Wednesday, July 13, 2011 - Last Long Ride Day

Though our original plan had been to ride with our new neighbors Greg and Julie, I let Hubby sleep a little late because his back was hurting a bit, so we encouraged them to go ahead without us, and ended up getting out about 11:30 or so. We had two main trails, D & E, that we wanted to do, so that we would know them all, so that next time we could start exploring some of the many unmarked trails that riddle this forest. We headed out the Mohawk trail to the A trail, passed the E trail entrance to get to the D trail, some 3-4 miles from camp. We really enjoyed the E trail, as it once again wound through a great mixed forest and varied terrain. Once we reached the end, however, we had a lot of trouble trying to pick up the D trail. The trail that seemed right had a sign saying it was temporarily closed, so we looked for an alternative. Signs led us along the snowmobile trail that paralleled the road, but soon that became obvious that it hadn’t seem much traffic, and soon after it led to a "bridge" that was so rickety I would walk across it, much less take a horse across, and there was no way around it, so we knew we were in the wrong place. We took a number of other false starts, including crossing the road where the D trail was clearly marked, but that just took us around to a road that led us back to the same intersection. After stopping for lunch and once again trying to find another trailhead, we finally decided the only logical answer was to take the "closed" trail, which we soon discovered was, in fact, the right trail that we needed. We soon discovered why it was supposed to be closed, though the reasons no longer applied. A long portion of the trail was essentially a creekbed. No doubt during the spring it’s too wet to traverse, but it was fine now during mid-summer, at least as fine as trying to walk on a creekbed goes. The rocks were sharp and insecure, and the ascents and descents were pretty treacherous in places, making this our least favorite trail here. We were both happy when we finally reached the end of it and were back on the A trail again. We didn’t arrive back in camp until after 5:30, with both us and the horses thoroughly exhausted. Got everyone settled, had some leftover Chinese for dinner, then visited with our neighbors getting caught up on all the day’s activities, and sharing ideas for horse camps and equipment and other horsey stuff. Learned that Greg is a retired veterinarian, and learned more about Julie liking to ride in endurance races, more for the challenge than the winning (she’s been riding a Gypsy draft horse, so speed isn’t her priority). As the sun went down and a full moon came up, it got quite chilly (forecast is for mid-50’s overnight), so we headed back to the bungalow for hot cocoa, a movie and to bed!