Woke up to a beautiful day, just a nip in the air this morning, quickly being replaced by warm, sunny skies. After a late breakfast we saddled up the horses and head out, going uphill on the 50 Year trail, figuring uphill to burn off any excess alfalfa energy at the beginning of the ride would be good. It got a bit rockier as we got higher, but there was still plenty of sand around for the most part. After a bit of climbing, we eventually came to a plateau for a while, a bit rockier, but not too bad. We came to a gate and passed through, and it seemed as though we were supposed to turn to the right rather than straight, (at least that's they way the sign seemed to indicate), so we went right for a while until it came to a T. Again, it seemed like the cutoff we were looking for on my GPS was right about there, so we turned right, but that just led us to an overlook. We came back and went the other way, which then switchbacked it's way down the hill until if finally reach what was more like a road, but the sign then clearly said turn right, so we did. Passed quite a few free range cows in this section. Moments later, we came to two gates side by side. The one of the right said it was the entrance back into Catalina State Park, the other wasn't marked other than to close the gate. It had a cattle guard with a cowboy gate next to it, though it was partially filled with dirt so probably not a problem, but having had bad experiences with cattle guards previously, I wasn't about to try it. Anyway, we agreed to take the park entrance, then followed what seemed to be the main path trail ahead. That eventually narrowed until it became a wash, did a river crossing, and figured out we were way off track according to my GPS, though we were heading south, which was the eventual direction we wanted to go. We followed the wash until it became almost impassable, then we cut west in an effort to rejoin the original Sutherland Trail. Just before we reached, but since we were clearly heading in the right direction, we stopped and shared an apple with the horses, resting momentarily before moving on. Again, the trail alternated between sandy and rocky, but nothing too tricky. The views of the mountains in front of us were spectacular, with a bit of snow dusting the top after the rain we had the other day. Moments after beginning again, we met up with Sutherland trail and followed that south again. There was one tricky spot that went down some actual steps that someone had build into the side of the ridge, and were a bit close together for a horse going down, but we managed to make it without any drama, though we took it nice and slow. That brought us to a creek crossing and another climb up the other side, but part of that stairway had a bypass for horses, which helped, and the top steps were wider apart, making it much easier. We started picking up a lot of foot traffic at this point, and soon we dumped out into a parking area. We found the Bridle Trail on the far side of the parking area, and that brought us straight home, passing by a group area and several campgrounds. A very nice ride, a bit shorter than we expected because we cut off a significant corner of my proposed route when we missed where to go when we came through that double gate, but that just means now we'll have to go back again in the reverse direction to find out what we missed! Just under nine miles, the perfect length for me, and even Hubby's been getting fit enough lately to hand in there for 3+ hour rides. Got the horses bedded down for the night, and enjoyed a relaxing Friday evening.
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