Archives for September 2015

Waking up to cooler temperatures after that front moved through, we splurged on blueberry pancakes before we saddled up for a quick ride. We had learned there was another trail, the White trail, that isn't even on the map at all, and we wanted to include it on the map I'm making, so we headed out "Gibby's" trail that leaves from the south end of the camp. This, too, was a very nice trail, not quite so steep as some of the others, so a bit more relaxing. We did go by a bee's nest where Lola got stung once, but that was it. Terry had warned us about it, and had put some Sevin dust on it, but they were still buzzing around a bit, so we made a wide berth, but Lola didn't pay attention, thus the sting. After completing the White trail, we headed down the hill to the entrance to the Red north trail again, doing it in reverse, so it seemed like a whole new trail. A beautiful ride, albeit short (less than three miles), but definitely sweet! Spent the day finishing the map, watching football, and putting stuff away in preparation for our departure tomorrow.

Today we had decided to try to finish off as many of the other trails as we could today, with an eye toward putting together a good color-coded map for this place. The one provided by the Forest service is terrible, with no trail colors mentioned, no legend, no trail lengths, not even close to being accurate in terms of where the trails actually were, so I decided I would create a new one and give it to Kathy for their future use. We headed out the red North trail, which we skipped on Wednesday because the day was getting too long, and that was truly a nice trail, mostly wooded, narrow single track, had to be careful not to brush against trees which were really crowding the trail. There was a lesser used shortcut that we got turned around on, going straight when we should have cut right, but we soon got back on track. Again, the trails were much more twisty than usual, and lots of climbs, some quite steep, would have been nice to have a few more switch-backs, but the terrain really makes that difficult. After completing the Red North trail, and took the Blue trail straight out until we hit the Green North trail, which was also quite nice, then finally hitting the Blue Trail again, which we took north so that we could go all the way to the "Dragon's Head." If you look at the map, the park is sort of shaped like a dragon looking east, so the farthest point is the Dragon's Head in the northeast corner. Once we picked up the Blue Trail, it opened right up into a field, and normally we would have done a fabulous gallop through there, but the horses were already pretty tired from all the climbing, so a bit of a canter was the best they could muster. We circled the Dragon's Head, then when the Blue trail hit the Green trail again, we followed that again. We soon met back up with the Blue trail, and stopped for a lunch break, then headed back west again, picking up the Green south trail, which soon became our very favorite trail in the forest, which is saying a lot because they all had a lot of nice qualities. Once we completed the Green trail, we made a beeline home on the Blue trail, with a total of 13 miles today! It was much more of a workout than a typical 13 mile ride, though, this is a GREAT place if you want to really condition your horse, especially if you're running endurance races. Trails had a few rocky sections, but not too bad, not enough for me to put boots on Apollo, though Hubby put them on his mare, mostly because his haven't been falling off like mine have lately. We really like this place, and had it not been for this group ride this week, I doubt we would have had much company here at all, which the ranger Justin said as much. Got the horses back on their lines and dragged ourselves up the hill to the RV, where we all crashed for the evening. The dogs flopped down and didn't move all night! A great workout for all!

Slept late this morning, it's so nice and quiet here, at the moment anyway, and the site we're in doesn't get any sun until practically noon! Got the horses saddled up and out by just after 1:00, with intentions to hit three loops that run off the main trail. We headed out the main blue trail that runs east to west through the length of the park. The trails were a little rocky at first, but really had more dirt and grass, so I didn't put boots on Apollo, though I did carry them, just in case. What started out as a fairly easy trail quickly became more challenging, mainly because the hills were much more plentiful and steep than we had anticipated, so much so that my GPS had a little trouble following us, as I discovered later when downloading the route. It was a great workout for the horses, though! They both worked up a sweat in the near 80 degree temps, but we all had a great time. In the end, we skipped the final red north loop, as we had already been out almost two hours, and today was supposed to be a short ride. We'll take that loop out when we leave next time! A very nice ride, did lots of cantering uphill, the terrain was varied, from deep woods to recovering clear-cut areas, passing by a number of small lakes and ponds. Really a pleasant surprise, as we thought that since the forest was so small it might not be very interesting, but not the case! Very challenging and interesting! Got everybody settled by around 4, then I headed out to town to get a replacement rope for the starter handle on the generator that broke last night, as well as a few other odds and ends, and to check my email. Got back and helped Hubby put the generator back together again before settling down for the debates on CNN, before heading to bed, late, of course!

Today, the forecast was perfect! After yesterday's drizzle, today was a beautiful, sunny day, with temps in the low 70's. I planned a 12 mile ride today, and Hubby was in agreement, in fact, we ended up going closer to 13. We headed west again, this time turning north. Not long after that, we had a group of 8 or 10 riders catch up to us on the trail, chattering away like people always seem to do in groups, so we gave up any hope of sneaking up on any elk. We let them pass, as they were going faster than us, then we passed them again when they got to an intersection and couldn't figure out which way to go. I wasn't sure either, but my trusty GPS let me know we had to turn right, so we headed out while they were still analyzing maps. We lost our way once, when we missed a turn and ended up on a pipeline, but the beauty of a GPS is that it let's us know when we're off track, and how to get back on track again! Plus we heard the chatty group go by not far away, so it was easy to find the trail. Eventually they got far enough ahead where we couldn't hear them any more. The trails, again, were very nice, though we hit one bad muddy spot where both of Apollo's boots got pulled off, but I retrieved them and just tied them to my saddle, as the trail wasn't rocky enough to worry about them. I vowed to wash them and put them on again before hitting any bad gravel, which I eventually was able to do. The "horse watering" spots that were marked on the map weren't exactly well marked on the trail, one was barely a puddle we passed by before we realized that's what it was. The second one was an actual creek crossing, so the horses got a drink there, though we had also watered them at a creek by the road a bit earlier. We stayed mostly on the horse trails, but at one point elected to take an "administrative road," which looked like it may have been an old logging road, and was quite beautiful, but unmaintained. As a result, we had to circumvent a lot of trees that had fallen across the road, but this wasn't difficult. It would have been a brilliant trail if someone had opted to clean it up a bit, not sure why they haven't. That was really the only challenging bit, the rest was quite straightforward. Another gorgeous ride, and Hubby (and little Billy) made it without any problem. Obviously, we're building our stamina up again, yeah! A gorgeous day, absolutely perfect weather, no drama, a great day!