Hitching Post to Double M

Today Loretta and I came up with a plan to do a point to point ride. Hoping to avoid some of the muddy trails around the camps. Diane was able to join us today. I trailered over to Double M. When Diane arrived, she has a 3 horse trailer so we loaded Lady and Lily into her trailer. Loretta's husband Terry then drove us over to the Hitching Post trail head and dropped us off. The first part of this ride was going to be new territory for me. And it was beautiful with some lovely overlooks. Then we dropped into the H Rock canyon where I have ridden and again, just a beautiful spot. The trails to this point were pretty good. But, the closer we got to Garden of the Gods, the muddier the trails were. We had lunch at the Garden of the Gods tie area. We knew we still had a lot of riding ahead of us. We took 108J and then the R2R trail and stopped for a break at Buzzard's Roost. From there we stayed on R2R riding through High Knob and out to Karber's Ridge Rd. We then took the Wagon trail back to Double M thinking this trail might not be so muddy. It was muddy. But, we had a wonderful ride. We rode almost 19 miles.

Ferne Clyffe Ride

Today I joined the endurance group. We rode from the Ferne Clyffe horse camping area. This was the first time I've ridden this area and it was beautiful! We started out with a little out and back stretch passing a couple very neat old barns. The trails here were excellent and in good condition with very few muddy spots. There was very little to slow down the speed. Though it was interesting how the trail would go from wide, lightly graveled double track to a mule path up or down a bluff and right back to graveled double track. The tough spots were tough but short. Lily was in her element in those sections though. Lily had to really work today to keep up speed wise with such long stretches of good trail. She did great though and only dropped back towards the end. We rode by a beautiful natural bridge. We rode by it along the top and then circled down to the bottom of it. We only did 12 miles, which was enough for Lily at the speed we were doing. The Kiblers had an event they had to go to that afternoon so had to cut their ride shorter than normal. It was a great ride!

Camp Cadiz

Ok, the ride story is going to be a bit sparse. I'm way behind on my ride blogging for good reasons. For once I've been too busy riding to fit in much else!

This day I rode with Loretta, Diane and Theresa. We decided to head south of camp in to less ridden areas to try to get out of all the churned up mud between the two camps. It was a good plan. Believe we did around 23 miles. I trailered Lily over to Double M. Even though I live so close. I knew we'd be out on a long ride and didn't want the extra ride home alone late and tired. It was a good call.

We rode south and crossed Karber's Ridge Rd. We stopped for lunch at the stone cabin. Then rode by Blue Hole. We kept going until we came to the R2R trail and we followed that into Camp Cadiz. I know that trail was worked on last year as there is a plan to make it all passable by wagon. But, some of it is already getting grown back in. We stopped for a long break at Camp Cadiz. We watered the horses and Lily there with my portable camp bucket I keep in my saddle bag. It was there I noticed Lily had LOTS of ticks on her legs. The other horses did as well. We picked a bunch off, mounted up and rode out. We rode along a gravel road past a cemetery then picked up the Beaver Trail. Some of that trail was grown up bad. We had to hack our way though a wall of briar bushes in one spot. Thankfully Loretta had a folding saw in her saddle bag. Then we got into a spot and lost the trail altogether. We wandered around though the woods and finally found our way though. Mostly because Loretta is familiar with the area. From there we rode by the A Frame Cabin. Kind of a spooky spot. From there it was back over Karber's Ridge and mud running back to camp. It was a great ride even if I spent and hour picking ticks off Lily when I got back to the barn.

A Two Ride Day

Sally and I joined the endurance group today. We parked at the trail head across from Circle B Camp. It was a new area for me. We were able to move along pretty well. There was some mud to deal with but plenty of good trail also. When Sally and I got home, we decided we wanted to ride some more since it was such a nice day so we rounded up her horses Dancer for me and she rode the pony and we rode to Double M and had supper.