Friday, Nov. 7, 2014 – Second Ride to Antelope Falls

Saddled the horses and got out a little late for our four-hour ride today. I had tried to plot a GPS course based on the hand-drawn map that I got from Kelly, the ranch manager, but it was mostly guesswork on our part. We did manage to find most of the landmarks, and actually did pretty well until the end, when we hit the farthest wash, where we thought we were supposed to turn left, which we did. We followed the wash another mile up into a cove, climbing all the way, until the trail simply petered out. We headed back down the valley again, until we reached where we had turned left, and went the other way because there was an interesting rock formation that I though would be a good place to stop for an apple break. Turns out, that was where Antelope Falls was! So instead of left, we should have turned right, which quickly dumped down into another wash where the rock formation and the trail up to the falls were. There was a small pool of water in the rocks where I was able to collect some in our portable bucket for the horses, then we split a couple of apples between us all. There were two ATV 4-wheelers parked there, and after a while, half a dozen guys came down the trail that led up to the actual water fall, though according to their report, there was only a tiny drip at the moment. We all chatted for a while before heading back toward the ranch. The trail along the wash is like so many here, it's more of a general direction rather than a precise trail, so we meandered here and there on our way back, cutting through the campground on the road this time, though we cut back down to the wash to stay off the main road. Got back to the ranch by 5:00, having completed nearly 12 miles, about 2 miles longer than we expected because of our wayward trip up the canyon. A great ride, Hubby even held up well the entire trip, despite being longer than we expected. A gorgeous day!

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