For Memorial Day weekend, my Back Country Horsemen Chapter was planning to do a camp-out with several work projects up in the Pecos Wilderness. So I hauled my horse up to the Pecos and my son Jax drove his truck, but camped in the back of my horse trailer, while I camped in the dressing/sleeping area.
After setting up our campsite and getting Apache settled into her stall, Jax and I set out for an evening hike down by Panchuela Creek.
All the horse trailers and camping area up above the river.
Panchuela Creek was running fast and full from the Spring snowmelt.
Even though it was almost June, we were camped up above 9,000 ft elevation so the weather was still cold and required a coat or heavy sweatshirt. Jax was thrilled to be up in the mountains.
I had poured myself some wine in a red solo cup and took it down with me to the creek. Crossing logs across the creek was pretty funny.
Apache was quite surprised to see us climbing up the hill from the creek below.
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The next day, our BCHM Chapter headed up to the Jack's Creek Trailhead to do some trail maintenance to help control erosion and close several social trails that had formed off of the main trail out of the trailhead.
Getting the pack animals loaded up.
Getting the pack animals loaded up.
Several of our members would be riding up to an area where they could pack in stock salt for the mountain sheep.
Typically we work in wilderness areas, where chainsaws are not permitted. But this day we would be working in the National Forest, so we could use chainsaws. And some of us were very excited about that!
The rest of us prepared to build water bars to help control erosion on the steep hill leading up from the trailhead.
This was my first ever water bar that I built all by myself. Yep. I was proud of it, too. haha!
The guys taking a rest from their project, of cutting wood to create piles of wood to fill in a close-off the social trails.
This is one of the social trails that we were working on to fill in with logs and branches to close it off.
Here you can see the closed off social trail on the left and the main trail on the right.
This is how a water bar is built. (Down below you can see the Jack's Creek Campground and trail head)
The trailhead sign had fallen over and left on the ground, so we re-dug a new hole, and planted the sign inside the hole and then placed rocks around the post to keep the sign more secure.
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After we finished our work project, everyone came back to the campsite area, and several of us decided to head out for an afternoon ride. I got Apache saddled up and we headed out, having to ride through the heavily flowing Panchuela Creek and then ride across a bridge that spanned the creek too. Apache did balk at crossing the fast flowing, deep creek, but mostly because it was directly below the campsite and stall area, and several other horses were calling to her. But with some leading assistance, we made it across with no issues.
The vistas in the Pecos are just spectacular!
I especially love riding among the aspens and their beautiful, white, papery bark..
Up at Pecos Baldy, above 11,000 feet, there was still a significant amount of snow.
The highlight of the ride was seeing a herd of elk up ahead of us in a meadow.
I zoomed in to get a closer look so we wouldn't have to ride too close and spook the elk.
The elk weren't very bothered by our presence, and our horses and mule weren't concerned about the elk.
The elk seemed mostly curious about us.
It sure was a thrill to see them so close while on horseback.
We continued our ride up the trail that gains 1,000 ft elevation in just one mile.
My awesome mare!
My riding companions were trying to ride up high enough to get cell phone reception so they could try to reach the members of our chapter that had ridden up to haul the salt blocks to the mountain sheep.
But we were never able to get reception, so we headed back down.
Great views of the Jack's Creek Campground and trailhead down below us.
We were the first members of our BCHM Chapter to get to ride on the trails that we had done the work on that morning.
My water bar looked great!
We left behind Jack's Creek and rode down to Panchuela Creek where our campsite and stall were waiting for us.
It was a great ride and a good day. Tomorrow would be more trail work for us to do.
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