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[RC] Nov-Dec horsenews - Mike SherrellNov.-Dec. horsenews: Thanksgiving, took 4 days off and went to Carrizo Plain national monument, east of Bakersfield. It?s 25 miles long and five miles wide, lying along the San Andreas fault and separated from the San Joaquin Valley by the Temblor Range, which is just a few miles wide and quite precipitous. It surely was once antelope heaven, but when the whites came they kicked them off for cattle. Rojas tells stories about vaqueros that rode here, and every few miles across the plain there?s some abandoned farm buildings, big bashed-in water tanks, broken-down cattle pens and loading chutes; some of the taller ruins lift big nests of sticks above the plain. On the road between some wrecked cattle pens with their water tank and a ruined little house surrounded by abandoned farm machinery, with that unnecessarily artistic pre-depression ironwork, we came to a slightly lower spot with was a ten-yard patch of the tallest fresh green grass. I stopped and got off and let Traveller graze, and looked out across the valley. I haven?t felt so completely alone since I can remember. A little beyond, a flock of curlews poked the ground for bugs with long curved bills, then took off and banked left on their pointed gullwings, banked right, and settled again 50 yards further along and began poking around some more. One night Traveller escaped when I didn?t see an open gate in the back of a grassy cattle pen I put him in. Looking for him with the spotlight, reflective eyes turned out to be a young fox or very young coyote. Next morning Taveller?s tracks led up the dirt road just over a mile towards where we?d camped the night before; he seemed relieved to see me. I led him back driving the truck holding his lead rope out the open window. There?s no water, no food, no gas. Watch out for the salt sinks; we got into sticky salty muck trying to finish a loop before dark and never found water to wash it out of his tail and off his legs. Also watch out for the burrows; the soil is honeycombed with them and you have to lead your horse; only the roads are sound footing. Violent, striking fault features crop up, such as the Elkhorn scarp. When we got there you could see old farm buildings five miles away across the plain, but then one day South Central Valley air pollution laid down a haze ? though not as bad by a long shot as the whiskey-red smog over the whole south end of the San Joaquin valley when we came back the next day. There are more rideable old farm roads than on the internet map but fewer than in the DeLorme atlas. When we were there in late November it had only rained once and there were patchses of new grass here and there, but by the end of March the grass will be luscious. Thanks to a new horseable gate in the middle, another venue that came together starts at McInnis Park, west of 101 just north of San Rafael. 5 miles of Bayside gaiting: flocks and flights of waterbirds, water on both sides of you half the time, views of Mt. Tam to the west and Mt. Diablo to the east, mostly soft dredged fill for footing and all of it flat as the Bay itself. We rediscovered a really excellent ride along the abandoned railroad tracks south from Guerneville Road past Railroad Square, through the homeless encampments under the freeway and along between the back yards as far south as Hearn. There are only a couple of wide, busy roads to cross, and 90% of the way is great, great gaiting ? mostly dirt and light gravel single track through the grass. A lot more downmarket than Iron Horse trail through Danville and Alamo. It?s only about 45 minutes each way, but close to hand, and when the ground dries up in April it will be possible to go further south. December, Traveller?s gaits/moves come together. I?ve stopped pushing him away from the sobriandando, just holding him a little away from the pace. I? ve come to intuitively know the headset to hold him at, he's very responsive to my seat, and he?s very smooth and very fast. In soft ground and/or when he gets excited and frightened I can get him into an amazing rocking-horse paso llano. It may be because we?ve developed to this spot, or because I quit riding all the other horses and only ride him, which seems to have given him a certain confidence. He has gained confidence; he?s taken to pinning his ears at me when I brush, de-mud or curry him. I haven?t decided whether to reprimand him for it, but I?m watching his hind feet. His excellently smooth and too-fast-for-genteel-sightseeing gait finally came into hand in the final 200 yards of a several-mile levee ride south down the right bank of the Russian River from Healdsburg. The next day, also during the rainy week of Xmas-New Year?s, to make sure of it we went east on SR creek, the north branch, from Fulton across Guerneville. Everything?s green, mossy, growing, molding, mushrooming, rotting, all the overhanging trees and the backyards with their crowded landscaping, smaller lots than Iron Horse and so more crowded with plants and garden features, almost as overgrown as New Orleans or Savannah or Limon, the decaying old Spanish Carribean city on Costa Rica?s Carribean coast. Winter is the most beautiful time of year in California. Mike Sherrell Grizzly Analytical (USA) 707 887 2919/fax 707 887 9834 www.grizzlyanalytical.com =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. 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