Trail Ride to the Sky at Fort Stanton

 

Saturday night brought us another summer monsoon, but thankfully not as powerful as Friday night’s storm, and my tent didn’t float away.

But Sunday morning’s sunrise was a beautiful gift, and when I poked my head out of my tent, this is the view that greeted me, and this was the first photo I took that day, even before I crawled out of my sleeping bag.

After tacking up our equines, we headed down the trail.

Beautiful vistas of the Capitan Mountains in the distance. 

 

We gathered together for a group photo.

(Left to Right: Barb’s husband Barry, Cheryl, Micki, Me and Annette. Not in the photo is Barb and Paula. Paula was taking the photo and Barb was beside Barry until her horse stepped in an ant hill and they were attacked by biting ants. Ouch!)

 

But here’s a pic of my buddy Paula and her handsome mule Tecumseh.

 

And a photo of Barry and Barb together. Since it was Father’s Day, and we were planning to leave after the day’s ride, Barry drove up in the morning to ride and then help Barb pack up and drive home.

 

And my friend Annette riding her gorgeous Friesian mare, Katja. 

 

And me and my Apache mare. 

Down the trail we went….me and my slowpoke girl bringing up the rear.

 

She and I like to pause at the base of a steep hill, so we can canter up. She was waiting for my cue for her to run! 

 

Lots of gorgeous vistas.

 

The trails were well-marked and I enjoyed their creative names.

 

Yep, we were riding like outlaws, so we took the Outlaw Trail.

 

We continued to climb towards the sky, and because Apache is so slow and the trail wraps around the side of the mountains, I was able to capture some unique photos.

 

Onward and upward!

 

So close we can almost touch the clouds!

 

I loved how the trail twisted and squiggled across the side of the mountain.

 

We could see Fort Stanton far below in the distance.

 

While on this trail, we came upon an endurance riding couple, whom we had met at the Equestrian Campground the night before. They were nice to step off the trail to allow our group to ride past.   

 

 Again, since Apache insists on being a slow-poke, we were able to capture some pretty cool photos from across the other side of the mountains. 

 

Up and around we go….

 

When we rode into the trees, I’d get a little concerned that our friends might make a turn onto a different trail and Apache and I would lose our way.

 

I’d ask Apache to speed up and we’d trot and canter a little, but she never seemed as concerned as I was about losing sight of our friends.

 

At one point another trail veered off the main trail and I wasn’t sure which one we should take…..

Deer Valley Trail seemed to travel right up into the sky! 

 

But I called out to my friends, and they answered back and were waiting for us just a short way up the left trail, in the photo above.

Then we turned off the main trail and took the Buffalo Soldier Trail. 

 

And then we started descending downhill.

 

But we leveled out for a little while….

 

And enjoyed the beautiful wide vistas

 

And then the trail got rocky and plunged downhill.

 

And we rode past some of the old Fort Stanton ruins.

 

The building in the front was the Fort’s swimming pool.

 

As the trail became more tree-lined and we twisted around and through the pinons and junipers, there was one point when several trails broke off the main trail, and I was a little alarmed that we would lose sight of our group. And even Apache was slightly concerned, too and was happy to speed up so we could catch up to them.  

 

We had to climb down into and then back out of several steep-sided arroyos. The other ones required full concentration, with one especially steep arroyo requiring a sharp hair-pin switch-back immediately at the top to avoid a boulder and trees. So I have no photos of those, but this arroyo was just a steep descent followed by a similar steep ascent.

Micki, the gal in front of me in the blue shirt, had an issue with her Arabian mare bucking with her on the way down the hill, so when she got to the bottom, she made her mare re-do the descent until her mare behaved. 

 

 Not long after that last photo we rode back into camp where we untacked, fed and water our equines, and enjoyed some lunch for ourselves.

And then we all packed up and drove back home.

Here’s a map of the trails at Fort Stanton.

 

 

And here’s my GPS map from the day’s ride. We rode about 9 1/2 miles on some beautiful trails with great trail buddies, and wonderful equines.

Fort Stanton Trail Ride

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