End of the road

During her 5,000-mile, 16-month trek across the West and the Plains one Montanan discovered the heart of America

Bernice Ende doesn't fit the traditional image of the American cowboy.

She doesn't have the 10-gallon hat or the six-shooter at her side. She doesn't sit tall and imposing in the saddle astride an equally tall and imposing horse. She's a slight woman in a wide-brimmed straw hat with a high-spirited, fine-boned thoroughbred.

But for the hundreds of people she's met on her long rides across the United States, Ende represents the same romantic spirit that characterized the Old West. She's a symbol of the grit and rugged independence associated with John Wayne and Matt Dillon.

This week, Ende will wrap up a 5,000-mile long ride that began in May 2006. With her dog, Claire, and Honor, a 9-year-old thoroughbred, Ende made a loop through Minnesota to the east, New Mexico and Arizona to the south and as far west as the Oregon Coast. Most recently, she crossed Washington and the Idaho Panhandle.

Ende arrived Friday in Kalispell, the first time she's been in the Flathead Valley in more than 16 months. This week, she'll ride to Trego, which has been her home for more than a decade.

For the last year, home has been wherever she could find a place to lay her hat, hobble her horse and curl up under a blanket. Sometimes that meant sleeping in the ditch beside a highway. At other times, kindhearted people gave her food and shelter.

Whenever she had a chance along the way, Ende stopped at a library to e-mail friends at home. Russ Barnett and Lynn Foster at Outfitters Supply in Columbia Falls, who supplied Ende with a lot of her gear, posted the updates on a blog on their Web site.

In an entry dated June 16, 2006, Ende explained what it was like to ride through Eastern Montana and South Dakota on her way to Minnesota during the first leg of her journey:

I told a passerby the other day that had stopped to visit with us that it wasn't like being in a car out here. That on a horse you were "in it" … and "in it" … and "in it." That it didn't just shoot by you. The immensity of this open country either terrifies or embraces. I feel exposed and [touched] by vastness.

Ende began her journey May 5, 2006, at East Glacier. It took more than two months to make the 1,000-mile trip to Waconia, Minn., where her sister and brother-in-law live. She traveled at 4 mph and averaged 25 miles a day, half of which she walked.

As spring turned to summer, the days grew unbearably warm, making it impossible to travel during the afternoon. Most days, Ende rode from 4 to 11 a.m., and then rested until it grew cooler at about 5 or 6 p.m. Then she rode until sundown, set up camp and settled in for the night, only to get up and do it again the next day.

Swarms of bugs plagued her and the animals. They welcomed the wind, which cooled the air and blew the bugs away.

To spare the horse, Ende carried only three days' worth of food, mostly dried fruit and jerky. All-told, her gear and supplies - including the saddle - weighed 70 pounds. As the journey wore on, she got the weight down to 50 pounds.

When food ran out or water wasn't available, Ende knocked on doors. Sometimes, when riding through country where water was scarce, that meant knocking three or four times a day.

No one, she said, ever refused her requests for help.

She's met with "nothing but generosity, nothing but open doors," she said. "It [the ride] just evokes smiles."

Ende stayed a month with her family in Minnesota, and then hit the trail again in mid-August 2006. She headed south, bound for New Mexico.

On the way, she spent a week in Red Cloud, Neb. That, Ende said, is where the feel and purpose of the trip changed.

To make a little money, she gave a couple of pass-the-hat talks describing her adventure to local organizations. Afterward, countless people told her how much they wished they could do something similar.

She realized she represented something to those people. She was someone who dared to do what she loved, even though it defied societal norms and a conventional American life. She was living the real American dream by pursuing her own dream.

Ende knew that long riding no longer was something she did. It was who she was.

"I am now a lady long rider," she said. "For most people, the long ride is a once-in-a-lifetime dream. For me, it's my life."

It was a new perspective. Ende made her first long ride, a 2,000-mile trip from Montana to Albuquerque, N.M., in 2005. She expected the second ride to be more challenging but essentially similar - a chance to do what she loved.

After Red Cloud, Ende knew she was doing much more. The image of a horse and rider - even a slender woman on a small horse - evoked longing and imagination in the people she spoke with.

"It embraces part of a legacy of our country," she said. "It represents a quality of time and space we're all striving for."

Most people, she added, will never have the opportunity to do what they truly want to do. The demands of job and family and the practicality of living will stand in their way. Ende believes she rides for them and that they vicariously are experiencing the freedom of the ride.

"It changed the way I ride my ride," she said. "I know there are hundreds of spirits riding in the saddle with me."

From Nebraska, Ende traveled through Kansas. She arrived in Las Vegas, N.M., in November - in time to spend Thanksgiving with another sister. She was on the road again before Christmas and reached Arizona before Valentine's Day.

In March, Ende crossed Death Valley with help from a cowboy she met on the way. He drove ahead of her and had camp set up at the end of each day. Claire rode in his pickup during the afternoon, and he made sure there was plenty of food and water for all three.

He left them in Lone Pine, Calif., where Ende spent two weeks speaking to various groups and enjoying the history and heritage of the Lone Pine Museum of Film History. More than 400 classic Western movies were filmed in the area; Ende was simply the latest in a long line of riders to come to town.

From Lone Pine, Ende headed north on the east side of the Sierra Nevadas, then reached the high desert of Northern California and Southern Oregon. She continued north along the Oregon Coast and arrived in Washington in late June.

She, Honor and Claire rested a few weeks with friends in Naselle, Wash. On July 22, they began the last leg of their journey, an 800-mile stretch across Washington and Idaho to the Flathead. Despite hot days reminiscent of their early weeks on the trail, it took less than two months to complete the journey.

Ende hasn't even made it home to Trego yet, but she already is planning her next ride. She plans to leave in January for Southern California, where she has been invited to attend the Lone Pine Film Festival.

She will bring a pack mule on that trip, so Claire will have something to ride. Ende made moccasins from moose hide and sinew to protect the dog's paws, but thousands of miles on the road are hard and it doesn't take long for Claire to wear holes in the leather soles.

Even so, Ende insists Claire and Honor love the rides. They are eager to set out each day, and Claire welcomes the attention she receives whenever they ride into a town.

"The dog and the horse, I think, really like this," she said.

The long miles are hard on Ende, too. She has shin splints from so much walking on uneven terrain. But she has no intention of quitting - especially now that she's realized how her rides encourage other people.

"They say, 'Gol' darn it, maybe I do want to do my dream,'" she said. "The imagination starts to click."

Perhaps, she added, that's why people are so eager to help her any way they can. Ende said she found a "far greater appreciation for our country" in the generosity of the small-town residents she met on her journey.

"In small towns, that's still what America is all about," she said. "The heart of America truly lies in our small towns."

After so many months on the road, Ende isn't sure how she's going to readjust to "normal" life in Trego until her next departure.

"It's a way of living. It's my life now," she said. "I don't know how I'm going to go back and sleep inside. I don't know how I'm going to sleep away from my horse."

Read more about Ende's ride on her blog at www.outfitterssupply.com/long-rider-bernice-ende.asp

Reporter Kristi Albertson may be reached at 758-4438 or by e-mail at kalbertson@dailyinterlake.com.