Having endurance withdrawals is no fun. So I couldn't take it anymore, and decided to enter the Fall XP, down at Bryce Canyon, Utah. Since returning from the 2001 XP this summer, everything seemed so easy and boring. I felt a strong desire to ride, really ride. The one day 50 I did on Weav at Bridgeport was nice, but it just didn't cut it. So off we went for Southern Utah, about 15 hours away. We stayed overnight in Ely on the way. Driving across Highway 50 really brought back a lot of memories, having just ridden all the way across the state of Nevada the month before. It was hot when we drove over, in the low 100's, so it still felt like it did when we rode across. It was really neat driving past all the spots on the trail and remembering where we had camped or crews had met us with water. While riding the Pony trail we had no idea where Hwy 50 was, or at least I didn't -- it wasn't that visible and we felt like we were out there totally alone. Now, driving it I could see things in a different way from how I'd seen them from the back of a horse. Sand Mountain, Cold Springs, Austin.....we stopped there....in Austin, to let the horses out in the arena. The dogs ran over to 'our tree' where we'd camped when we spent our weekend there. We finally made it to Ely late that night, and then left there about 6 a.m. to finish the rest of the drive. The horses both looked good and I promised them that this time we weren't going to Missouri. :+)
When we got to camp, I went to unload the horses and Weaver came out of the trailer fine. Rocky, however, did not. He actually didn't unload. He was stuck in his hay bag (dork). This was a first for him, you'd think a horse that had been hauled as much as he has wouldn't pick a time like this to stick his foot into a haybag! He was good though and didn't step thru it or tear it up, and instead just kinda held it up so the edge of it rubbed all the hair off of the back of his leg. That, and he took two large chunks of hair off of his forehead. Little did I know then that these things were going to become inconsequential compared to what was going to happen to him in another day or two!
The country we were in was really beautiful, trees, mountains, pink cliffs and hoo-doos. Rocks, creeks, and it was cooler there since we were at about 8,000' elevation. I had decided that I'd alternate the horses, starting Weaver on the first day and just see how it goes. I'd thought about riding one of the horses all 5 days but they've been going so well alternating that it just felt right to keep doing it that way.
So I started and rode Weaver the first day. The trail was really nice, mountainous with a really good climb into lunch. There were about 50 or so riders on the ride, and many people from the 2001 XP. I guess we just can't get enough of a good thing. This ride came with all the amenities too, at lunch they had sandwiches for us everyday, candybars, chips, drinks -- sometimes bbq'd hot dogs or beef sandwiches. All you have to do is pack up your crew bag for your horse and they take it to the lunch stop for you. Then when you get there, you are all set. You don't even need a crew. We had a real good ride this day seeing new trails and old friends and making some new ones. We got t-shirts for completion awards, or if we wanted we could have an XP pin. In camp, they have showers, it's really nice.
Then the next day, it was Rocky's turn to go. He hadn't done a ride since the XP ended. I'd ridden him several times and knew he was sure feelin' fine! I started out letting him trot at a pace that made him happy and soon found myself riding along with Christopf and Dean Jackson in the front. We were cruising along at about 14 miles into the ride along a nice dirt jeep rode and I noticed a hole so I hollared out 'HOLE', and moved Rocky around it. Well, I thought I moved Rocky around it. It was either just too big (it was really large), or it gave in under the weight of his front left foot and we went from probably a 12 mph trot down to zero in about the blink of an eye. The ground rose up and met me, hard. Ouch!!! Only, it didn't feel so bad compared to the feeling of the whole (940#) horse landing on top of me. I felt like a fruit roll-up. Christopf and Dean were telling me not to move (yeah, right, like I could move, I couldn't even breath!). At first, Rocky didn't move and I thought oh no, he's broken his leg and he can't get up. Then, he started moving. It seemed like an eternity but Christopf said it was just seconds.....once Rocky started moving then I really felt the pain. I was flat out and he was completely on top of me, feet up in the air. He was able to roll a bit and then started to try and stand up, which was a problem since I was underneath where he needed to put his feet. He was very careful about it though, and did it nice and calmly. Once he got up he moved over and stood there. I was able to get up. Dean said he couldn't believe I didn't have *several* broken bones, since it had looked really bad seeing me under the horse for that long. I went over to Rocky and saw that he had skinned some hide off of his nose, his knee and his ankle, but he was bearing weight evenly. I walked him and he walked okay, and jogged a couple of steps. He seemed okay. I couldn't breath though, and was in no shape to walk so figured I better get on. I figured that after that kind of a fall it wouldn't really matter if he was sound without me on him, I wanted to see how he'd be with me on his back. I got on and he trotted off totally sound. Christopf said "wow, he looks GREAT", and he did feel great. I couldn't believe it, I was sure glad, but couldn't believe that he wasn't hurt. Dean and Christopf stopped and filled the hole up with several logs to make sure nobody else fell in. We made it into lunch and the horse checked out fine. I got a bag of ice to put on my raspberry (guess where the horse stepped on me when he got up?) and took some advil and sat down (ouch, sitting.....OUCH). Rocky seemed to be okay, he was eating and drinking and acting normally (although he is normally not normal, ha ha). I walked him during his hour and he didn't start to swell up or anything, it was just surface scrapes on him. I, on the other hand, were already starting to count the beautiful colored bruises appearing all over my body. Millie noticed the scrape marks all over my helmet. I am not sure if it was the ground or the horse that did that, in either case, it was probably a good thing that I had a helmet on. Everything else was okay, the camera, the GPS that wasn't mine. :+D
We rode out of lunch and the horse was still sound. Felt great in fact, so I kept on going. Posting was okay, but it sure hurt to canter. I find it amazing that you can get such a big raspberry without even having your tights ripped. Well, anyways....we finished that day, right behind Christopf and Dean in 3rd place. Rocky vetted out A-ok and so I went to get ready for the next days ride.
....I'd also like to know, just how did we manage to miss all those badger
holes this summer? Then, there is ONE...yes ONE hole on this ride.....and
it's got my horses name on it?
Part II:
Is it ironic to have a horse fall on you at the Fall XP? Hmmmm......well I
have to admit that it wasn't that bad as long as I kept moving. I kinda
figured the next day would be worse. Each day we didn't start until 7:30
a.m. It seemed soooooo late compared to starting at 5 a.m. on the last few
weeks of the 2001 XP. I'd told Calina that I'd sponsor her today. She was
going to ride Splash, and I was riding Weaver, our chestnuts. I looked out
the window in the morning, commenting about how it was so light out. It
was so light because it was already 7 a.m.! I know I had the alarm set,
really I did. I've never overslept for a ride before. :^D
It was another beautiful day. I was still wired with the gps, some people
noticed that I looked a bit different, with an antenna duct taped to the
top of my head. (I was marking waypoints on all the turns, and recording
tracks) The day before I luckily had been wearing a shirt with a pocket to
put the GPS in, so that when we fell nothing was attached to the
horse. Today, I felt brave and decided to keep the GPS in the front
snug-pax and let the cord flop around till it wound up to the top of my
head. Afterall, I was riding Weaver and I guess he has just as much of a
chance of stepping in his first hole as Rocky did the day
before......riding Weav is like riding a tank though. He's so solid, and I
feel so safe and secure on him. Gawd, if he landed on me I wouldn't be
around to tell about it
Today was Calina's first day riding. She had school so just came to ride
Saturday, Sunday and Monday. We were riding with Laney Humphrey too. The
trail was nice. We missed a turn and went up a nice little canyon where
luckily the trail dead-ended before we went very far. We weren't the first
ones to go up it, there were tracks and manure on the trail. On the way
back down we passed Scott and Beth who kept going, I guess they didn't
believe us that we had all been led astray. Then further down we ran into
Claire and Trilby and some others who were also going the wrong way. We
went back down to the turn and saw were we screwed up and got onto the
correct trail. Again we had another pretty good climb into the lunch
check. Anne was so nice and set up all of our crew stuff for us, so when
we got there the horses already had everything waiting for him. We went
over and got our sandwiches and candy bars for lunch. I had one, Calina
got three.
So we did a few extra miles. Oh well, the horses were still happy. We
were happy. My butt hurt but so what, at least I got to ride a horse
another day. That's better than not riding with a sore butt,
right? Things could be worse.
Three days down, only two left. It was going by so fast. The next day I
was riding Rocky again. I went ahead and entered him on the card and put
it in the drop box the night before. We walked him and I longed him and he
looked pretty good. At first he didn't like me icing that leg/knee, but
after the 2nd time and being walked he was okay with it. I told him that I
understood, that I wasn't real impressed with how the ice boot had felt on
my butt the first time either.
Calina was riding the black mare, Kaibab. She's a little more laid
back. We started off in the morning going across a creek. I knew that
creek crossings weren't her favorite thing, since...well.....I better not
tell but let's just say I was a little worried about getting Calina across
that creek crossing. Well, I had her stick the horse right in Rocky's butt
and she just calmly walked right across like it was no big deal. So we
were off, in the nice singletrack trail with all the logs to jump over. At
least I think that was this morning? Ah well, it was one of the mornings
We had another nice spot for lunch. Everything was going pretty good. My
raspberry was not happy, so I tried to keep Rocky in a trot since that hurt
less. I tried not to do anything that was too exerting like running off
the horse or even walking up anything steep. It still hurt too much to
breath. We were doing really good until almost to the finish when we
stopped seeing ribbons. I knew better, but alas, I'm still getting used to
the idea of following ribbons again. It's like a new concept and my brain
is a little cluttered with all these details ya know. So we went about a
half a mile out of our way before turning back and seeing the very obvious
turn that was marked with like 20 ribbons
Dave had come with me on the ride, but with the stipulation that he wasn't
going to crew or have anything to do with horses. So today he'd gone on
another hike in Bryce Canyon and brought back fried chicken for dinner. We
finished early enough that I had plenty of time to play fetch with the dog,
get the horses cleaned up and visit with Sharon and Crockett for awhile. I
even got to shower.
I longed Weav and made sure he was okay to enter for the last day of the
ride, and he was. So I filled in his card and entered him. Then got
everything ready. I even got up on time! Calina decided to ride with me
again and was on Splash again. I told her when we started out that with
all the things that have been going wrong on this ride that I hoped nothing
else bad happened to me.
The ride this day was really nice. We rode on the outside of the pink
cliffs, on a nice narrow trail on the side of the mountains. Lots of up
and down, winding and curving. Beautiful scenery. I'd been taking a ton
of photos all week. We rode with Eflta for awhile. She left us, then
Calina was leading for awhile when all of a sudden Splash went off the
trail and as luck would have it she was caught in a bunch of
brush. Without the brush she and Calina would have fallen quite a ways
down. Yikes! It happened so fast, I told Calina to hang on, and she did
while the horse turned around and got herself pulled back up onto the
narrow trail. They were both frightened and the mare had branches around
her legs making things worse. We got her all straightened up and got the
tack put back on and then walked the horses until Splash calmed down
again. We still had a few miles to go to lunch, and it took us awhile to
get there.
We finally made it in after what seemed like endless climbing. Of course,
I was worried about Calina's horse falling again which didn't happen but
nevertheless, the trail was narrow and there were cliffs and dropoffs the
whole way. After lunch the trail was on regular trails and we wouldn't
have to worry about falling off anymore. whew!
The horses were typical endurance horses, each wanting what the other one
had. So we switched the food around and they were both happy. Lavonne was
serving up bbq'd beef sandwiches along with the regular assortment of
sandwiches -- tuna, turkey, roast beef. Everything always tastes so great,
sandwiches are especially good when somebody else makes them for
you! After lunch we were trotting down a nice mountain trail and came
around a bend and up ahead were two large elk! They bolted so fast that I
didn't get a chance to take a picture, darnit! We made it all the way into
camp without getting lost even once, and had finished fairly early. Well,
I think it was 3:30 or 4 p.m. So not real early but we had until 7:30 so
not too bad. We even let the horses gallop in for a short stretch at the
finish. It had been a really fun day, aside from the horse falling off the
cliff >oops<......alls well that ends well. :+)) I let Calina ride Weaver
around bareback later with a rope halter and lead rope and I told her that
he fit her really well, to which she exclaimed "what do you mean, I'm not
fat!!". Just how much do you suppose I'd have to ride him to make him look
thin? Maybe we could draw stripes on his side and just pretend that he has
ribs?
Other riders had some mishaps too -- bees caused Maureen Sezler's horse to
roll on top of her. Another rider, Lani (??) got lost coming back to camp
and was lost for several hours. She was on the right road leading to camp
but didn't know which direction to go. I think I really like the idea more
and more of riding with a GPS, even if it's not to follow the trail just to
have it so you can find yourself. Now that I know how to mark waypoints
I'll probably do that more often on rides where I'm not familiar with the
trail.
I'll get photos up in a couple of days. Hopefully the new camera worked
good.
Happy Trails,
Karen
There are 5 pages of photos under each of these links:
http://www.endurohorse.com/event_pics.asp?1597p1-karen
& Rocky, 4,430 miles
& Weaver, 4,620 miles
http://www.endurohorse.com/event_pics.asp?1600p1-karen
http://www.endurohorse.com/event_pics.asp?1606p1-karen
http://www.endurohorse.com/event_pics.asp?1611p1-karen