2013 Washoe Valley II 50

I woke up at 3 am when the rain started.

I couldn't believe it at first, and I almost went back to sleep, but I'd only thrown a cooler on D so I had to climb out of bed and put her waterproof blanket on.  Then I went back to bed.

At five, I was awake again.  I knew I'd made a huge mistake.


In a lifetime punctuated by bad decisions, getting back on my horse in the rainy predawn gloom seemed like a top-ten bad idea.  But I want to ride Tevis next year, and I want to ride Sunriver 100 this year, and I knew that I had to get the hell out of bed and cowboy up and get it done.  I used my favorite mental trick and told myself I only had to ride the first loop and then I could wuss out and pull.

Dixie gave me this "oh no you cannot be serious" look when I went at her with the saddle, but she didn't bite me or kick me, and some days that's all you can ask for.  It was 45 or 50 and lightly raining, so I pulled on an extra hoodie (see yesterday, re: no rain gear at all) and got one leg on either side of the horse and headed to the start.

Seven intrepid fools riders were assembled at the start at 6:30.  Twenty-one ended up starting, but the number one secret to endurance riding is to leave camp as soon as it's time - start on time and get the hell out of the checks on time.  It actually paid off for us on Sunday!

I was planning on riding Day 2 with my friend Wayne on his firey little TWH Vader.  Vader is a year less seasoned than Dixie, so he'd done the 25 on Saturday rather than try two 50s, and Vader was a fire-breathing monster at the start.  We separated at the ride pics, a mile into the park, and I didn't catch up for a couple miles.

I have questionable decision-making skills at the best of times, and that morning I'd decided that since I was cold I'd just wear sweats over my tights instead of half-chaps.  They rode up to my knees in about a mile and I spent the first loop constantly worrying about where my feet were, trying to keep the leathers from rubbing my calves.

Day Two shares a lot of trail with Day One, but it's all backwards from Day One so it really feels like you're riding something different.  I climbed up Bobcat with Connie and Lou, and Dixie really felt strong powerwalking that big canyon.  We caught up to Wayne on the downhill, then Connie and Lou disappeared up Jumbo and Wayne and I stayed together for the rest of the day.

The drizzle had slacked up on the climb, and the view was just gorgeous.  The big valley to the left is the north end of Washoe Lake Park, and the tiny white dot on the near hill is a rider - Courtney on Max, I think.

But then we got to the top of the mountain and it started to snow.  I am not even kidding, it totally started spitting snow at us.  Happy Cinco de Mayo, Nevada style!  Wayne and I were sick of riding so we hopped off and jogged/slid down the back of Jumbo.  Wayne is a runner who's new to endurance, so he jogs a lot more than I do, but he's a good influence on me.  The SOBs on Saturday had reminded me that I can't climb uphills, but I know I can do the downhills, so I got off every time he did for the downhills.

The climb was tough, but the downhill run gave Dixie a good chance to recover, and she felt fine when I got back on for the traverse around the back of the hills.  Not a too-fresh wild mustang, but surprisingly not tired!  We wound back around to the water trough where the horse had gotten loose Saturday.  Courtney and Max had passed us on the downhill, and we caught her at the water, but she took off a bit faster than us and stayed gone the rest of the day.  We worked through the hills, made one last climb, and ran down the mile to camp.

Dixie was down and looking good when we got in.  Her CRI wasn't great, like 60/62, but it wasn't awful.  She ate pretty well at the hold, and she'd been drinking good all day, and I was incredibly sore but I knew we could finish.  I took off my sweats, put on my half chaps, got cold, and put the sweats back on top.  The hour flew by as they always do and before I knew it we were mounted up and headed out again.

Dixie and I always get all shitty and resentful with each other after lunch.  I'm used to it, so I don't even care anymore.  For about an hour or two after lunch, I just hate riding and she hates going back out and we sulk slowly down the trail together.  It's the part of the day where I really honestly need another rider around to help pull us down the trail.  So we just sucked our way down the south end of the lake, admiring the gorgeous views and every now and then feebly trotting to keep Vader in sight.

The way I think about Day Two is:  you climb Jumbo in the morning, then there's some easy stuff and you're back at camp.  Then you head out and it's easy and then you have to climb Cinder Mine and that's the worst thing in the universe, but it's literally all downhill after that.  So that hill we were climbing in the video is "the easy stuff."  We worked our way up that thing and did a couple ten miles of mostly flat mostly ok sand roads and then there it was, looming like Mount Doom, waiting for us.

That black thing.  That's Cinder Mine.  You drop down into a valley, then climb up an absolutely endless gravel road, then you pass the mine and climb the rest of the way up an endless rocky jeep trail, then you're at the top of the universe.

 

Last year was hotter, and Dixie was less fit, and I thought we'd never make it.  She did her dead zombie horse plod, and she'd stop and pant and quiver every hundred yards, and it felt like we'd never get there.  This year, Dixie was just as unhappy about the climb, but she just. kept. walking.  Wayne was leading Vader up the hill, and he'd stop and pant every half-mile or so and Dixie would stop too, but she never asked to stop and she'd often get bored and start walking again.  She was such a rockstar.  

One of my all-time favorite books is The Hero and The Crown by Robin McKinley.  There's this one bit where Aerin, the heroine, is climbing an endless stone staircase in a tower to confront the Big Bad, and she's got a rash.  She's trying not to scratch the rash, and she's trying to keep plodding up the stairs, and she's thinking about the silly names of the gods in her pantheon.  "She had been climbing forever; she would be climbing forever.  She would be a new god:  the God That Climbs.  It was no more improbable than some of the other gods:  the God That Isn't There, for example (more often known as the God that Follows or the God That Goes Before), which was the shadow-god at midday."  

We were the Team That Climbs.

 The views were astonishing, though.

 That's Carson City.

 And the Sierras, where we'll be the Team That Climbs again for Tahoe Rim.

 Even Wayne gave up and got back on eventually.

 And finally, we were up and over to the water trough.

And then we went back down.

After Aerin defeats the Big Bad, the tower collapses (as they do).  "The sound of the mountain tower falling was so loud she could no longer make room for her thoughts, and so she gave up thinking and blackness hurtled past her, and heavy fragments of that blackness fell with her but did not touch her, and she wondered if she might fall forever, as she had climbed, and thus perhaps become the God That Falls, or perhaps the God That Climbs and Falls."  We were the Team That Runs Downhill Til The Human Can't Run Anymore and Rides Downhill.

But really, running and riding downhill is easy, even with a bruise on your thigh that's bigger than your hand from your thigh slamming into the pommel.  Dixie knew we were going home, and she felt good under me, and all we had to do was switchback a couple ten miles down the hill and we were back in camp.

We had a fifteen minute hold, then another seven miles around the park.  When we came in, Wayne and I were in 7th and 8th place and there were maybe fifteen riders total still in it.  During my time as the God That Climbs, we'd seen a few more riders come in to the water trough at the bottom of the mine road, but we hadn't seen anybody on the long miles coming downhill back to camp.  We were comfortably in 7th and 8th, and when we headed out we were feeling pretty good.

The horses set up a good but tired pace, where we'd trot/gait for 3 minutes or so then walk for a minute.  We worked up the fun little winding singletrack to the north end of the park and watched a huge cloud of cold rain blow down the Sierras and over the lake toward us.

 It was a bit of a low point emotionally.

 The rain hit and it turned out to be mixed with sleet.  Dixie was irritable and furious about the rain and I couldn't let go of the reins long enough to get my (totally inadequate) hoodie un-velcroed off the pommel and onto me, so I just rode through it in my yellow long-sleeved running shirt.  I figured if we kept trotting, I wouldn't die of hypothermia before we got back to camp.

It was a short squall and it blew over in a few minutes, and the desert air had me dried out by the time we got back in.  We sort of kept not-so-secretly glancing over our shoulders, waiting for someone to catch us.

When we hit the north end of the park and turned for home, the horses perked back up.  They'd been trotting out easily enough when we asked, but when we were facing the trailers again they started picking up a trot on their own.  In the last two miles, Crisanne and her friend appeared out of absolutely nowhere and blew past us, bumping us back to 9th and 10th place, and we had to fight to keep the horses from galloping in behind them.  (MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!  Enough horse left to fight about running in after two days of 50s!)  We kept checking, and at about a mile out, there was one rider visible behind us.

Look, I'm not a racer.  I always knew I'd never top 10 unless there were only 10 or 12 entries, and that's ok.  If I wanted to race, I'd buy an Arab and race.  But top-tenning would just be the icing on a very sweet weekend, and we were far enough ahead of the lone rider to make it, and... well, we let 'em trot the rest of the way in to top-ten.

I threatened to make Wayne rock-paper-scissors me for placing, but he didn't have a First TWH award and I did, so I let him take 9th and I got 10th.  We finished at 4:10, three minutes faster (15 minute hold vs 10 minute hold) than on Saturday.

Dixie was HANGRY (that's when you're so hungry you're angry) so I took her by the trailer first.  I stripped her tack and let her stuff her face, and when she came up for air I dragged her over to vet out.  It was undeniably the worst trot-out I've ever performed and I don't know if I even managed to run fast enough to make her trot, but she looked good.  Her back was all A's, with just a little bit of puffiness where I need to shave the edge of the saddle pads down a bit.  Her final CRI was 52.

And we got loot!  Turned out we were first middleweight too, so I ended up with a big mesh thing - I think it's a cooler?  Cause it's not fitted like a fly sheet? and interference boots and a logo'd bag that I stuffed a set of boots in.  Plus Steve finally gave me our awards for last year's NEDA rides - Dixie got 10th high mileage horse (and I'm super proud of that, considering we only rode half the available rides) so I got a plaque, a NEDA tee, and a gift cert that I used on a big sturdy hay bag from Henry.

And I cried.  I could not stop giggling and crying.  She looked SO good and she did SO well and my horse is just a stupendous badass.

Tomorrow I'll post some more:  gear review, plans, the trip home, but I've got to go do boring real life stuff now.

TEAM FIXIE FOREVER!

2013 Washoe Valley I 50

So Friday I hooked up the trailer, loaded the horse, and drove to Reno.

That's probably not the right place to start, but it's a place.  We've got lots of boring real life stuff going on - we had visitors two weeks ago (loved seeing you guys!!) and we're moving to Oakland in two weeks, and it's been incredibly hard for me to concentrate on that part of my life.  My husband picked up a lot of my slack, cause he's awesome, but I still felt like my mind was revving aimlessly at 5000 rpms the whole week before the ride.

But once I pried my trailer out of its impossible parking spot and loaded my horse, the fog started to clear.  The best way out of Oakland is on Hwy 24, through the Caldecott Tunnel, which is a half-mile of gut-clenching terror for me.  I am a little claustrophobic, and the lanes are just wide enough for my trailer with about two feet to spare on either side, and it's more than a half-mile long under an enormous mountain that could collapse on me at any moment, and UGH.  I hate it, but it's better than taking 580 up to the Maze in morning rush hour.

The trip to Reno was smooth sailing.  We stopped at Green's Feed in north Reno to pick up a new set of Gloves I'd ordered, plus some miscellaneous horse junk, but they didn't have any English pads, so we had to head down to Sierra Saddlery for that.  But Sierra had a purple pad!

I got to Washoe Lake State Park about 3 and snagged a prime camping spot (right near the food crew's trucks, beside the pavilion).  Dixie came off the trailer, looked around once, and dove into her food like a good horse.

The weather was glorious.  About 70, light breeze, blue sky as far as the eye could see.  I got D braided, booted, and blanketed; went over my game plan in my head; went to the ride meeting; and crashed out.  

We did the Sunday ride last year, but I'd never done the Saturday ride.  Dixie turns from the laziest plug of a trail horse into a fire-breathing monster at the start of a ride, so I was really glad to have a controlled start up a very large hill.  It's a 600' climb in about a mile, so it's enough to get her brain back online.  

My whole goal for the ride was to ride slow enough to have enough horse at the end of Sunday.  I wanted her to be pulling on the reins for the last mile into camp.  I knew I couldn't let her go as fast as she wanted at any point or she'd tire herself out and have a hard time recovering, so I just tried to keep her to a dull roar for the first five miles or so.  

At the first water trough, Dixie didn't really want to drink, but I made her stand around for a minute and catch her breath.  I'd just started out again, mid-pack with maybe four other riders, when a horse went curving around behind us at a full gallop with a saddle hanging off its neck.  Later, I heard that the rider had gotten off to adjust the girth and lost the reins - the horse took off, the saddle slipped around to hang by the breastcollar, and that's all she wrote.  The horse ran up the railroad tracks, parallel to us, weaving in and out across the tracks for a couple miles, then peeled off and headed for Dayton.  

(Dyke went out on a four-wheeler and found it that afternoon, unharmed, and got it back to camp, but watching it disappear to the east was pretty awful.)

We all curved around the back of the mountain and started a long climb up Ophir Grade - 1600' in five miles.  The lower part is steady, easy going up gravel roads, and I lost a boot in there.  It came off her front right foot but hung on by the gaiter, so I rode til I found a likely boulder and hopped off to fix it.  They were brand-new Gloves, so there was a lot of cursing and sweating to bang it back on.  

Three more people came up behind me right as I got the boot seated, and thankfully they waited for me to get remounted.  I walked toward the boulder, failed to lift my foot high enough, fell flat on my face on the boulder, and dropped the damn reins.  Dixie trotted merrily off down the trail and one of the other riders trotted after her and caught her.  She turned to come back to us with a loose horse in one hand and a water bottle in the other, and her horse did a little sideways hop and knocked her off.  I'd gotten up and moving again so I ran over and caught her horse, she caught mine, and we swapped!

After that drama, we headed on up the hill.  Gina on Destiny and Nicole on Golden Knight had detoured off down a road to see if they could catch the loose horse, but it had disappeared into a grassy little valley so they gave up and came back to the trail right as I got there with my horse-catching friends.  The horse-catchers and Knight pulled away up the hill, but Destiny and Dixie were climbing steadily at a good pace, so I just stuck with Gina.  

Look, guys, if you can ever swing riding a ride with the co-ride manager, I highly recommend it.  You never even have to think about whether you've seen a ribbon lately!  Very peaceful :)

Fire Mt. Destiny is one of those horses that just takes my breath away.  He's got 98 starts and 97 finishes.  He's a full Arab, but he's a tank who just chews up the miles at a moderate pace forever.  When I first started conditioning Dixie, I thought we'd never be able to keep up with him, so I thought he'd smoke us on Ophir and we'd see them at camp.  But Dixie just walked steadily up the entire hill with him, started drinking with him, and never let him out of her sight for the rest of the day.  

After you're up, there's nothing to do but go down.  There's two valleys/hills (they say it's three, but the third one is so small in comparison it hardly seems to matter) called the SOBs, and they almost killed me.  

I got off and walked down the first one and thought I'd tail up.  Bad idea.  It's at +6000' and while I can jog downhill or flat for miles, I just CANNOT climb at altitude anymore.  Dixie let me tail her, and Nicole passed us again and let me tail off of Knight for a bit, but I felt like I was dying (and I was really ready to just DIE already and get it over with!)  Cold chills, heart palpitations, legs made of lead.  Everybody, mounted and tailing, passed us and Dixie spazzed out and I kept having to sit down on rocks and gasp for breath and it sucked.  I rode along the top of the hill, got off and slithered down the next one, and made Dixie carry my fat ass up the second SOB.  

(Gina told me that Virginia City 100 used to be run as a giant hundred-mile loop around VC, and that you'd hit the SOBs at Mile 92, and people would just give up and sit down and wait to be picked up the next morning.  I totally believe it.)

But after the SOBs, it's literally all downhill to camp.  I got off and ran a little more, because my new saddle was causing unexpected excruciating pains riding downhill, and before I knew it, we were back in camp.  

Dixie ate a bit, and I ate a bit and inspected my bruises.  I'd let myself slide forward and bang my thighs into the pommel early on, and I had a palm-sized bruise forming on my left thigh.  But I had tons of horse left and it didn't really hurt that bad, so I hopped back on and we headed out on time.  

The second loop goes north of the park, up Jumbo Grade on the north, to a little meadow of heaven.  I stuck with Gina til we really started to climb, when a little grey Arab came trotting past and Dixie wanted to follow him, so away we went again.  The grey was trotting the steep bits and recovering on the flatter bits, but I know that's the best way to tire out my horse so I made Dixie walk the whole thing.  She powerwalked all the way up Jumbo with a few breaks to pant and refuse to eat the nice green grass, then we trotted about a mile of flat into the meadow.  

The meadow has grass, hay, carrots, and water for the horses, plus a number-taker and beer-dispenser for the humans.  We'd lost Gina somewhere in the climb, but I knew her pace was better for Dixie than the grey's pace, so I decided to wait til she showed up.  Plus, there was beer.  Nevada rides RULE!

 

Gina made it in about ten minutes behind me.  She was a little worried that maybe Destiny was in trouble, or maybe he just wanted to turn for home instead of going on down the trail, but I told her if she didn't mind I'd really rather ride at her pace than go on alone.  We headed out at an easy pace and finished the last big climb, then dropped down lovely Bobcat Canyon back to the park.  

The clouds were coming in, and we spent a lot of time looking at them and saying stuff like "They sure are getting bigger, aren't they?"  The last time I'd checked the weather, on like Wednesday or Thursday, there was a 20% chance of showers on Sunday, but man, those clouds sure were getting bigger.  Gina was worried it'd rain on the awards dinner, but I was still pretty incredulous.  It never rains in Nevada!  In two years there I got rained on like five times total.  Pffft.

The second check was a 10-minute hold, so I just refilled my water and hit the toilet and we were out again.  We had one more five-mile loop around the park and we'd be done.  It's maybe a mile along the lake in deep sand and the rest of the loop is flat hardpacked sand roads.  I love the "classic" split of 25/20/5 - when I'm tired and just done with it, at the second hold, I know I've only got another hour in the saddle.  It's harder for me mentally to head out a third time knowing it'll be two or three or four more hours.  

We finished the ride at 4:02, for a ride time of 8:22 if I'm doing the math right.  My "goal time" has always been 8-9 hours, so I was really pleasantly surprised.  Dixie vetted out with a 52 or 56 CRI, I can't really remember, but it was perfect for her - she's never got a low base heart rate.  

It did rain, just a bit, at the awards dinner.  We got First TWH (out of two, but it's such a sweet gesture to give breed awards and I totally cried and it's a beautiful photo) and a beautiful handmade pottery plate/dish for completion.  There was pulled pork and sweet cole slaw and potatoes and I ate til I hurt, but the food sure perked me up.  

My bruise grew to the size of my hand.  

I made sure Dixie was eating and crashed out pretty early, under cloudy skies.  

Coming up:  Sunday Funday!

Red Rock Rumble 50

What a thoroughly excellent ride! You're gonna get seven thousand iphone pics and the exhaustive blow-by-blow on this post - it was that much fun.

So Friday I packed up and headed back to Reno. Red Rocks is just north of town (one exit up from where our house our rental house is).


I love how odds are I know somebody at any ride in the region, but Nevada rides are definitely "home" for me. So we pulled in and found a nice spot and I unloaded Dixie. I led her over to the water - I didn't think she'd drink, but she might like to stretch her legs, you know how you do. A guy, Wayne, immediately came up to me and asked if she's a TWH. (That happens all the time, but usually it's not quite so immediate!) We talked for a few minutes - he was starting his first 50 on his TWH!! - and then we decided we knew each other. A lot of "did you ride X?" and "did you volunteer at Y?" and we finally worked it out. I rode 10 miles with him at NEDA Frenchman's Creek last year. He's moved on from the Arab who dumped him at the start (go Team Sensible!).

The sky was fabulous. The weather was lovely - highs in the low 70s both days.


The grey photobombed my picture of the mountains! (She also started her first 50 on Saturday.)


After we vetted in and got settled and I thought about it a little (but didn't overthink it!) I went and found Wayne and sort of offhand offered to ride with him if he'd like the company and he didn't mind going slow. He said it sounded great and we decided to meet up in the morning.

The sunset was amazing - this is looking to the east and it's just the early stages.


The colors got better


and better


and better.


Ride meeting was excellent. The ride was two loops: the first 30 mile loop had a 15 minute out check at 10 miles, then finish that loop back in camp for the 1-hour hold, then back out for a 20 mile loop across the road.

Then I woke up to an amazing sunrise.


I had a secret weapon on this ride: I'd done the first loop back in February. (BIG thanks to C!) I headed out with Wayne on Rocky and we picked up B, on a green little grey Arab, pretty fast. We had a great time and the first part of the first loop flew by.

This is an accident, but I like it. Lotta footing like this all day.


Here we are, back at Dixie Lane!


We had an away check at 10 miles - almost a gate-and-go, with a 15 minute hold. Just long enough for the horses to gobble down some fruit and the humans to hit the porta potties. Then we started the Big Climb (and the Big Rocks). We climbed up this valley, around that hill, then up on a proper mountain.


Up and up. Dixie had "latched on" to a giant bay Arab who was just ahead of us, and the Arab loved her back. His owner would urge him on and he'd trot off maybe 100 yards up the hill then he'd refuse to trot any more, and Dixie would powerwalk to catch up to him. Eventually we humans gave up and rode together, and I kept telling her how far we had to go. ("Well, at some point we make a right and it gets a lot steeper, and I think we end up on top of that peak," "I think if my GPS is right it's less than two miles further," etc.)

It's six miles of steadily increasing climb. There's an eagle nest in a house-sized boulder about a third of the way up, but that pic didn't come out. I like to think I could barely see Pyramid Lake, to the right beside the tallest peak in this shot.


I, um, kind of lost Wayne in there. He was back there with the grey Arab, and Dixie was hot on the heels of the bay Arab, and I hate climbing that stupid mountain (although I love it as soon as I'm up top!) and I decided I'd just dawdle on the downhill and hope they caught up.

Eventually, we made the peak. There's no water up there, and neither of our horses had drank at the trough at 10 miles, so we didn't linger too long. The Sierra Nevadas are the range in the furthest distance.


The next 2.5 miles is quite steep downgrades, so we hopped off and led the horses down. It's Nevada, so we import rocks where necessary to meet the Nevada AERC Quota.


Eventually, we got to the first of two huge spring-fed cow troughs. Both horses dived in and we were thrilled! I squirted Dixie down and refilled her bottles and we slithered on down to the second trough - where the devil cows awaited us.


Once Miss D starts drinking, nothing will stand in her way, not even cows.


Wayne and Rocky showed up again at that point. YAY! We walked another quarter mile or so, til the grade finally leveled out a bit, then we all mounted up and zoomed away. We trotted the whole valley back to camp, with me calling out landmarks and my estimated distances to camp.

The Arab woman (whose name I have sadly forgotten) and I were both fairly worried about time, and we wanted to pulse down fast and get out of camp on time. Dixie was in the mid-60s when we got in, so I yanked her tack and squirted her neck and got her down inside three minutes. The other two got down almost as fast, and we all vetted ok.

I warned my friends that I hadn't ridden the second loop! We headed out across the paved road, down some sand roads, past a cow pond, and up the tiny creek that feeds the pond. We saw a ribbon down low on a sagebrush, then a trampled ribbon, then all the ribbons were gone. We wandered long enough to decide we were definitely lost, so I whipped out my phone and called the RM. She reassured us that we're on the right track and sent us "up the canyon" - we checked one canyon, didn't see ribbons, rode up a small hill, and saw ribbons in the other canyon.

Lost. You just can't trust cows. They are not very bright and they sure do think surveyor's tape is tasty.


Found. Here's the canyon!


This was mentally the hard part of the ride for everybody. The cow path up the canyon was very well ribboned, but it was incredibly narrow and impossible to trot. It was probably 5 miles of walking, but it felt like 10 miles and this was where we became utterly convinced that we were turtling. I kept checking the GPS and running the numbers and I was pretty sure if we could just keep a 4 mph pace we'd make it, but the others were more worried.



Also, they were mad. At the meeting, the RM was bragging about all the deer, antelope, and eagles that everybody'd seen in the weeks leading up to the ride, and we hadn't seen anything! They were pretty unimpressed by my eagle nest, so I started playing "spot the eagle."

I announced any bird larger than a sparrow as "Look! An EAGLE!" Please behold this lovely black-and-white "eagle," slightly smaller than the red-and-buff hawk-sized "eagles" we also saw all day.


Wayne and I also started tallying gates. When we'd been split up, we'd both had to open the same gates, and when we were together we kept both getting off to open a gate and stretch our legs, but he was sure he was two up on me. Arguing about that, spotting eagles, and interpreting the map kept us perky til we finally hit SAND ROAD again.

We stopped at the world's best oasis - a NASTR member set up two tanks, two hay piles, 25 lbs of carrots, 25 lbs of apples, and a couple gallons of people ice water! We were deliriously happy and couldn't stop thanking him. He insisted that we were NOT in last place, that there were about 10 riders behind us, and I re-ran the math and reassured my friends that we'd finish JUST FINE.

Away we went again. Up a hill,


...down a hill, then back across the road to the Red Rock Hounds.


At the barn, another fabulous volunteer had LEMONADE for the humans and apples and water for the horses, then she opened a gate for us (robbing me of the chance to even up the score with Wayne) and let us into the pasture. The TWH were pretty uninspired about getting through the pasture til a big bay pinned her ears and bluff-charged us - yes, when I say "into the pasture" I mean into the pasture where the foxhunting horses were grazing!

We finally got them moving and I quit taking pictures again. Through a couple pastures, around a couple ponds, over a dirt-covered booming wooden bridge, through a couple more pastures full of ribbon-eating cows. When we'd lose the ribbons, we'd just split up and move down the pasture and keep looking. Eventually, we found the right gate going up the canyon. (I opened it, thus leaving Wayne only one up on me for the day.)

One more big 1000' climb, back up to the plateau where camp is. The bit through the hounds is familiar to me, and I kept promising my friends that we'd have one more huge climb then we'd be THERE, a mile or less from camp, just one horrible slog at the end and done. The woman on the Arab got a big trot out of him and they disappeared up the canyon, but Wayne and I were happy to walk our gaited beasties. And we did WALK - I think Wayne did half the canyon on foot, and I did the lower quarter, rode the middle, walked another quarter, then rode again to the top.


There were a LOT of "false crests" but this, this really was it. When we slogged up to that rim we were on the plateau, looking at camp.



Both horses looked at the trailers and perked right up and offered a trot. (Or a gait - Rocky actually step-paced ALL day!) We finished at 5:54 - a whole HOUR and six minutes before cutoff.

And I got another amazing sunset.


We vetted out ok, decent CRI. Wayne's palomino had a better CRI than Dixie! He's the sleeper hit for sure. Dixie was a little body sore - she made snarly faces whenever anybody touched her. Not back sore; she didn't flinch for back palpation. It wasn't specific, like the girth had rubbed her or the saddle had squished her withers. She was just generally sore on Saturday night. She'd recovered by Sunday morning, and I think our season is done anyway - if it recurs next year we'll try to figure out what's going on.

I hiked and RAN probably 4 miles of this, which doesn't sound like all that much but it's the most I've done before. I'm not a very fast runner, and hills at elevation just KILL me going up, so I can only reasonably get off and run the downhills. But anyway, I felt great all day, and I'm deadly sore today but I think I'll bounce back pretty fast.

I have had such a perfect season with my mare - I am so proud of her. And me, sure, but mainly I'm impressed with Dixie!