Another early morning for us, our time clocks are really working well in this Rocky Mountain Time. I was up by 7:00, having gone to bed about 9:30, and reading till a little after 10:00. Best night sleep so far, fell right back to sleep after I woke up a couple of times, fewer times than most nights. Getting back to normal! Rasped Apollo's feet again, just to make sure the boots would go easily, though I still had to do a bit more on one, but finally they slid right on. Clio was another matter, got them on but had to force the back of them up over her heels. Out on the trail before 11:00, though, this time going to check out Round Mountain, which is a long, supposedly gradual climb. Well, I guess relatively speaking it was gradual, but it went on and on and on! More than 2.5 miles before we finally hit our high point at 10, 157 feet where we found ourselves in a beautiful field with at 360 degree absolutely gorgeous panoramic view! Stunning! We rested the horses and lay down on the grass for a while, luxuriating in the simple pleasures. The feel of the ground, the sound of the wind whistling through the nearby pines, the munching of the horses on the tufts of grass where we lay, the crystal blue sky, white fluffs of some kind of pollen racing past us on the wind by the millions. Heaven on earth! We lay there for quite a while, then a riding party of some of our camp neighbors went by, breaking the spell of being the only two people on earth. We waited a few more minutes before re-mounting and heading back down the mountain. We passed several hikers, caught up to the riding party that had stopped for some reason, and we continued past them, with Apollo straining to go faster and faster down the hill. It was all I could do to hold him back, I thought he'd be worn out after all that climbing, but he was still raring to go when we reached the campground, even cantering along the road to the campsite! He continued pawing all the way through his unsaddling and unbooting, I figured he must be thirsty so I got him into the corral right away, but he bypassed the water to flop down on the ground and roll! Then he stood up, shook himself, dropped himself down on his other side and rolled again! Then he got up and did the same thing again, over and over and over, at least half a dozen times on both sides. I've never seen him do that before, and I hope it isn't something symptomatic of colic. We've been trying to gradually move them over to a mix of their old coastal hay to this new mix of alfalfa, and I've been so afraid that too much alfalfa will cause it, but we've been really careful. Nevertheless, I'm thinking of dropping back to just one flake a day of the alfalfa mix, just in case. He's been acting so hyper, and I'm not sure if it was because of the month-long layoff, or if he's just really excited about being back on challenging trails every day, or if the alfalfa is just going to his head. Sure wish horses could talk! Anyway, once he was finished, he finally settled down, got a drink and took a nap, along with Mama, who was already sound asleep. In any event, it was a beautiful day, a fabulous ride, particularly grand because I know the folks down in the valley are sweltering and we're up here in perfect 80 degree weather, with the occasional cool wind coming down off the mountains. And yes, that's SNOW at the top of the mountains in a few of the pictures! Can't say enough about how gorgeous it is here. Only con is that there are a lot of stones and rocks on the trails, chipping their hooves in the back pretty badly, but it doesn't seem to have affected their performance. Tomorrow, we head west to someplace called Caves Creek or something like that. Again, we have to make it linear to keep it under 7 or 8 miles, but for those that like really LONG rides, and who are acclimated to the high altitude, most of the loops here (of which there are MANY) are at least 12-15 miles long, and all cover lots of terrain, mostly pretty steep up and down, so pretty challenging. Better have fit animals when you come here!
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