chase. We spotted one coyote and Tyce glimpsed a bobcat, though frustratingly it had disappeared from sight by the time I found the right spot. One animal I have yet to spot – one day!

Yes, those are all wildflowers

Obligatory model shot!

And again! Note our appropriately flowered shirts. No flies on us!

At last, enough warm sunshine for the poppies to open 

iPhone vs professional

Looking south to the desert

Sarah, Cary, HC and me with Tejon guide extraordinaire Tyce

It was nigh impossible to drag ourselves away from the flower-strewn slopes, but we had a long way to go – 450 miles up Highway 395 on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevadas to North Lake Tahoe. A slap-up breakfast at the Old Desert Café in the Mojave Desert set us up properly for a spectacular drive, snowy peaks to our left and sage-brush dotted desert to our right. A bleak world of blue sky, white mountains and brown desert, yet beautiful in its unforgiving vastness.

We just had to stop here!

And here!

Mono Lake with its weird salt tufa towers on the edge

Cary worked her magic with Google and found us a delightful place to stay, Rustic Cottages on the northern shores of the lake, with a wood-burning stove, comfortable beds and even enough snow on the ground for the requisite snowball fight. Friendly staff and a tasty breakfast made for a perfect night – I highly recommend staying here. We arrived in the dark, but in the morning the views from the beach yards from our cabin were as spectacular as I had been led to believe, the air so clear that the furthest shore looked mere miles away – it was more than 20. The water was crystal clear, too; indeed, the lake is 99.994% pure, only 0.004% less pure than commercially distilled water, and an awful lot better tasting. Being a hugely popular ski resort, I was concerned that the lake shores would be crowded and ugly with buildings, but it was quite the opposite – sitting in the warm sunshine looking out over this great bowl in the mountains, 6,000ft up, I couldn’t see evidence of another soul. The pine-clad slopes and sparkling peaks appeared empty of ski lifts and hotels, even though I knew they were there somewhere. This is a gorgeous place: I will be back. This time, however, only a brief stay was possible - next stop, Red Rock Hounds, Reno!

Lake Tahoe at last, and as beautiful as I hoped.

The mountains on the far side are about 20 miles away,

yet the air was so clear it felt as if I could touch them.

Glorious

The delightful Tahoe Vista Rustic Cottages. Recommended!

Our cosy cabin, complete with snow for snowball fights.

By the time I took this pic, most of it had been used

What a view!

HC and happy girls