The state park here is on the edge of the Coconino National Forest, and today we took a trail that doesn't appear on the Dead Horse Ranch Map, but does appear on the "You are Here" placards around the trail. I had taken a picture of one on our last trip, so I was able to do a general GPS map to guide us, though it wasn't a full picture, so I missed part of the western edge of the Bones trail. Nevertheless, I figured about an 8+ mile loop would do the trick today, so off we went! This turned out to be a very fun trail, designed by the local biking community, and once it turned off the main trail, it essentially followed the terrain of the hills and valleys about halfway between the top of the hills and the depth of the valley, so it curved deep into each valley until the trail met that halfway point, then curved back out again around the peninsula that was the mountain. It was easier than Lime Kiln, and all the climbs were gradual, so we had no trouble anywhere. Once, Hubby lost one of Clio's boots, but fortunately he noticed before we had gone to far, so it was just a short jaunt back to retrieve it. Our Cavallos have been GREAT boots, but the straps are getting pretty worn out now, so we're probably going to have to get a new pair for Christmas! Apollo shied a couple of times at nothing, but otherwise, he was a very good horse today. We stopped for a break and an apple all around before continuing on, with the final leg of the journey on Lower Raptor Trail going in the opposite direction than we had taken previously, then we picked up another short trail past the old house that sits atop the hill above our campsite, that got a bit rocky and difficult on the downside, but not too bad. That hooked us up directly with Lower Raptor again, and a short walk southward led us directly back to the campground. It turned out the trip was just under 9.5 miles, but that was because I was missing that section of map and left out one of the trails around one of the mountains. No worries, Hubby is feeling much more fit these days, and he handled it beautifully! The temps today were perfect, and though it was a bit breezy and cloudy, it wasn't enough to create any dust problems. Forecast had called for a 30% chance of rain, and it might have on the other side of the mountain range, but it was great here! This has been a great stay!

Because it was forecast to be a bit warmer today, we decided to get a ride in a little earlier, and to try to reach a nearby National Monument known as Toozigoot, a former Indian pueblo village that sits right on top of a nearby hillock. Since it was only about 1.5 miles away, we thought we would try to ride there, though I was pretty sure we'd be blocked by fences and rules, and in fact, we were. We began by heading north up the road, which turned to gravel just after a cul-de-sac where the tarmac ended. There was a gate just a bit further on, and fortunately it was open, so we headed through it. On the way down the hill after that, we saw a trail marked for horses, but I thought it was too early to turn to we stayed on the road. Shortly after that, we came across a turnoff marked hikers and bikers only, and just beyond that, then the road was marked for hikers only! Even though it seems like a perfectly good road, it seems it leads to a marsh where they didn't want horses, so we turned around and went back to the path marked just for horses. Suddenly we were out of the desert and into a wonderfully cool, shady, riparian area, with taller trees, water crossings, lush grass, a really beautiful, albeit short, trail. We soon rejoined the hiker/biker trail, until it reached a fork. We took the right fork because it brought us closer to the monument, going through a very interesting forest, before being stopped by a gate with no trespassing signs beyond it. We went back to the fork and took the left trail, which was obviously quite new, with little traffic, but someone had marked it with pink ribbons, so we followed the ribbons. We had a couple more water crossings, one about 30 feet wide, but shallow and with firm footing, so it wasn't any problem for our guys. That brought us out to an area that bordered a horse farm, and the trail eventually took us to an old sluice, presumable for gold panning! The trail ended there, so we circled back on a parallel trail, going past a private dam and lake, ending up directly across from the gate where we had been stopped on the hill above us. Apollo balked at making the crossing there, which had loose gravel and dubious footing, so we headed back around the way we came in, back across the water and eventually back to camp. Only 3 miles, just over an hour, but a truly lovely ride! Amazing how a desert can suddenly have so much life, just be adding water! We put the horses away, and decided to drive out to the monument by truck, and though it was only 5 miles away by road, it took over 20 minutes to get there through town because of it's speed limits. We spent about an hour or so wandering the museum and around the grounds of this pueblo, which had been mostly restored by workers in the 30's as a result of the WPA programs, so it wasn't exactly original, but it was at least representative of what it might have looked like back from 1100-1425 AD, before the Indians abandoned it. Then Hubby told me a story about his first boilermaker, back in the early 80's when he first came to this country from England, and that was in the town of Jerome just up the mountain, so we decided to take a ride up there. Talk about some views! Absolutely gorgeous! This old mining town had become an old hippie town, lots of aging bikers, but still had a quaint feel to it, and lo and behold, Hubby managed to find the old bar! It was now called The Spirit Room, though he didn't think it was named that back then. We enjoyed a nice cool draft beer before heading back down the mountain, arriving just as the sun was setting over the mountains behind Jerome. Fed the horses, poured ourselves a cocktail and settled down for the evening. I downloaded a new app on my smartphone today, one that tracks the International Space Station, and tells you when there will be a sighting in your area (based on your actual GPS location), and we were fortunate to be having one this very evening, so a few minutes before it was due, Hubby and I headed outside, and moments later, we caught sight of it, watching it cross the sky from just above Jerome and go toward the south. What a perfect ending to another perfect day! As a raging space fan, I'm going to LOVE that new app!

As our neighbors started to pack up before their noon check out, we started to saddle the horses, leaving on the trail just before they did. We headed north, having decided to go on the most obvious loop, which included Lower Raptor, to Thumper, to Lime Kiln, about 7 or 8 miles according to my Google Earth-made map. The trail started out rocky and climbing, with a few occasional sandy spots once we reached the plateau. Mostly desert-like conditions, but with truly spectacular views all around. To the north, the red rocks of Sedona were clearly visible, to the south, the town of Cottonwood, to the west, the Mongollon rim with a clear view of Jerome, and old mining city up on a hill, to the east, yet another line of mountains. What a grand view! Each time we turned onto a new trail, though, the terrain changed somewhat. We had a few areas with grassy fields, a couple of areas with bunches of small trees, almost tunnel-like, then the most challenging trail, Lime Kiln, which has a long history and which had been recently restored, with a linear trail leading to another state park 15 miles northeast. This was the trail that was described as for experienced riders and horses only, and we could see why. A few places along the trail were so eroded that the drop was too much, so we had to trace a less-traveled route around it on several occasions, making for a few tricky moments, but overall, the horses did a fantastic job! We took one break about halfway around, stopping for shared apples and drinks for us, before heading back out again. It turned out to be a fantastic ride, we had an incredibly great time! The sun was shining, but a nice cool breeze was blowing, making for perfect weather. Everyone enjoyed themselves tremendously! By the time we got back to camp, our neighbors had cleared out, doing a pretty good job of "leaving no trace," except for their corrals, which they didn't seem to do much cleaning of at all. We decided to keep the horses together in one corral so that we would only have to fill one water bucket at a time, and they enjoy being near each other anyway. A great day, perfect in every way!

Weather finally settled down, today was much calmer and warmer, to the mid-60's, so Hubby and I decided to go on a short ride just to keep the horses fit. I started out in the arena for about 20 minutes, just to make sure what we learned together the other day was still fresh in our minds, and he seemed okay with it. We headed out the central trail northward, then cut back along the lake, though a couple of other riders were galloping along the beach, and for some reason, that got Clio all excited, plus we didn't really like the deep sand for footing, so we cut back to the trail at the back of the dunes for the way home. I did managed to get a few short canters in, mostly to catch up to Clio's outrageously fast trot, and Apollo was perfect, sliding nicely into a canter with no hysterics, gently catching up to Mama before resuming his nice job. It was a lovely ride, perfect weather, couldn't have asked for more!

Relieved that it was a nice quiet morning, no rangers rousting us out of bed, had a good breakfast did a quick load of laundry, then soon we were out on the trail. There are a number of loops, none of them terribly long, and because this is a wide open park, you can pretty much see the campground from anywhere in the park, so it's just a matter of deciding how long you want to ride. We headed out on the trail nearest the road, though we missed the actual trailhead by going out on a service road, but we soon found our way over, then went to near the north end of the park, then looping back. We saw several other riders out on the trail, including one guy riding a very leggy black horse that he was riding with only his legs (his arms were out to each side), and a couple of girls were in the arena. On the way back we had a long straight away, so we decided to have a canter, but for some reason, after a few strides, Apollo did his little rodeo routine, more so than he's done in a long time, and I ended up in the sand. I decided to work with him the arena when we got back, which I did, but every time I tried to get him into a canter, he started jumping up on me, to the point where I was starting to get too panicky every time we tried, so I was probably exacerbating the problem with my nervousness. We finally quit, unsaddled them and headed over to a nice wash rack they had here, for their first bath in I can't remember how long, and they seemed grateful. They've been so dusty lately, we just had to do something. After scraping them down and letting them dry, we finally put them back in their corrals. I think tomorrow I'll take Apollo out to the arena again and see if we can't make some improvements in his behavior, or my riding, whichever is needed!

After several days of just resting, hanging out, trying to stay warm (nights were down in the upper 30's, days upper 50, low 60's), doing mundane chores and generally finally getting caught up on our sleep, it finally warmed up enough, almost 70, to take our first ride here. Unfortunately, there is really only one trail, so a linear ride is all we can do, and neither one of us wanted to go too long and wear ourselves out again, so after a very leisurely morning, we finally saddled up and got out about 2:00, without boots today because it looks like the trail is mostly just dirt. We headed out on the perimeter trail around camp, then missed a turn up the trail, instead going down to the trailhead road that was gravel, and led to another area with corrals which we didn't know about, but it looks more like a day use parking area rather than a camping area. Got back on the right trail when it crosses the gravel road about 100 feet up the road. Naturally, being named Summit Trail, the whole first part of the trip was climbing, first through old growth evergreen forest, then suddenly as we reached near the first plateau, the terrain changed completely! Only short stubby bush-like trees, the trail got very rocky until we reached the top of the plateau, and it suddenly felt like Texas, or some other fairly barren rocky place. Then, as we turned the corner toward the west, we got a sudden, impactful view of Mt. Shasta way off in the distance. Still covered with snow, it was certainly beautiful to see in the distance. Fortunately, once we reached the plateau the trail became mostly dirt again, with just a few stones, nothing to hurt the horses' feet. We carried on for a bit, but when the trail started to go down again, we both agreed that we didn't want to go down just to have to come up again, so we stopped there, tied up the horses and enjoyed the view for a bit. Before long we were heading back to camp, and in the end, we only did about 3.5 miles, probably our shortest ride ever, but it was enough for us, since we both had the goal of not wearing ourselves out. Probably good not to strain the horses too much too early as well, since it was a pretty good grade going up and down. Nonetheless, it was an enjoyable ride, just what we wanted.

With beautiful weather abounding, we saddled up the horses after breakfast and headed out on the nearest forest road. We were completely unable to find trail maps, as the State Park didn't really have any trails, and bordered the National Forest, which didn't service the horse camp, and I didn't find a ranger station nearby to try to pick up a map of the trails. Of course, they had forest road maps you can buy, but you still have to find a ranger station to do that. In any event, I had traced a trail from Google Earth on the visible forest roads, downloaded it to my GPS and hoped for the best. Our destination was the head of Spring Creek, which, down by the logging museum was a wide and fast-running river, but apparently it's origin springs straight out of the ground a couple of miles up the road. We headed out, and unfortunately, the roads were as dusty as the trails we left at the last campground, so we had to wear our bandanas pretty much the whole way. The road went right where I had anticipated, then I thought I saw a shortcut, so we took that, but it led us astray after a while, so we retraced our steps back to the road until we came to a day use area along a sort of small lake, where apparently the creek came out of the spring. It was crowded, not surprisingly, I guess, since it was a beautiful Saturday, and we asked a few people if the trail along the creek went back down to Collier Park, and each one we asked said either they thought so, or definitely yes, so we started south along the creek. That didn't last long, because the trail most definitely did NOT go anywhere, and after stumbling over one too many downed logs, we turned around and went back. We round another shortcut that put us back on another road that followed a utility line, which we figured would lead us back to the park, but after quite a ways, it dead ended at private property. We cut across some more property, which turned out to be private as well, but couldn't get back to the forest road because the terrain was just too tough, so we ended up retracing our steps again, until I finally found a way back to the main road and heading back to camp. We had only a couple of chances to canter, and unfortunately Hubby's cinch got loose a bit, not enough to take a fall, thank goodness, but we had to stop and re-cinch Clio's saddle. She got a lot of dust in her face today, because of the condition of the mostly sandy roads, and we were all glad to get back to camp, our short planned 6 mile ride turning into an 11 mile adventure. Fortunately, Hubby took it all in stride, and though he was tired (as was I), he didn't hurt too much, except for his foot a bit. We put the horses away and relaxed the rest of the day.

Decided to take another ride, this time to the north, hoping to get to a nice view of Diamond Peak, but not holding my breath as it's a bit farther than I think Hubby is ready for, as his foot is healing but still causing him a lot of pain. After the first quarter mile, the trail started climbing, through one of the ugliest forests we've ever seen. Literally, it seemed that there were more dead trees down than live trees standing, which gave it a really depressing look. The trail most mostly dirt, so we probably didn't need boots, and it started climbing fairly soon. Not a hard grade, but a steady climb through this ugly forest, until we reached pretty much the top, where it leveled off, about 3 miles in, with more dust, dust, and dust. We had hoped once we reached the ridge the woods would get prettier, but they didn't, so rather than continue on this depressing and excruciatingly dusty trail, we decided to turn around so as to not overdo it. Got back to camp, put the horses away, visited with some of our neighbors for a while before finishing of the day in our usual way.

Had a lazy morning before finally saddling and booting up the horses. I had spoken to a neighbor, Pat (and her husband Mike) about the state of the trails, and she said she was glad she put her boots on, although it was 90 % dirt and 10% rock, so we decided to do the same. That, of course, meant that I had to do some trimming on the horses' front feet, which took up some time. Eventually, we got on the trail, just before 1:00, and headed down the south trail, called Oldenburg, in the direction Bingham lake, which was reportedly about 4 miles out. Most of the loops here are fairly long, between 12-18 miles, and with Hubby still recovering, we're a long way from doing anything longer than 6-8 miles, so we figured out and back to the lake would be fine. The first half mile or so was quite pleasant, through some old growth pines, across a bridge, with a bit of a grade up hill for awhile, but eventually we came to an area that had many dead and downed trees, with no underbrush, so it looked pretty bare between the trees for the most part. The trail constantly climbed, though not with a very noticeable grade, and it was very dusty. Every step became a cloud, and there was no breeze, so whoever was in back got smothered. Naturally we forgot our kerchiefs, so we took turns riding "point" and "drag." The trail seemed to go on forever, and it turned out to be nearly 5 miles before we finally arrived at Bingham lake. The trail down to the lake was very narrow, so much so that we had to dismount to get the horses through the path between two trees, then we hung out on the beach a while, letting the horses drink and eat some nice grass, while Hubby put his foot up on a log for awhile, as it was aching him from the long ride. After about 20 minutes or so, we were joined by another couple who also came from the horse camp, and who were ponying a pack horse they said they were training for "elk season." We left shortly thereafter, with them a bit behind us, so we did some trotting and even cantering to get ahead. The dust wasn't quite so bad as a breeze had come up, plus when you're moving faster, it can't catch up : -)

Well, evidently the morning ranger didn't get the memo from the evening ranger, at least as far as the knowledge that it was our desire to sleep late this morning, because he came knocking at the door just after 8:00, so I had to get up and take care of business with him. Too late to go back to bed, so we got up, had a leisurely breakfast, then saddled the horses for their one and only ride here. Rachel was already out riding by the time we got up, and back by the time we headed out, so we said our good-byes before hitting the trail. Good news, the trails are mostly dirt with only a few rocky spots, so boots weren't necessary, and the trail was very easy. Too easy, actually, for our taste, as it was entirely flat, and a good percentage of the trail, maybe half, was in or around open fields, with one even circling around a hazelnut orchard. The rest did get a bit more interesting, weaving in and out of trees of various ages in the wooded areas. Stopped at a couple of places where the blackberries were just bursting too ripe to ignore, and we even managed to get a few canters in, though Hubby is feeling a little low on confidence, after his fall and broken bones in July, and the pain of his new injury in his foot, but he managed it okay. He felt compelled to hang onto the horn (not surprisingly), but off course that threw off his balance, so he wasn't as happy about it as he would have liked, but we all enjoyed the ride nevertheless, about 6.66 miles in just over two hours. Spent some time in the afternoon working on logistics for the next couple of weeks, made a reservation for the weekend at Whitefish Horse Camp about 150 miles southeast of here, then settled in for the evening.