East Cathance Stream

Today Susie, Linda and I made plans to ride from my house. We had some time constraints so by staying close to home we could still get out for a nice long ride. And my trailer is in the shop for routine servicing so I could not trailer out anyway. Susie and Linda arrived at my house at 10:30 am and we were on the trail by 10:45 or so. This is the first time I've ridden the trails from my house so far this year. We took the trail that is behind my neighbor Jarod's house. The trail was still a little soft in places but nothing that was any problem. We came across a trail that was new to us but looked quiet well used. It didn't really go in the direction we were heading but curiosity got the better of us and we just had to follow it. It took us out to a house on the Lewis Hill Rd. Someone was home and we asked if they minded us riding through and they said it was no problem. We didn't want to back track the way we came so we decided to just ride down the Lewis Hill Rd to the pipeline and go back into the trails from there. We kept it at a good trot down Lewis Hill. And we were able to do some good trotting on the tote road that runs along the pipeline. We decided to take the long trail around to the stream crossing as we were making good time and it was too nice a day to cut the ride short. There is a trail off the main trail that bypasses a snowmobile bridge that is not safe for horses to cross. We love the bypass trail as it crosses the East Cathance Stream in the most pretty spot. We made the turn onto the bypass trail........and it just didn't look right. There were a lot of trees down in this area and we thought we must have just missed a turn and we circled around through the woods back to the main trail and tried again, and made the same wrong circle. Then we just kind of headed off in the direction we thought we should go thinking we would have to come across the trail. We ended up in an area with a little stream that we didn't want to cross as it was too muddy. And we are seeing stone walls that we know we've never seen before........., we do spot a trail and take that just to avoid bumbling around through the woods and end up on the first wrong trail we took. At this point, we are feeling quite foolish to be lost on local trails but decide to just go back to the main trail and keep riding down that. We didn't get too far down the main trail when we came to a big mud hole that we always have to go through (it's not a bad mud hole, just one that is long and looks far worse than it is) and realize we had taken the completely wrong trail and had not even gotten to the bypass trail yet. We were all set from there. We stopped to take some pictures at the stream crossing as it's just such a lovely spot. We moved along at trot where we could today. The trails around my house are quite rocky so that limits the speed we can ride. And the trails are still a little bit soft from frost coming out in a few spots so we had to be careful of that too. For the most part though, the trails are in very good shape now. We were appalled though to see some blackflies today! AGH! All three boys were so good today and we just had a great ride. I'm still riding Luke barefoot and I'm just amazed at how well he's going right now. He does just fine over all the rocky trails. He doesn't even try to avoid the rocks. It's been a long road getting his feet in good condition again (from chronic thrush problems) and so nice to see all the work finally paying off. I have to say yet again that Luke is just the most wonderful trail partner. 

Beaver dam along the trail. It's about twice as long as in the picture