Archives for July 2019

Since poor Apollo hasn't been able to get ridden much lately, I decided to take him for a short ride before the heat and rain came in, and there was one trailhead out of the campground I hadn't experienced yet, so I saddled him up and headed out on the white trail near the day parking area. It turned out to be one of the best trails out here! It wasn't too steep going out of the camp like all of the other trails were, and soon turned into a road that would have been perfect for Hubby if he had been riding with me, a nice slow grade down to the creek before rising gradually again. I followed it to a place known as Badger Cave on the map, which looped around nicely. If Hubby had been with me it would have been a perfectly nice loop back to the camp, but I decided to go out a bit further and take the purple trail back again. Of course, there were still a lot of muddy spots, but after several days without rain they were better than they had been, and the white trail wasn't bad at all, though there were a number of trees down along the way, none over the trail, fortunately. When I got back to marker B, I started up the red trail to the camp, but a large tree had apparently recently come down, as I didn't see any track marks of anyone trying to get around it, and it was too wild and steep to try to get around it, so I backtracked and took the red (or is it purple?) the long way back to camp, which was still pretty muddy, but not bad. Apollo was totally saturated with sweat by the time we got back to camp, the heat and humidity was so bad. I gave him a nice cold bath and let him graze on some clover before putting him back on the highline. Got a few chores done, got Hubby hooked up on his dialysis machine, and relaxed the rest of the day. Normally I would be packing up as much as I could for an early start tomorrow, but having spoken to the president at Tri-County where we're headed, he wanted to meet with us and couldn't be there until 4:00, so I decided to leave most of the work until morning, since I would have so much time. Settled down for the evening, as usual, grateful for another day on the road!

Well, after all the rain yesterday, I expected the trails to be pretty sloppy today, and no surprise, they were! Nevertheless, today's the day I put aside to take Flash on the long perimeter ride out to Airplane rock and points east, and since the weather is forecast to only get hotter over the next few days, I figure this is my last chance. Saddled him up and headed out on my own down the orange trail, slipping, sliding and sucking hooves out of muck most of the way down. Once I got past some of the more used section of the trails, though, it did get a little better. I'm glad Phyllis told me about how all the old white trails either loop around or go out to a linear destination and dead end, it helped me not get lost today. On the old map, the orange trail was an entire loop, on the old map, the orange trail became a white trail at Airplane Rock, and on the ground it's still white, but then it turned to orange later, as if someone had started to change to markings and didn't finish or I missed an intersection somewhere. In any event, the ride took me along some really mucky areas, and then into some long stretches of gravel (though I didn't bring horse boots since I knew I'd lose them in the muck, or have to take them off and put them back on half a dozen times), but it didn't seem to bother Flash too much. The trail had it's highlights, though Airplane rock was kind of a disappointment. I'm not sure what I was expecting, maybe a rock suspended precariously on another rock or something, but this was essentially just a bluff with a view. Granted, the outcropping did look like the nose of an airplane when looking from the side, but the call the actually bluff it's "wings" seemed like a stretch. Of course, my house in on a bluff, and our view is much more expansive, so I guess I'm spoiled. Maybe it was the buildup to it. The trail led up to a area that was cordoned off, with a bunch of highlines stretched between trees and half a dozen picnic tables and even an outhouse. It made it seem like it would be something spectacular like Niagara Falls or something. Anyway, I did tie up Flash on the highline and walk down to the rock, taking pictures along the way. We rested a bit before moving out on what will be the orange trail going north, but is still the white trail for now. That actually turned out to be my favorite part of the trail once it went back into the woods after a stretch on a road. I think I passed Twin Falls and Chapel Cave, but I'm not sure because the trail seemed to go above it, not to it, but there was less much and gravel here, a truly nice section of trail. Eventually that took us down again, and we came to a creek with dubious markings again, but I managed to get on the right orange trail (there was a white trail leaving the creek as well) and before long we were back on the long stretch home. It was nearly 11 miles, less than 4 hours, so a good long ride for us both, which we needed. Flash didn't seem any worse for the wear, though the heat was pretty intense by the time we got back to camp. I gave him a nice cool bath and put him away, then boiled some eggs to make deviled eggs with later, then sat in my chair a dozed off for awhile. One of the campers up the road from me had invited me to his fish fry tonight, and as I went by on the way back to camp I confirmed the time as 6:00. I set my alarm for 5:00 so I would have time to finish off my deviled eggs for the fish fry, and wandered up about 10 minutes early, only to find everyone had already started eating. I joined in, ate, chatted with some folks, then about a half hour into it, it began to rain! This was NOT in the forecast, it was supposed to be clear for the next few days, and I had left my saddle and tack on the picnic table to dry after I came back from my ride! I waited around for a bit until the rain stopped, then made my departure back to my site, where I finished wiping down and putting away all my tack. It gave me a good excuse to wash my lambs wool seat cover, though, it needed it after all the mud we've been riding through! That took me the better part of an hour to get all that done, and I was exhausted by then, so I took a much needed shower and settled down for what was left of the evening.

Amazingly, Hubby felt well enough to ride again today, so happy he's feeling better! I think this new dialysis schedule of one day on, on day off is doing him a world of good. We just have to hope his blood is getting clean enough, which we should know soon from the labs we drew last week. Anyway, We had breakfast, and then I got the horses saddled, and again, Hubby rode Apollo. We decided to take a loop that was less than three miles, and that hopefully was a bit more gradual on the downhill grade than the orange trail. The start of that trail was up the road just a bit, but we decided to take Lola with us today, she's been feeling a bit left out lately, especially having to be on a leash so much of the time here. We found the trailhead with no problem, but just as we crossed the road, Hubby lost a fastener on his slobber strap, so I had to stop and jury-rig it with a spare piece of leather string I had strapped to my saddle. Once that was done, we continued on our way, and it was quite a nice ride, except that there was a couple of trees down, one that required us to climb quite a ways up a hill to get around, and Hubby got a little stuck for a few minutes (he had to rest from the exertion), but eventually he got around it with only one small scrape on his arm. After a few more rests along the way, we managed to reach the orange trail with it's upward climb, and were back in camp in no time. Another great ride for Hubby!! Yay!!! No trouble dismounting, and he made it back to his comfy gravity chair, where he planned to stay most of the rest of the day, reading. I unsaddled Apollo and put him away, but I still wanted to take a longer ride, though I realized it wouldn't be the long ride I had planned yesterday, but another ride was still possible. So I headed back out the orange trail, which is about the main trail that most other trails end up on at one time or another, and based on some suggestions from Phyllis, turned left at Marker M, which led me to a fence, turned right there, and right again when I came to the next "T." This took me on a trail that was marked white on the trees (which, evidently, is how practically every single side trail is marked, including all directions at every intersection, so it's not very helpful), but on the map it's marked in purple. The story I got from Phyllis was that evidently all the trail markers are sitting around somewhere waiting to be put up, but the powers-that-be didn't want the trail markers to go up until the maps were printed and ready for distribution. Well, they were distributed last Monday, but since the trail markers aren't up yet, it's very confusing to someone who doesn't know their way around, like me. The route that Phyllis recommended, she said wasn't even on the map! How crazy is that? Anyway, I did follow her instructions, and it was quite a lovely ride, weaving along edges of bluffs and and through the woods. Most of the footing was pretty good, with only a few really sloppy spots. Fortunately, there weren't any other trees down along that route, so we had no more detour troubles. When we turned onto the orange trail for the final leg home, I let Flash pick and choose his own way, trying to get him to use his mind a bit more. In the woods, I still have to steer him around practically every tree or he starts heading off the trail, but when I let him choose his own way on the orange trail, I think he finally started to get the idea that he could make his own decisions, and that seemed like a new idea to him. I think he's always been kept under a tight rein, never having to think for himself, but I really need to get him like Apollo, where he can just be put on a loose rein and he'll know to follow the trail himself without constant supervision. A work in progress, for sure! When I got back and downloaded the route to MapMyHike,which was just over 4.5 miles, then opened it in Google Earth and overlaid it on the trail map, it turned out that trail was on the map after all! It was just colored purple when the trail markers were white, so I guess that must have been confusing to even an old hand like Phyllis! Anyway, it was after 4:00 by the time I got back, so I quickly got everyone and everything put away and settled down for the evening. Was delighted to see our neighbors with the generator had packed up and left, so I'm looking forward to a quiet night and a good night sleep tonight!