Horses in mountains

[Huw]

Can anyone help me with a horse related problem?

I have a mountain range, similar in height and geography to the Andes. It is split by deep, long valleys, which are all densely populated.

To get between these valleys there are high mountain passes. Now, in the real Andes, llamas are used as pack animals, but IMC it'll be horses. What I want to know is to what altitude can a horse still function as a pack animal or steed?

Thanks in advance.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

No hard answer for you, but some ballparks

During the expansion in the American West several of the passes traversed commonly with horses and oxen were greater than 10,000ft altitude. So at least that high.

But horses don't handle extreme cold weather very well. During the Alaskan gold rush there was a particular stretch littered with frozen horse carcasses. Beyond that point only dogs were used because horses couldn't survive in those sort of temperatures.

 

[Haffrung Helleyes]

very high

I have taken pack horses to about 5100 meters crossing passes in the Indian Himalayas. This is about 17000 feet.

I imagine that horses could go higher, but you run into the problem that they have nowhere to graze. Also, it gets very, very cold at that altitude at night (though my guide , a tibetan, told me that he had been forced to spend the night on a 5000m pass one night and his horses survived).

Ken

 

[Haffrung Helleyes]

another thing

often passes at that altitude require scrambling/climbing up boulder fields that a horse can't navigate. In my experience (and I have spent quite a bit of time at altitude) this is the factor that determines whether horses can be used as pack animals.

Ken

 

[Zurai]

Hannibal took elephants through the Pyrenees and the Alps (admittedly, the vast majority of them died - more from starvation than anything else), so I wouldn't worry too terribly about horses. Natives probably used llamas because there were no horses in the Americas before European explorers brought them over, and why use rare horses when you've got tons of perfectly serviceable llamas already?

 

[Treebore]

often passes at that altitude require scrambling/climbing up boulder fields that a horse can't navigate. In my experience (and I have spent quite a bit of time at altitude) this is the factor that determines whether horses can be used as pack animals.

Ken

If the OP wants to get even more specific/technical only certain horse breeds would be used. You wouldn't want to take Arabians, for instance, unless the trails are very clear. I don't know a frequency, but I know Arabians with broken legs have been "rescued" out of these small mountains around here, but it is because it is very broken ground. You want "working" types, like Appallosa's and quarter horse types. Shorter leg, thicker bone is what I have been told to look for.

So even though Arabians are short legged I have been told they are still thinner boned. In comparison to the App's and quarters I have had my 15 hand arabian was definitely finer boned. My 16.5 hand thoroughbred is too fined boned and too tall, so she can only be safely rode on clear/clean trails around here.

Like here is my Thoroughbred:

http://www.lundr.com/Farm/Capreta.html


I would show you my Arabian, but he died a couple of weeks ago and my wife took down his pics. The App. we used to have is still alive, so his pics are there to the left under "Jet".

The rest are our goats, birds, etc...

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

Altitude in and of itself isn't really more of an issue for horses than people. As noted before the issues are lack of graze at higher altitudes. And most importantly terrain issues. Horses and many other hooved animals not specifically adapted to the conditions (i.e. Mountain Goats and Bighorn Sheep) don't handle broken rocky ground, scree fields, or any ground that takes scrabbling to get up very well. Where a toed animal like a dog, bear, person, etc doesn't have any great trouble an ungulate will twist and break legs frequently. Breeds with stocky legs are the rule, you want nice short thick legs with big legbones to reduce injuries. Historically you tended to find mountain peoples using large ponies more than horses. They were strong for their size, handled poor feed well, durable legs not prone to sprains or breaks, and some did better in inclement weather. Cold weather is tolerable to a point, but when they reach the limit horses drop like flies. Note this place http://www.kokogiak.com/klon/big10.html Dead Horse Gulch. Where dead horses literally froze to death as they walked and littered the ground of the pass like fallen timber.

In this vein I'd suggest a new breed of horse common to this area. Give it a couple extra points of Con and the powerful build trait, call it the Mountain Pony. An ugly hammerheaded beast with a shaggy dirt-brown coat and thick knob-kneed legs. That does surprisingly well in bad conditions.

 

[Huw]

Thanks for the replies.

I want a couple of areas (a plateau and a mountain pass) where the party can't take horses, and can't really work around it.

Plan B: A large local griffin population.