Sunday, June 29, 2014 – Best Ride Yet at Jack’s Creek!

Mountain Time has been good for us, we've been getting up earlier than usual, and having some pretty good night's sleeps as well! Managed to get out on the trail again by 11:00, this time heading to a place called Cave Creek. Where to get to the trail head was a mystery to me, despite having gotten several opinions from our neighbors, but we managed to just finish saddling up when another group from the campground left, so we tagged behind them, just close enough to keep an eye on which way they were going. Almost lost them once, but managed to figure it out. Down the hill to the northwest, across the road, parallel the road for a while, then down to the road again, make a right and stay on the road for about 80 yards, then the trail appears on the left. Take that to the campground, cross the creek and up the bank on the left to the road, make a right, take the left fork up the road (there's a small sign indicating a horse trail, up around the bend to the left, and the trail is on the right. Up the bank, and there's an intersection with several choices, one of which was, thankfully, Cave Creek. In about a quarter mile there was a fork with no sign, one going up to the left, the other down to the right. As we pondered which way to go, Hubby caught a glimpse of our lead party across in a field to the right, so we headed down to the right, crossed a creek, and were able to easily follow the well-marked trail from that point. What a busy trail! Granted, it was Sunday and there was a lot of day traffic, but joggers and hikers galore! No other horses than ours and the lead group. We haven't seen this much foot traffic since the Grand Canyon! Though we don't usually ride on Sundays, that's true. In any event, it was a great trail! Much less rocky than the previous two trails, though there were still a few spots that had some problems. Really nice, though. Apollo has settled down nicely, he was perfect today, no anxiety, no muss, no fuss, a very enjoyable day. We thought we found where the caves were, near a sign that said "No camping within 50 ft. Of stream", and we had been told it wasn't easy to find, but that turned out not to be the case. Just a bit further along, however, we found our other horse party, and they were hanging out there. The first one was essentially a hole in the wall of rock where the stream diverted into, leaving a dry river bed until it came back out of the wall downstream. About 50 or 75 yards further along was the more interesting feature, though, with three large cave entrances, large enough to easily walk into (and a lot of people were, as it was much cooler inside), with one of the holes being where the creek, once again, dropped into a hole in the ground. A great destination, and stayed there for a while and kept cool. Eventually the other horse party left, as did the several groups of hikers that came and went, until we were ready to head back. With two creek crossings, the horses were well watered along the way, the first time on the trail since we've been here. It was a beautiful and enjoyable day, perfectly blue sky, light breeze to keep it from getting too hot, the babbling brook that paralleled the trail, the forest with well-marked trails, what else could anyone ask for? A perfect day, the best day yet, and we've only been on the road a week! Speaking of, when we got back, we spent some time packing up and getting ready to leave bright and early. Since we filled our tank and yet only stayed four nights, we both got to luxuriate in a nice long shower after the work was done, the perfect ending to a glorious day!

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