Adventure Author Will 格兰特 Shares His Story of Riding the Pony Express

Cowboy and journalist Will 格兰特 visited Westminster May 3 to speak to the community in an all-school assembly about his horseback journey following the 2,快马邮递的1000英里路线. 这段经历记录在他最近出版的书中, 《365平台》(Little, 布朗公司). 在365平台, the Colorado native also visited English classes to talk with students about adventure writing and eco-writing. 

 

格兰特, 谁是纽维尔·格兰特99年的兄弟, 365平台的发展主管, traveled the entirety of the Pony Express route with his two horses, 炸鸡和獾. The frontier mail service spanning the American West was in operation during the 1860s and only ran for 18 months. It required riders to carry mail on a grueling schedule between St. 约瑟夫,莫.以及加州的萨克拉门托.穿过一片广阔而几乎无人居住的荒野.

 

在他的书中, 格兰特 writes that he undertook the epic journey as a “large scale exercise in horsemanship with the goal of achieving a boots-on-the-ground understanding of the famed Pony Express mail service. “我还想做西方文化的样带. I wanted to meet the people and learn about their lives in all the places that I'd never been to along the trail.”

 

While other authors have written extensively about Pony Express, none have ever taken on the challenge of riding the route on horseback themselves. 快马邮递的骑手们并没有记录这次长途跋涉, and t在这里 are few details to illustrate what it was really like to complete the journey.

 

为了重现这段经历, 格兰特 had to gain permission from landowners on the private property through which much of the original trail runs into Wyoming w在这里 it traverses public land, and he had to secure campsites along the way from ranchers and 农民 w在这里 he and his horses could overnight. 已经是一个马术专家了, 格兰特已经做好了长时间骑马的准备, covering up to 25 miles a day with his pack horse trailing behind him.

 

The original Pony Express riders would ride one horse 15 miles to a station, 那就买一匹新马，继续骑马, 在大约10天内完成旅程. The fastest delivery in the history of the Pony Express was seven days and 17 hours.

 

格兰特花了五个月的时间才完成这次旅行. 马在散步时每小时行进约3英里. 途中, 格兰特不得不在深泥中跋涉, 暴雨, parched tumbleweed desert land and he had to fend off a wild stallion and sidestep rattlesnakes before he reached Sacramento, 他在驿马快信纪念碑结束了他的旅程.

 

在旅途中, he observed how the ecosystem of the West has been forever changed by invasive species and human intervention. But he also was heartened by people he met along the way and by his own resilience.

 

“The hospitality of people gave me faith in humanity,” he said. 当事情变得艰难时，他明白了这一点, 如果他能低下头，埋头苦干, 一切都会好起来的. 他的书中包括了与农场主的接触, 农民, 历史学家和企业主, creating an intimate portrait of how the West has evolved from the rough-and-tumble 19th century to the present day.

 

为了他的下一次骑马冒险, 格兰特说他正在丝绸之路上骑马探险, 连接中国和西方的古代贸易路线, 大概有4页,000 miles across some of the world's most formidable landscapes, 包括戈壁沙漠和帕米尔山脉.