Wednesday, June 8, 2011 - Second Ride Day at Carter Caves

Got up slowly after the alarm went off, had breakfast, then called the office just after 9:00 to try to find out more about the "new" trail. The girl who answered gave me some basic instructions, but it seemed a bit iffy, as she didn’t really know about it, she was just repeating what she had been told, so my questions went essentially unanswered. Then, out of nowhere, the manager and another woman showed up asking is we were the ones who had called the office about a new trail, and of course we answere "Yes", so he proceed to tell us all about this new trail. They had apparently been working on it a while, and had just completed marking it (in blue paint) the previous day. He explained in more detail how to find and follow it, and was extraordinarily helpful. It makes such a difference when management is horse-friendly! This guy was actually a horse rider, and we remembered seeing him on a tall, striking palomino the evening before, taking a spin around the campground. After a very pleasant and informative discussion (he was very grateful and responsive to our concerns about the negatives of the campground as well), we finally headed off, now a bit later than we had intended, so the day was heating up quickly. We set out going in the same direction as yesterday until the blue trail cutoff, which we had noticed the day before but had ignored because it wasn’t on the map, which had been cleared by a small bulldozer. Kudos to the Cat driver, though, he/she did an excellent job of clearing the trail without tearing up the ground for the most part. The markings were easy to follow, and though the trail was still very raw, with lots of baby trees still apparent in the middle of the trail, it was a wonderful ride, again, with some grades, some following and crossing the creek, some deciduous forest, some pines. It’s going to be a fabulous trail once it gets some more use on it. There was only a couple of places where we almost missed a switchback, or it got too muddy, but nothing that was in any way treacherous for the horses. The manager said it was about 3.2 miles long, which was just about perfect for a short ride today after our unexpectedly long ride yesterday, Only problem was when we got back to camp, the highline was still in full sunlight, so we decided to stay in the woods for a little longer, following a small loop that partially backtracked on the Kiser Hollow Loop we had taken yesterday. That killed another half hour, so the highline was just on the edge of the shade now, and would only get better as time went on, so we came back in, settled in the horses (letting them eat some of the new grass nearby for a while, as a treat), then spent the afternoon working on the computer, reading, doing a bit of laundry (why not, we had a full hookup, might as well use it!) And generally doing our best to stay cool. Hubby took a nap, and I think I nodded off in my recliner for a while as well. It’s been a very nice stay here, despite the high price, but we would really have been suffering without electric to run the A/C, so once again, we were in the right place at the right time, as the heat wave had enveloped the entire eastern half of the country (it was even over 100 degrees in Minneapolis!), so there was not escape. Researched our next stop, made some phone calls, and decided to head out to the Glady Creek area of the Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia, which would be a good halfway point from here in Kentucky to our next confirmed destination near Washington DC in Maryland. Another early night, setting the alarm once again for an early departure.