Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Here are photos from last weeks ride.  They are out of order.  All of the 
days are really pretty, but the last day has some of the most spectacular 
scenery -- we ride underneath the pink cliffs for miles and miles.  With 
each turn, they only get more magnificant.  That days trail is always a 
challenge, there is a lot of climbing, and a few washouts in 
places.  Joseph and Dave Rabe did a great job clearing trail for us, they 
really worked their butts off.  Dave even went out to clear trail for hours 
after riding all day.  They figured that they moved over 200 downed trees, 
and these aren't just regular sized trees.  Some of them were quite large!

I have a bunch of short videos.  I need to resize them, or put them on CD's 
for people.  I filled up my memory card every day. Before 
lunch.  <sigh>  So even with all of those photos, it's not even showing all 
of the trail.  http://www.xprides.com/Bryce_2005/Bryce2005.html  Results 
should be on the website in a few more days.

On the last day while going down the trail I could see up ahead one horse 
in the group ahead fall into some soft sand up to it's belly.  When we got 
up to that section, I figured I would get off and lead thru it.  I led 
Chief about two feet into it and he sunk up to his knees.  He stood there 
looking at me like "you are kidding, right"?  Well...uhh....hmmmmm.  This 
trail is only so wide (one horse width) anyway, and on the side of a 
mountain, that we are climbing up.  That section had a landslide.  The 
first few riders made it thru okay but then the sand got softened up and 
water from a spring probably made its way down into it and softened it up 
even more.  To make it even more challenging, after you did get across that 
section which was probably 15 to 20 feet across -- you had to go up a 
couple of feet up to get back to solid footing.  Well, horses can't jump 
even two feet when they are up to their hocks and bellies in sand!  I was 
riding with Pat V., who was nice enough to let me go first!  ;)  Well, 
after Chief sunk to his knees in only two feet of the crossing, I turned 
him around and said "I'm NOT going that way".  We looked up above and there 
was no way we were going to get across by going up.  I looked down and 
thought well, it can't be any worse than what is on the trail -- took a 
step down a couple of feet and it felt solid.  Asked the horse to follow me 
a couple of steps.  He didn't sink either.  The ground was hard crusty type 
sand and firm with cracks in it.  It reminded me of some of the alkaline 
soil we have here in Nevada that you can step in and sink in and it holds 
you like velcro.  I kept walking and Chief followed me slowly across and we 
made it without sinking.  Once on the other side it was not the most 
negotiable section because now we were a couple of feet even lower than the 
trail, with the top firm section being so high up that I couldn't climb up 
it without reaching up to grab onto something up above, so I told the horse 
to 'stay'.  if he tried to jump up he'd land right on top of me, and if he 
moved over he'd sink up to his belly in the soft sand.  I got up, and then 
he came up when I told him to.  Pat was still on the other side watching 
with eyes as big as saucers.  I wondered if she was thinking "is it too 
late to go back?"  (we'd already gone over 25 miles by then).  She did what 
I did, and made it safely across.  Whew!

I had an ongoing joke all week with Greg Pryor.  After he got the map for 
the first day, he says "well it looks fairly flat".  I said yep, it's flat 
on the map (lol).  Of course I was just teasing and he was probably not 
sure about how I said it.  The next day we had some pretty good 
climbs.  anyway, that night we got the maps for the 2nd days trail and he 
came over and asked me about the terrain.  I said oh well, it's about as 
flat as the first day was.  Then on the third day, yep, it's about as flat 
as the first two days are.  Are you guys figuring out that the ride isn't 
really very flat?  I think Greg did.....;^)

It was a great week and the best ride I've ever had on Chief.  It was 
really weird driving home.  There was almost no traffic.  I think the $3.50 
a gallon diesel is having an effect?  In one section I probably drove 200 
miles and never saw another vehicle.  Of course, I was on the E.T. highway, 
maybe that had something to do with it?

Karen
in NV

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