We parked by Devil's Highway which was as far as the road was plowed. We headed out along the Basin Rd. We stayed to the left at the fork onto the Hatch Rd. which meet back with the Basin Rd. At the end of the Basin Rd. where it come out on Riply's Landing by the church, I got the chance to demonstrate a bit of fancy stunt riding! Where is a video camera when you need it..........
At the end of the basin Rd.there was a HUGE and solid snowbank from plowing with no real easy go around. So, Susie pointed Bayzen at the shortest end of the snowbank. At that end, there was on boulder sized packed snowball blocking the way. Bayzen is a small horse at 14.2 H or so but he's game for most anything and he walked up, looked things over and then just quietly put his front feet over this huge snowball and literally rolled himself over the snowball on his belly as it was taller then his legs were long. Well, I though, if that short little horse can get over it, I figured it would be easy for tall, long legged Luke. So, I ask Luke to step over it. Luke looks thing over, and then he too quietly put on front leg over the top.......... it was at this point he decided it was too wide to just step over and he LAUNCHED himself over in a single bound. It was a BIG TIME leap! He caught me by surprise as I never felt him gather to jump and I popped clear out of the saddle, losing both stirrups, reins and all. when Luke landed on the other side, he just stood quietly and I landed in front of the saddle, on his neck with my arms wrapped around his throat latch area. Bless his heart, he just stood there quietly as I shimmied down his neck and levered myself back into the saddle. A feat made much harder by the fact that Susie and I were laughing so hard. Hey, I'm always happy to entertain my fellow riders.........
I can just imagine what Luke was thinking. "Hey lady, you ASKED me to go over it, the least you could do was stay in the saddle!". But, he acted like having several hundred pounds of human land on his neck was a normal thing. I WAS glad I was in an English saddle as I would have popped out even in a western saddle. But the landing would likely not have been very pleasant and I might not have been able to lever myself over the pommel and horn on a western saddle.
Anyway, from Ripley's Landing Rd., we looped around by way of the Stonewall Rd. back to the little cemetery by the pond. We decided to try the Henry loop that takes you down by the water. There were no snowmobile or other tracks on this road but the footing was perfect here also. We took the Deck Hill Rd. back to the Basin Rd. and then on back to the trailer. It was one of those lovely rides that gives you a "riders high" that lasts for days. I'm so glad we decided to ride here today!
Neither one of us brought a camera today so all we had to capture proof we were here was my crappy old phone so the photos aren't very good. And Luke does not cooperate with posing for pictures at all. He is quite a dedicated botanist. His opinion is that if we aren't moving down the trail, then he needs to identify and sample (mostly just sample) any and all plants in the area and he's quite determined in his efforts to do so. So people keep snapping picture of me tugging on his reins and him with his mouth gaping open! Really, this is not how we spend all our time riding!
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