Riding With Tracy in Phippsburg

Today my friend Tracy and I went riding in Phippsburg. Tracy has never ridden there so it would be a treat taking her there. Tracy picked me up a little after 11:00. For once, Luke was not totally covered in mud so I didn't need any extraordinary grooming efforts.

We parked at the old shooting range up past Devil's highway. After tacking up, I took a few pictures of Tracy holding both mule. Tracy was whispering sweet nothings to Luke and it was making Ellie Mae jealous. Luke seemed eager to be out today. He took the lead right from the start and stayed right out there pretty much the whole ride. None of that silliness he does when he's with Gus! We headed down the Basin Rd. and did all the loops that come back to the Harris Cemetery. We even did the Dance Hall Rd. cut across trail. The snow was all gone there and the footing was fine. We got in some nice trotting. We did have a truck pass us that drove over some downed branches as he was coming towards us. The branches made some loud snapping noises and that startled both mules. But, neither did more than a little dance in place.

When we were nearly back to the trailer, we decided it was too nice a day to end our ride yet so we decided to do the loop up over Fuller's Mt. I decided to try the rugged trail to the top. It's not such a long trail that if the footing was not good yet, we could just turn around. There was some snow in the woods but the frost seems to be out and the footing was fine. Though Ellie Mae was not sure she wanted to tramp though any snow. I had to dismount and scout ahead just once to make sure the trail was safe and to break off some branches from a tree that had fallen across the trail. And Tracy led Ellie Mae though one snowy spot. We both mounted up for the steep scramble to the top. It's a short but tough, rocky climb. The mules handled it easily. When we got to the top of the trail, I was dismayed to find they have been logging there. I could not find the trail and everything looked so different and the ground was a mess. We picked our way though in the direction I though we should go in and found a safe, though muddy route. Once on open ground, nothing looked right to me. I found a dirt road and we followed it but I was still disoriented it didn't seem right to me. We turned around and went back in the other direction looking for another dirt road and the actual summit of Fuller's Mt. We just got to a heavily logged area and we had no desire to make either mule walk though the mess. So, we turned again and went back down the dirt road we had found. In a fairly short time, we came to the dirt road I was looking for and went up to the summit of the mountain. There is a lovely view from there and we took a few pictures. We then went down the mountain by way of the dirt road, which has just been newly graveled and was VERY rocky. So, we kept it to a walk as Luke is barefoot right now. He didn't seem to be the least bit bothered by the rocks though I have to say. We came across a passel children and running and screaming and, well, just doing what children do. Luke views all this commotion with some suspicion but walked by quietly.

I had planned to take the Echo Lane/Mountain Crossing road trail to cut across to Devils Highway. But, I missed the turn and we ended up riding out to the Stoneybrook Rd. and riding down to Devil's Highway from there. This was fine, it just added a short stretch of pavement, but also gave us more dirt road.

Another great ride!!!!