Tuesday, April 15, 2014 – FABULOUS Ride at Hill Country SNA

What a gorgeous day!! It got quite cold overnight, into the mid 30's, so we weren't in any hurry to get out of bed, slept in until nearly 10 (after I turned the furnace on and warmed it up, that is!), then had breakfast, and were out, saddle up, and hitting the trail by about 12:30 or so. Today, at the suggestion of the nice Ranger we met on Sunday, we decided to do both the 4A and 4B loops, as they both were supposed to have spectacular views, and they did not disappoint! From the camp we crossed the road and crossed a nice field, which will be a perfect place to canter on the way back, but the horses were so rested after having a day off yesterday, they were walking fast and frisky for the first few miles of flatlands. We soon reached the group camp where they have stalls and an arena, and started climbing no long after that. While the bottom land was mostly dirt trails, the climbs were rocky, but our guys went up with no problem, their rubber bottomed Cavallo boots providing them with great traction. We saw a lot of marking from horseshoes, that looked like a lot of slipping. We like boots better, more protection and as I said, better traction. We climbed with no problems and were rewarded with gorgeous view after gorgeous view! We followed the trails faithfully, which were marked pretty well for the most part, except one section that I had traced on Google Earth using their trail map as an overlay indicated a turn to the south MUCH earlier than what the actual trail was. If you only had the map you'd be okay, but looking at my GPS and seeing us get so off-track was a bit nerve-racking, at least for a little while. But frankly, there was only one trail, and we never saw any turn-offs, so we get moving forward, and suddenly the trail turned southward, and I could breathe a sigh of relief. It turned out to be at almost a third of a mile farther north than marked on their map. I'm planning on mentioning to the Ranger, just to let her know. Anyway, we did the loops counter-clockwise, and there were several benches along the way. We stopped at one for a quick break and apples all around, then went a bit farther and came across another one with an even more spectacular view. There was one hill so far away, I swear we were looking at Mexico! Beautiful! Apollo seemed to be right in his element, no hesitation, completely engaged with the trail. Once again I had him in his hackamore, though at one point I put on some gloves because he was pulling so hard it was giving me rope burns. We finally reached the bottom of the valley again, and just before we reached the road, a great big black bird flew up right in front of Apollo, and in a split second his nose was where his tail had just been, and I didn't have a horse under me any more, and I ended up on the ground. Fortunately, it was dirt and not rocks, and I missed a dead tree limb by a couple of feet, so no damage done. Apollo just went over to Mama for protection, and stopped there. As always, I just dusted myself off and climbed back up again, and we were on our way. We crossed the road and picked up the trail that paralleled it, which took us to that open field again, and as soon as the horses saw it, they started racing across it! We were amazed they had that much energy after all those climbs, but I guess all that careful and cautious walking made them really want to stretch their legs, so off we went! It is so exhilarating to do that! It was one of the longest canters we've ever done, and the horses just seemed to want to do more. I am so looking forward to the rest of the trails here! We've gotten most of the hardest ones done, the rest will probably be a piece of cake compared to this one. What a great day! We got back to camp around 3:45, after doing almost exactly 9 miles in about 3 hours. Got the horses settled in, then got ourselves settled in for the rest of the evening. Exactly the kind of days we LIVE for, especially after having been in one place, without trails, for so long. Wonderful!

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