Food, shelter, water…
It was beginning to become abundantly clear, food shelter and water where our primary concerns.
Of course we had to also keep the horses in mind when choosing a campsite. There needed to be ample grazing and trees to either set up highlines or tie the horses too. My Mustang was a little anxious if his buddy Sam was out of eyesight. I couldn’t tie him somewhere that he could go round and round and snub himself up against the tree trunk. Sam usually stood tied nicely even if I had him lightly connected to a bush.
Some of our campsites were on such deep angles I felt bad about asking the horses to stand that way all night long. There were so many many fallen trees due to the beetle kill off of the Pines, I felt they were dangerous obstacles in the heavily forested areas.
I was a bit worried about the horses impaling themselves on dead branches sticking up from the ground. Rocks, rocks and more rocks… What if they wanted to lie down?
We also needed a fairly flat place to put our tents or we wouldn’t get a good nights sleep. All of these things to consider, very important things if we were to get our rest and the horses were able to get their’s.
When backpackers would make the comment… “Now that’s the way to do it “! I always thought to myself, yeah, but… You can just set your tent up wherever it’s most convenient for you at the time. We have our thousand pound toddlers to think of!
Making this trip horseback was very labor-intensive, thinking all the time how can we keep our horses safe and healthy?
When I Ride... 
Way to go! I went solo for ten days with my horse, Rebel, in the forest behind Santa Barbara, Calif., when I was 18. The first night out, a bear broke into my campsite, ripped open my stuff sack of food, poked claw holes in my poly-bottle . . . and I had nightmares of bear every night I was out. I hear your concern for the horses. The wilderness is not necessarily hospitable! Thank you for the post :)) Dawn
https://soulhorseride.wordpress.com/virtual-rides/