Hell’s Kitchen Canyon 2010 – Ride Report & Photos

This was my third time going to Hell’s Kitchen Canyon and Bruce Burnham (RM) thought it was either the 30th or 31st year for the ride.  They do a great job with this one day 25/50 mile ride in Gunnison, Utah.  Dave Rabe and I both decided to stay around after Mt. Carmel and help clean up after that ride and help get Dave and Ann on their way to Alaska– then head up to Gunnison the following weekend.  It worked out really well – our horses got a nice break and we were able to do a nice ride that we wouldn’t get to do otherwise.

Camp is located behind a prison where they have herds of BLM mustangs in a rodeo grounds.  The prisoners work with the horses there and then they get sold at auction.  We always laugh over which ones we want to pick out for endurance horses.  There is a big arena and a large flat area for camp.  Plenty of room.  There were close to 50 riders between the 25 and 50 mile distance.  There are a couple of rules – 1)  dogs are not allowed to be on a leash and 2)  you can’t clean up your manure.  Easy!

The 50 mile ride consisted of two loops.  On the first loop we rode up and down a few hills and a nice ridgeline where Steve Bradley was taking photos.  Oh yeah, we also kind of influenced Steve and Cindy to come to this ride…and they did!  Right after that we dismounted and headed down a fairly steep section of trail that was muddy.  It rained the afternoon before and the trail in spots was heavy wet muddy clay.  Dave and I were laughing because our feet were getting as heavy as anchors.  It was a chore to get through it.  There were some really long slide marks from horses that had gone before us that slipped.  I was glad to get through that section.  Both of our horses had glue-on boots on (Chief had Renegade glue-ons and White Cloud had Glove glue-ons), and we were glad to see that both horses still had them on.  Both horses had done three days at Mt. Carmel the previous week with same boots, so they both did four days (horses and boots…lol).

The LD riders have a vet check down by the lake/reservoir.  We stopped for a couple of minutes there for the horses to drink and have a snack while we said a quick hello to Marian (from Color Country) and the other volunteers.

We then rode on past a group of people who had set up a large fake buck and were planning to sharpen their archery skills.  They were shooting directly into the trail but stopped for us to ride by.  The horses weren’t real sure but they went by.  Then we headed up for some more climbing and the rest of the loop.

My new GPS also takes photos so every time I’d take a photo I’d look to see how far we’d gone.  I’d casually ask Dave how far did he think we’d gone and he was always pretty much as accurate as the GPS.  Often we’d both guess, sometimes me first, sometimes him first…..it was kind of scary how accurate we were before looking at the GPS.

We made in to lunch in pretty good time.  Cindy was behind us and we were all battling for last place.  Last year we got a nice award for being last.  This year I’m pretty sure Cindy was eyeing that award.  We teased her a bit, noticing that if we stopped to let the horses graze on grass, she did too.  You can go on by, we’d say and she’d decline and say no, it’s okay.

Bruce came over to P&R Chief who was down to 60 already.  We vetted right through.  Some other horses were taking awhile to pulse down.  One of the LD riders who had passed us coming in to what was their finish had the horse’s tack off and said the pulse was still at 72.  I was glad that we’d walked in.  But, we weren’t racing today….unless vying for last place counts!  Though we weren’t putzing and were riding consistently.  I think that the riders at this ride overall ride faster than they do at most of the rides I go to.

I headed over to my trailer and stationed Chief in front of his smorgasboard of feed choices.  He happily dug in.  I made a sandwich for myself, and also one for Chad who had come up for the day to help out and trim hooves.  He was nice enough to help me make a few adjustments to my Renegades for upcoming rides.

After lunch we had a lollipop loop left to do, with a few more climbs.  We passed the front runners coming in – just about the same spot as last year – Christoph and Dian….another rider and then Terry.  There were two more water spots on this loop before we got to the vet check.  It was getting pretty warm though it wasn’t nearly as hot as the year before.  When we got close to the vet check we walked in.  Again, Chief pulsed in and vetted right away.  Dave’s horse took a couple more minutes, and there was another horse that had come in ahead of us that took a little longer to pulse down.  oh Darn!  That moved us up a couple of places so we were not longer just battling it out with Cindy for last place.

Chief had been relatively calm all day.  He’s been on a low-carb diet (seriously) and I’ve cut out or reduced anything with sugar as much as possible.  It has toned him down.  The best part is that he feels solid on all four feet.  He is over the hoof sensitivty he was having – certainly the more careful monitoring of his feed has helped, but I think using the glue-on Renegade with the gel pads helped too.  Well, now that we were through the last vet check and had about 12 miles left to go – Chief woke up.  You would have thought he was starting the ride, not finishing it.  Dave had to put White Cloud behind us, and that helped – at least I was able to rate Chief without being run away with.  I reminded myself that this is why Chief is best used as a multiday horse or rides where we are out of camp all day so he doesn’t always know the second he is heading back.

Before the ride I had to make the decision over which horse to ride.  I weighed the pluses and minuses of riding either Bo, or Chief.  Both horses had done one day at Lost Padres back in April.  Then they had gone to Mt. Carmel where Chief did 3 days, and Bo did 2.  I could ride Bo, giving him four days, same as Chief had already done….but….of course I couldn’t have it be THAT simple. Oh no.  I’d already kind of signed up to go up to Idaho and do the 100 at the end of the month…on Bo.

Normally doing a 50 two weeks ahead of a 100 is perfect timing.  But would it be too much to do two days at Mt. Carmel, then a week later a one day 50 and then the 100 two weeks after that?  I thought it might be so figured I’d go ask an expert what he thought.  That would be Dave…and he agreed, no use over doing it if I had another horse to ride.  It’s not like anybody has to twist my arm to ride Chief.

Coming down the last hill and turning to go towards the finish we looked back and could see the other two riders behind us, and then Cindy.  It looked like she was indeed winning the battle for last place!  There was a group of four or five riders just ahead of us, so we slowed down and walked in knowing we’d have to wait to vet until they got through.  My trailer was parked a ways away and I’d rather wait and vet than to go back and forth.  In order to vet we had to have the horses pulses down to 64, and again Chief was down already so we vetted right through.  They let us vet with our tack on so that was nice!  The two ride vets they have are thorough and friendly.  Summer and Matt (I think).  Summer said Chief looked really good, so I headed back over to my trailer to get him cleaned up.  Cindy was just about across the finish line now and it looked like she did it, she beat us all out of last place!

Dinner and awards are in a nice little park across the road from camp.  Most of the riders are locals so they all pack up and head over pretty early.  They start feeding dinner around 4 or 4:30.  We finished at 4:15 – seriously we weren’t going that slow, most rides we’d be more mid-pack than tail end going that speed.  I hustled and got everything taken care of with Chief and then we headed over to the awards.  The dinner was fabulous – they do a super job, lots of food, it’s cooked perfectly and they even have an excellent desert.  Dave said he thought it was the best ride dinner he’d ever had.

The awards were also very nice – items from Henry Griffin.  We got water buckets for completion awards.  And this year…instead of giving out a nice tail end/last place award…Bruce gave out “bottom ten” awards.  Instead of the top ten (who usually get stuff)…the last ten riders all got a nice prize!  So even though Cindy had tried so hard to be last to get that special award….we all ended up getting the same bonus prize anyway!  We got bucket organizers.  hehe

There were three lameness pulls on the 50, I think out of 24.  I’m not sure about the LD.  I’m pretty sure the first finishers were Christoph and Dian, and BC went to Terry Bradley.

Try and put this on your ride if you haven’t had a chance to do it already.  It’s a nice ride!