Trent Peterson hails from Winthrop, in Washington’s Methow Valley. Peterson is a (horse) packer turned saddle maker and horseman. “To be able to call yourself that, you have to be able to create your tack, repair and build gear, be a vet, shoe your horses and everything else,” said Peterson, who packed the Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada, a project he completed in 2018.

“My progression and evolution into packing and saddle making was one of necessity,” recounted Peterson. “I started packing in 2005 in Washington’s Methow Valley. I didn’t get into commercial packing until 2015. I was a winemaker and a weekend warrior.

When my dad passed in 2014 from ataxia, a rare and progressive neurological disease, it gave me the urge to disappear into the mountains for a while. I wanted to do something big. I settled on a Mexico to Canada Pacific Crest Trail ride. I heard my dad’s voice saying, ‘Whatever you do, do it with a purpose.’ I knew that if I could train three wild mustangs and then ride them from Mexico to Canada it would capture people’s imagination and help me to raise the conversation about ataxia and to raise money for the Ataxia Foundation.

To do that ride, I needed a lightweight saddle that could withstand the rigors of being in the saddle all day for six months. I didn’t have the money to buy one. But I did have a lot of knowledge of saddles, and I could afford the raw materials and the time to make one myself.

I designed my saddle for the trip. I took the parts I liked of every saddle I’d ever had and combined them. I got rid of the parts I didn’t like. I researched the heck out of saddles. They changed significantly in the 1860s with the advent of the barbed wire fence. Wire fencing contained animals, so ranchers didn’t have to ride for as long to round up their animals. In the 1860s, saddles went from light and simple to heavy pieces that cost more and featured more artwork.

In designing my saddle, I took the best aspects of Australian, Hope, Mexican, and McClellan saddles–the saddle the U.S. military issued until World War II. I let curiosity take over. I went to a shop that had the tools I needed. I spent 10 days there. I emerged with the saddle I rode from Mexico to Canada.

After the ride–it was 2018– I sold the mustangs and donated all the money I had to the Ataxia Foundation. With $20 to my name, I didn’t know what to do for money. I went back to ski patrolling. Then, someone reached out and said they wanted to buy one of my saddles. That’s when the light switch turned on. I decided to explore saddle making and give 3% of my sales to the Foundation.

Now, I’m working on my 42nd saddle and have grown the business, The Wild In Us, into a bank of knowledge, a time capsule for someone who wants to learn how to make a saddle. I see myself as a steward of saddle making, not a gatekeeper. If you think you have a secret as a saddle maker, you don’t. People have been building saddles for 1000s of years. Those of us who still do might as well share that knowledge. If we don’t pass it on, our time harvesting this info will have been completely wasted and the art will be lost.

I discovered Silky saws when I worked for the Forest Service. We were having a harder and harder time finding people to run a single buck or two-man crosscut saw. In the eastern Sierras, everyone got sent out with a Silky small enough to carry in hand or a backpack.

I started bringing my Silky horsepacking too. For packing, a crosscut saw is traditional. It’s a giant saw you strap to your load that takes specific knowledge to sharpen. The Katanaboy is smaller and lighter but just as powerful. It fit naturally under my leg on my saddle where I could reach it instantly instead of having to unstrap it from my load. When I built my saddle, I scaled down the rifle scabbard to hold the saw. I treated my Silky like it was my Winchester, the rifle you see in every western photo.

With my Silky on my saddle, I am comfortable going into the wilderness on a trail that might not have had a crew on it for weeks or months. It’s the crossroads of efficiency and tradition that lets me get where I want to go.

Here in the Northwest, when you’re packing, a saw and ax are as essential as a bridle and saddle. I teach packing clinics and show people what I bring when I set out on my horse. I share 20 years of packing knowledge. I offer it up to anyone and everyone who wants to come along.

Silky is a balance between tradition and streamlined efficiency. I love tradition, but in the world we live in now, I believe Silky is the best cutting option. When I teach packing clinics, I have everything from kitchen kit to saddles to tents for people to feel, touch, and use. I try to get people to think outside the box. We’re doing a 1000-year-old craft and skill, but it’s in modern times. While we have become accustomed to big heavy traditional tools right down to saddles, what I try to do in clinics is offer up a different ethos, a way of thinking and looking at same problem differently, not through grandfathers eyes, but through tradition translated to the modern world where almost everything has to perform multiple functions.

In its design, Silky is perfect for the job, even if it wasn’t designed for the packing way of life. In packing, I strive for economy of motion. The longer things take, the more possible danger to you, to the animal. If I’m going down trail and have a string of mules and I’m staring down a jimjam of logs, do I go to the lead mule and untie my single buck or crosscut saw, expose myself to more danger or do I grab my expandable, efficient Katanaboy 500 or 650 off my horse, walk forward, cut the tree, and off I go?

With the U.S. government laying off so many forest service employees, packing is in danger. I fear that one season missed in this forest, a season without a trail crew clearing trails will impact the trails here for generations because of seasonal deadfall. We could see an entire way of life disappear.

"I’m passionate about the culture of packing and the way of life. I wear traditional clothing. But I want to come home from my expeditions, and I want everybody to come home with me safely. That’s why I carry a Silky saw on my saddle.”