What a day! Although we have had only a small downpour since we’ve been here, evidently they had much more rain before we arrived, as they trails were so muddy it was more like trying to ride in a swamp than on a trail! We headed out of the campground at the only marked trailhead we say, and were instantly bogged down in inches of mud, and that was in a clearing before we got to the woods! Once we hit the trees, things got even worse. The first section was very confusing, with trails going every which way, and no markings whatsoever. The only map I had was the park map, which was wholly inadequate. We vaguely knew we wanted to head down toward the lake, so we took whatever turns seemed to take us south, but in reality, we didn’t have a clue. The first half mile was incredibly treacherous, with steep ascents and descents, which we didn’t expect at all. Once we got through that on to the ridge line, it got only slightly better, with more mud that made it very unpleasant going. There were a lot of limbs down as well, so we had to tread very carefully. We finally came to a trail crossing that seemed to head south, so we took it. At first it wasn’t too bad, but gradually it became worse and worse, narrower and muddier, until we came across a limb blocking the trail and no way around. I got out my camp saw and hacked it down in a few minutes clearing the way, only to go around another bend and seeing several more trees across the trail. That was it, I was in no mood to become a lumberjack for a trail that was practically impassible anyway. We uncharacteristically turned around and headed back to the “main” trail. Not wanting to go back the way we came, and because we finally saw a few blazes indicating we actually were on a bridle trail, we turned left to carry on with what we hoped would turn out to be some sort of loop. Eventually the trail made it’s way to the main road, which it then paralleled until it came to the horseman’s day parking area, where we hoped to find an actual map at the kiosk. No such luck! The box was empty, but there was a large map on the board that I took a picture of so we would have at least some guidance. We determined the shortest loop back to camp (besides taking the park road) and headed out again, crossing the road onto what appeared to be a slightly better trail. Slightly better is key, here, anything less than an outright swamp would have been an improvement. Neither the horses or we were having much fun, though we still tried to stay on the bright side. We saw several deer, a big turtle sunning himself, and a very large bird that we thought at first was a deer because it took several steps before it got off the ground, and we were both surprised when it lifted off. We didn’t get a good look at it, so we weren’t sure what kind of bird it was, but it had to have a wingspan of at least 5 or 6 feet. We got lost once, missing one of the rare marked intersections because we took a detour around a long stretch of muddy trail, but finally got back on track, at least until we got back to the road crossing, at which point we decided we’d had enough slogging in the muck, and just took the main road back to the campground. What a day! Three hours of playing in the mud, we were all covered with it. Rinsed the horses down, they had mud up to their tummies and halfway up their tails! Glad to take the rest of the day off, with only having to start packing up for our departure tomorrow on the agenda. Not a very fun ride, though any hour on the back of my horse is time well-spent.
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