Wandering At Will

I was up fairly early this morning but it was cloudy and overcast and not looking very good. I contacted Kathy to see if she was going to ride. At that point it was starting to really rain so we decided not to go. But as I working around the house, the rain stopped and it started to look better. I contacted Kathy again and we messaged back and forth a bit and finally talked ourselves into going riding. My trailer was already hooked up and my tack was still loaded so I just went over to the barn, got Lily, who loaded with no fuss, and went over to High Knob. No one was in a hurry. I parked by Kathy's camp and took my time tacking up. Hope, a friend of Kathy, joined us for our ride. Kathy was riding her mule Cora. We didn't have any real plan when we started out but decided to ride out to Initial Tree. Once there we stopped and tied up and took a little break. Then we wandered our way back taking one trail none of us were sure where it went. We ended up at NoNo rock and from there wandered our way back into camp on a series of very pretty trails. I'm so glad we decided to go as it turned out to be a lively day and we had a wonderful ride.

One Horse Gap

I didn't have any real plans for today. The weather report called for some rain. I did have to take Lily up to the vet this morning to get a coggins test at 8:30 am. So, I had to hook up the trailer and load up Lily so figured if the rain ended, I might ride somewhere. So, when Sally contacted me to see if I wanted to ride, I asked if she wanted to go with me to the vet. From there we could ride somewhere away from home for a change. She was happy to do that. I got over to the barn early as I had to feed the mules. I loaded my tack while they ate and then got Lily and gave her a quick grooming. It had rained during the night and she was FILTHY! UGH! She loaded right into the trailer like a good girl. I then went over and picked up Sally and ChiChi. I unloaded Lily and we put ChiChi in the front slot so that I could get Lily out at the vet.

The vet was running behind on his appointments so we didn't leave there until after 9:00. Poor Lily got jabbed nearly 10 times before the vet was able to get a vein. Thankfully Lily tolerated it with no fuss. We left the vet and made the decision to ride One Horse Gap. I've hiked to the Gap but never ridden that area so that would be a treat for me. We parked at One Horse Gap lake and started out by riding around the lake. The fall colors are just starting to come on nicely. The weather was already improving by the time we got there so it was really beautiful riding around the lake.

 It didn't take us long to get to the Gap. And it sure is a ONE horse gap! And I wouldn't want to ride a very fat horse through! I was at a slight advantage on the taller equine going through as the walls of the gap widen the higher they go. But, I still had to pull my legs up as much as I could to avoid getting them mashed on the rocks. And my saddle bags scraped on both sides at one point. Thankfully the sound of that didn't bother Lily.

 From the Gap, we rode up to Rocky Top. We stopped there and tied up at the rails so we could take our time and enjoy the view which was spectacular! We rode along the top of a bluff for quite a ways. We hit the River to River trail and rode that for a while and finally looped back and rode along the bottom of the bluff that we'd ridden the top of and finally made our way back to One Horse Gap and rode through it a 2nd time. At the top of the Gap, we got off and high lined Lily and ChiChi and stopped to have our lunch. We met Loretta Wheeler there. After lunch we rode back to the lake on a different trail than we came in on and finished the loop around the lake back to my trailer. ChiChi and Lily were both wonderful today. It turned out nice and sunny and was just a fabulous day!

Garden of the Gods

I joined Anthony again for a ride out of High Knob. He messaged me that they were riding at 9:30 am and riding to Garden of the Gods. So I hustled over to the barn. I'd left the truck and trailer there all ready to go to save time this morning. I grabbed Lily and..... she was a snot about loading into the trailer again! Gurrrrrr. But, after a few tries she did finally load up and we were off. I got to camp, unloaded Lily, groomed and tacked her up and was ready to ride by 9:15 am. The ride time had been changed to 10:00. That was fine with me. I'd rather wait than be waited for. Lily was quiet and being a good girl. I led her down to Anthony's camp and tied her to his trailer. Anthony was riding Mattie Ross today and I groomed her for him. She is a very pretty mule. We headed out a little after 10:00 am. The original group was only going to be 6 riders. But, before we left camp there were 9 or 10 of us. Lily started out this morning nice a quite and well behaved. A relief after our rough start yesterday. We took the waterline trail to the blue mailbox and out to Cowboy Hideout. We stopped there for a few minutes for everyone to get a change to ride into the box cave. We then went through Rice Hollow. One of my favorite spots. We then rode up to the tee pee and took another short break.

From the Tee Pee we rode over to Knight's of the Golden Circle. We had 3 young men in our group and 1 very pretty young woman. It was fun watching the young men do everything they could to impress her and each other for that matter. They were a lot of fun to ride. One of them rode under the arch at Knights of the Golden Circle and wedged their head against the rock but got out with no serious injury thankfully.  From there we rode over to Garden of the Gods along some pretty rugged trail.

We tied up the mules and horses and had lunch there. Me and two other women took our lunches and went out onto the rocks to sit and eat and enjoy the fantastic view. Two of the young men had to make the jump over to the top of the camel's head. A little scary to watch but they lived to tell about it. We rode back through the canyon where H rock is. We did about 16 miles today and we were out for 7.5 hrs. We did some tough but very fun trails and it was a great ride. Lily was a snot about loading on the trailer to go home. But, eventually she did load and it was a great day.

High Knob to Double M

It was going to be a good weekend so I intended to get in some riding time. I got in touch with Antony Saturday morning to see if he was in camp and if so, what time he was riding out. He said he was taking a group out at 10:00 and the ride would be to Double M for lunch and back. So, I got hustling and got my trailer hooked up and went over to pick up Lily at the barn.

Lily was a bit of a snot about loading this morning. She even nipped my arm! That's a first and it had better be a last. But, I got her in we went over to High Knob Campground. Lily was quiet once I unloaded her and was a good girl when I tacked her up. The group changed their ride time to 10:30 so I had Lily ready ahead of time. I rode her around camp a bit and she was very good. We headed out with a group of 19 riders I think. Kathy was with us and there was a woman trying out her mule Lucy that was interested in buying her.

Lily was pretty quite at first but we were riding straight towards home and in a big group. It wasn't long before she started getting a little anxious. She wasn't horrible but she wasn't fun either. And we
made quite a spectacle of ourselves careening down one particular hill a bit out of control. Sigh..... Anthony put me in the lead as we got closer to Blacks Cabin and told me to lead the group in whatever way I like to go. I like to ride most of the way down Thacker Hollow and turn up the hill by the rock formation. That turn is not easy to see as not many people use that trail. I made the turn, watching to see if those directly behind me saw me and they did. We got to the top of the hill and I only had 5 or 6 riders with me. We waited and no one came up the hill behind us. The last one to come up said they'd seen the riders behind them right there at the rock formation and was sure they'd see them make the turn. We waited..... and waited... and waited. No one came up the hill. I started to wonder if they'd made a turn before the rock formation which would have put them ahead of us on the trail to Blacks Cabin. Anthony was back with that group so I knew they would be ok. I decided to lead my group to Blacks Cabin as I knew Anthony would get the rest of the group there. We made it to Black's Cabin without any serious incident so it was all good. We stopped there to take a break. And it wasn't long before Anthony rode in with the rest of the group. A couple riders had missed the turn and kept going straight down Thacker Hollow.

Considering Lily's behavior so far, I expected her to put up a real fuss about riding away from Blacks Cabin and the direction of home. But, much to my surprise and delight, she didn't even hesitate and she settled right down and was a wonderful girl for the rest of the ride. I rode with Kathy most of the way from Blacks Cabin to Double M. Kathy's mule Caroline was a little anxious about something on the way to Double M but didn't do anything really bad. We all got to Double M and tied our mounts to the hitching rail and lined up to order lunch.

We took our time and enjoyed our lunch. I sat outside and ate lunch on the restaurant porch enjoying the nice weather. We mounted up after lunch and headed back to High Knob by way of Pounds Hollow Lake and to Initial Tree by way of the Indian Paint Wall. 

 

 

From Initial Tree we rode back by way of Circle Rock and the back trail into camp. Lily was a very good girl the whole way back from Double M so it kind of made up for our rough start the first part of the ride. We got back to camp not long before sunset. It was a lovely day.