Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Have to tell this story!  When I was putting on a ride here in Montana called Blackfoot valley ride...The first check was about 17 miles out...it was at the trail head...the main trail into the depths of the Bob Marshall Wilderness area almost 1 million acres  of Wilderness just south of Glacier National Park another  million acres..  Anyway...the ride went on the main trial out of the trail head for about 1 mile then cut off of the main trail to the West onto a kind of obscure trail and looped around ending up pack at camp about 13 miles later.  All the riders had gone through that check except for two...a couple who was riding their very first ride and doing the fifty.  I was told by several riders that they had encountered this couple a few miles back and they had decided to turn around a go back to camp because they figured at the pace they needed to go they would never finish in time. SOOOOOOOOO....when what I thought was the last rider had headed out I sent out the drag rider who was also the ribbon puller..sent the vet back to base camp and started tearing down the check... When I had everything loaded up and was just headed out of the check..here come two riders!!!!!!!!!  I was shocked to say the least...but in such a hurry to get back to base camp that I completely forgot about the drag rider having already left....I did my own VET check on their horses and sent them off..."get on the main trail right there and then just follow the ribbons"  and off they went.   Out of site out of mind!!!!!!!!!  Needless to say they missed the turn off the main trail and turns out they were about 8 miles into the wilderness when they came upon an outfitter coming out with his pack string.  He must have thought it awfully strange...two riders on arabs in english saddle, helmets, spandex etc...So he got them turned around..they followed him back to the trail head....he trailered them and their horses back to base camp and dropped them off. Had they not run into him they could have ended up days later in Canada having never encountered another human being (lots of grizzlies tho).!!!! Yup---learned my lesson about pulling ribbons too soon!