Technical Trail Riding ~ Not for Sissies

 

On Saturday morning I drove west and down from the mountains into the Rio Grande Valley and then headed south towards San Acacia for another horse riding adventure with new and old friends.

(This is my friend Beel. He always teases me about my flashy helmet covers and fun, but unusual riding attire. He calls me Bling Girl. Remember that most of the folks on these rides ride Western. After the Centennial Ride Weekend, Beel asked me if I would bring him some bling for him to wear. So, I brought him a leopard scarf. And he wore that scarf all day. I thought that was pretty awesome.)

The day was cloudy and breezy and not very good for photography. There were about 30 riders and horses ready to ride. Many of the horses on the ride belonged to D, but some of the riders had brought their own horses. I would have brought Apache had our horse trailer not been stuck in the mud, but it wouldn’t have been a good idea because Apache is way too out of shape for a ride of the kind of caliber we did that day.

(You’ll want to remember this rider on the right. Her name is Micki. Her story will play out in just a few minutes.)

As you can see all of the horses knew where the cookies were…..whenever the sound of velcro was heard, all of the horse ears in our group perked right up.

But we were there to do more than just ride. We were there to play poker. A poker ride is something I’ve never done before but always wanted to. I’ve never even played poker before, but tried to do a little research online before I went. Playing poker with virtual players is kind of weird, but it was fun, too.

(My friend Shelley asked me to design the Poker Score Cards, using my logo that I created for the ride. Shelley wanted it to print on a half sheet of cardstock. So with my twinling Jax’s help we designed the score cards to be foldable to fit into saddle bags easier and we fit two score cards on a single sheet of paper so it would be easier for Shelley to print up. Voila!)

The plan for the ride was to head back over to San Lorenzo Canyon and explore a different area and canyon section than we had ridden during the Centennial Ride Weekend two weeks before. And I was really excited to have the opportunity to ride above the canyon and enjoy the vast and expansive mesa views.

(Dusty of Followed Dream Ranch, and his 3 very special horses were along for the ride, too)

D loves to share true adventures without boring nose-to-tail walking in single file, but I still wasn’t totally sure what the day would bring. I took comfort in seeing so many familiar faces that I would be riding with that day, and I was excited to get back into beautiful, rugged San Lorenzo Canyon riding sweet Splendor again.

Our caravan of horse trailers meandered several miles down dry, sandy river beds towards the mouth of the canyon, but once we parked and tacked up, the plan wasn’t to enter the main canyon, but to ride up to the ridge above it and enjoy the views.

(D describing the trail we were going to ride on. I don’t think many of us were truly paying attention)

The trail we were to follow began in a small canyon wash.

And traveled past sandstone cliffs.

And soon we left the wash and began to travel uphill.

(You can see D up there in front. And while he doesn’t encourage nose-to-tail riding, sometimes it’s necessary. Like on fragile terrain that can be easily damaged and on narrow ridges.)

Within the first 15 minutes of the ride, during our first ascent, we had trouble. Some of the riders got bunched up on the narrow trail, even though D had warned everyone to maintain distance between horses and to not stop moving up the trail. But one of the riders and her horse, who was fairly young and not experienced with rugged trails like these, decided to take a short cut off the designated trail to the left and head up a steep sandstone wall to the right.

I watched in horror as the horse struggled to climb up that wall, but lost traction, reared back, and then stumbled down onto a ledge on the right side of the cliff. The bay mare’s rider was able to stay on until the horse landed on the ledge, and then she slipped off to the horse’s left side, smartly holding onto one rein so she didn’t tumble down off of the ledge. Her mare did an amazing job at keeping her rider safe and staying calm, and avoiding stepping on her rider while she was on that ledge.

(The photos I took were all after she able to scoot down onto the ledge below the ledge her bay mare was standing on. You can see the hoof marks on the sandstone wall where her horse struggled to gain traction, just above, and to the left of the butt on the white and black horse)

We were all relieved to finally see her stand up with assistance and begin hobbling down the rock wall and ledges.

At this time, several riders nearby where I was perched on the side of the ridge, on Splendor, said if this was the kind of terrain that we should expect for the rest of the ride, they wanted no part of it. They even asked me if I just wanted to join them and ride on our own in a different, flatter area of the canyon.

Of course, the horse I was riding wasn’t my own, so that wasn’t an option, and even though I was feeling a little trepidation after watching the rider falling off her horse on that steep ridge that I still needed to negotiate, I pushed those feelings aside, pulled up my proverbial big girl panties and decided to trust D and Splendor, who travel these trails often.

The rider, named Micki was able to remount her horse, and then she tried to continue the ride, but her ankle began hurting too much, so D accompanied her and her friend back down to the horse trailers. When I caught up with her, just before she returned to the trailers, I asked her if she was ok, and Micki told me that she thought she might have broken her ankle. But later in the day, after the ride was over, I was relieved to find out that her ankle was just twisted and strained. Thank God, because it could have been so much worse. I was so glad she didn’t land on her head when she was dangling upside down above the rock, since she wasn’t wearing a helmet. She was wearing a nice looking leather hat, though.

When we reached the top of the ridge, I figured that the rest of the trail would be mostly flat and the riding would be more level and easy. I was wrong.

(We could see the horse trailers down in the dry river bed below us)

And while we were able to look down into the canyon at this point, the canyon walls continued to rise, and so did we.

To Be Continued…….