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This past weekend was the Swanton endurance ride where I suckered (hahaha) my
non-endurance barnmate Annie into drag/safety riding about 16 miles towards the
end of the ride.  It was the last stretch for the 75 milers and the 2nd to last
for the 100s, so we didn't get out on our horses out onto the trail until about
8pm.  No worries though, we hung around the Cascade Ranch vet check until the
last riders came in for us to follow.  I saw a bunch of people I knew from
endurance rides as well as NATRC including my barnmate Becky's daughter, Julie,
who was riding in the 75 miler.  Unfortunately Becky's horse Solerro hurt
himself a week before the ride so she had to pull.. but she got to live
vicariously through her daughter, who before this weekend had never even ridden
past 25 miles, let alone by herself!  Pretty amazing.  I'm not sure yet if they
completed, but at the Cascade check both looked great and Lady, her bay arab
mare, was way too busy to say hello as she was chowing down on everything in
sight.

Anyways, our main goals for this ride were to 1) pull ribbons and glowsticks 
2) stay out of the way of the riders in front of us and 3) not kill ourselves. 
We managed to achieve our goals (mostly).  The trail started off as a nice wide
fireroad that kept climbing and climbing.  We trotted where we could and
stopped often when we caught sight of the 2 100 miler riders in front of us. 
Annie was riding her 16hh chestnut thoroughbred, General, who was approached by
more than one person in awe of how big he was.  On the other hand, Annie, who
had never seen an endurance event, was in awe of all the "little greyhound"
arabs (being an eventer/dressage rider she's used to gigantaur warmbloods and
also rides a 17hh monster Trakehner).  We climbed what turned out to be the
first of 3 big mountains and ended up at the top ridge as the sun disappeared. 
The view from the top was incredible..  all around us we could see tree-covered
mountains, some covered with thin foggy mists, and off in the distance to our
left was the glimmer of a big orange moon that would eventually provide us with
some light along our way.

As darkness fell, the trail became increasingly more technical.  Both of us
brought headlamps but mine burnt out after less than 15 minutes (nice).  The
hills were becomming steeper and narrower as we worked back down the mountain..
I'm not sure if we would've been better off if we were able to see the trail as
those switchbacks down were quite treacherous!  I was giving Isabella her rein
but stopped trusting her completely after she tried to walk off a sandy edge
into the pitch black (EEK!).  After we arrived at the bottom of the hill it was
time to work our way back up.  We saw the riders in front of us by their
headlamps glinting through the trees halfway up the mountain.  This mountain
was mostly covered in big eucalyptus (or pine? couldn't tell!) trees that
provided us with "shade" from the moon.  In other words, it was pitch black
here.  I let Annie in front so we would be able to see from her light if we
were actually on the trail or not.  We became quite adept at spotting and
pulling ribbons in the dark by this point, although a few times we ended up
with handfuls of draping moss. :)

More switchbacks down the hill led us to a big creek where we stopped for a
little while to provide distance again with the riders in front of us (we
weren't going fast at all).  We met up with the fireroad again and had a nice
long trotting stretch before we reached the lumberyard.  There we found the 2
100 milers we'd been tailing, wandering around, a bit lost.  Together we found
the next glowstick in the distance and walked into the Sawmill vetcheck, no
worse for wear.  By this time it was midnight and we were offered a ride by the
ambulance driver back to camp, which we graciously accepted after learning the
two riders we followed were fit to continue (yay!).  We managed to find my rig
back in ridecamp, which the previous drag riders had driven, and loaded up to
leave at around 1:30am after giving our brave steeds some time to rest and
recuperate.  Despite the one little mishap towards the ridge edge, this ride
really proved to me how amazing Isabella is to me, there were times when I was
not able to see the trail at all and she was twisting and turning around the
bends with her nose to the ground, smelling the horses that had trod there
before us.  Ridecamp was absolutely beautiful under the moonlight as we drove
away and after unloading the horses back at the ranch, I finally flopped into
bed around 3am to sleep.  What a night!  We had so much fun..  I admire all the
riders who trekked through these tough trails after 50+ miles of riding
already!  Isabella and I probably have 2 more years to go before we're ready
for a ride this long, but now that I've seen the trail I'm definitely looking
forward to it. :)

Julienne
&Isabella Mari


               
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