One of my favorite local rides is along the Rio Grande River in the Corrales Bosque. My favorite time of year to ride there is in the Fall, when the Cottonwood trees are covered in golden leaves and the bugs have all died off.
I invited my friend Gin to ride with me in the Corrales Bosque as she had never been.
One of my most favorite aspects of riding in the bosque are the magical tree tunnels and being surrounded by all that colorful vegetation. Such a treat for us high desert folks.
It's absolutely enchanting to ride a horse through these tree tunnels.
The trails are beautifully maintained and smooth and sandy.
The majestic cottonwoods glow yellow overhead.
The ditch banks are also easy to travel and very scenic, too. But there are many bike riders, dog walkers, hikers, and horseback riders that share the trails, as well. And the ditch banks are bordered by homes, sometimes with people doing noisy yard work or with curious livestock, like sheep, goats, donkeys, llamas, and other horses.
They say that if your horse can calmly and bravely ride the bosque trails, you've got a very broke, safe horse.
I led our ride through the bosque with the goal of riding to Village Pizza where we could enjoy a delicious pizza lunch with the trail rider's special discount. They even have hitching rails and good trees to tie up our horses outside the restaurant.
Gin wasn't sure how her mare would do tied up on the rail, so we decided to tie her up by herself.
It was such a beautiful, sunny, warm Fall day that we decided to eat our lunch outside in the courtyard, where we could easily check on our ponies if needed.
After our lunch, I rode over to the main entrance where Apache and I had our photo taken to remember the special day.
We had to ride along the road to get back to the trails, and there were a few interesting sights to see. Apache is pretty much used to the weird stuff that humans decorate their yards with.
And then we were back among the trees, riding through the magical tree tunnels again.
My happy to be riding my horse selfie face!
Some of the tree tunnels are a little dark and mysterious.
The yellow color was made even more bright with the sun filtering through.
Gin was enamored with these yellow, fern-like bushes or small trees.
Gin liked them so much that she plucked a small bouquet of them and wore them tucked into her shirt so she could take them home with her.
Some of the tree tunnels were like true tunnels! I just loved riding through them so much!
And even though the sky was mostly hidden by the tall cottonwoods, the trees themselves provided such beautiful views.
But when we did see sky, the bright blue was the perfect background for the gorgeous yellow leaves.
To ride in the Corrales Bosque means traveling across many bridges. Some long, some short, some wide, and some narrow. The Alameda Pedestrian Bridge is very long, because it spans the entire Rio Grande River. And as you ride across it, so do bike riders, dog walkers, people pushing baby strollers and other horseback riders. And on the south side of the bridge is another bridge, the Automobile Bridge with traffic off all sizes and types driving across. And when you get to the east side of the Alameda Bridge, then there is a shorter bridge to cross, followed by having to ride underneath the Alameda Automobile bridge, which feels more like riding through a tunnel, but with the sounds of traffic from above echoing within. It's quite an adventure!
Both of our horses did pretty great the entire day, even if they both balked a little at crossing a couple of the smaller bridges and going under the auto bridge. But it was a gorgeous day to ride, and we had a wonderful lunch, too.
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