I watched a professional packer with mules walk right up the face of a Colorado mountain that our guy with the horses had to zig zag up. The muscle mass on those mules was huge compared with Gary's horses.
As a flat lander, the only thing that I knew about horses was from watching westerns on TV and the pony ring at the amusement park. Gary said here is your horse and that horse knew that I knew nothing about operating one. I'd be coming down when the horse was coming up and mostly we just fed our way up to where ever the horse was taking me. I walked it around like a dog on a leash for a couple of days, but come to find out it was lonely for the other horses and it would go PBBBBB and WHEEEE and we weren't going to see an elk that way.
