Last weekend I went on another adventure, this one involving camping at a trailhead the night before my planned ride day.
If Google maps tells you 32 miles will take you over an hour, you know the road isn’t going to be fun. In reality, it took me well over an hour to go 8 miles.
But it was worth it, camp was beautiful!
I got up at about 5:00 Saturday morning, fed the ponies and we had a leisurely morning reviewing the trail map and getting everyone ready to go. Wrangler’s boots add a bit of time to our pre-ride routine but they are 100% worth it!
We got on trail at about 8:00 Saturday morning.
I started out riding Wrangler and our trail started out really nice. As we would soon find out, this particular trail was either “really nice” or “really difficult” and there was very little warning between the two terrains.
The wildflowers were just starting to come into bloom and I found myself enamored with them.
After about six miles, we found ourselves at a lake… which is good because that’s where we were supposed to be! I swapped riding horses at the lake and we spent a little while relaxing and enjoying the views.
After the lake we followed a two-track for a while. Which, by all accounts, was supposed to be dirt. It was actually very large, course rock and our horses were not thrilled with us.
From the two-track we met up with our return trail that was to take us back to camp… straight up a mountain. Okay, not straight up because it switch-backed the entire way but it was UP A MOUNTAIN.
At least it afforded us some beautiful views.
And after what felt like forever, we made it to the top! This was my first mountain summit. It was hard.
This was also where we encountered hikers… it turns out this particular trail is a popular one.
I really enjoyed the trail back down, it wasn’t nearly as strenuous as the rest of our day had been and it was full of lush meadows, wildflowers and topped with mountain peak views the whole time.
All in all, it was another successful adventure!
One Comment
I enjoyed this post! The views are amazing! I too just got back from a mountain ride- SCARY- but we did it! I am trying to tackle my figurative mountain of fear, but this past ride, it was both figurative and literal! I am so happy that you had an awesome ride!
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