Mountain Ride

 The Man




  Brego




  Cricket

Suilad, westu hal! 

This past weekend, Harrison, Abigail, and I went to the Mountains behind Colorado Springs for a trail ride with the horses. It was awesome and we had lots of fun! 

We got up at around 6:00 am, Abby and I hooked up the horse trailer and fed the horses. As Harrison woke up Abby and I loaded the horses. Due to Jehu's lameness issues we brought Leah, Brego, and Cricket. The horses loaded nice and easy, "prior and proper preparation"! We went inside shortly after loading to briefly grab something to eat and get water bottles before leaving, we had French toast for breakfast. 

After breakfast and leaving, Harrison had a plan (and a good one at that!) of going up this park road with lots of dirt bikers- forgive me, I've forgotten the name- it was about an hour and a half drive and quite fun. All the radio stations kept on playing the same songs which was driving me up the wall. Oh wait, there wasn't a wall around, so I guess I was getting driven up the mountain. 

Anyways! After drive quite a bit on the dirt road we finally found a place we thought was isolated enough to actually enjoy the ride. We spent sometime parking the trailer, it was a bit tricky because our parking space was quite cramped, bumpy, and had trees and rocks in it. Oh! I almost forgot, there was also a small drop off on the other side of the road which was a challenge to negotiate around when trying to park.

When we safely got parked we unloaded the horses and I played a little with Cricket to get her sure on her feet again and allow her to look around at her new surrounding. The others were putting the saddles on their horses by this time, I didn't want one. Here's an inventory of tack we each used:

Abby and Brego:

Green Halter

Black Lead

Slip-less Western pad

English Saddle with all other Fittings

Harrison and Leah:

Black Western Saddle

Thick Fleece Pad

Purple Halter 

Black Lead

Cricket and I: 

Bareback Pad

Red Halter

Savvy String

Blue Lead

I decided to walk the first quarter mile or so of the trail to allow Cricket more looking around time. The RBI side of her kicked in quite a bit when we unloaded and I didn't want her to go to internal. She really connected after a bit and I mounted up. The other horses were really curious and wanted to look around, cool. We rode for a bit and things were really reminding me of Alaska (except the randomly placed boulders), that doesn't happen often. The view was breath-taking, Cricket started to really warm up and trot a bit for me. Cricket and was trying her heart out for me. Leah looked pretty relaxed and acting her sweet RBE calm side, she didn't seem bothered by anything yet wasn't really adventurous. After about half a mile we came to some water, Leah and Cricket have both crossed a good amount of water in their life time. Cricket and Leah have crossed braids of the Susitna River (a major river in Alaska, forgive me if it was spelled wrong). As you know, that would have been a good amount of time ago, three years is a lot of time for a horse to forget things. So, you guessed it, the horses forgot their feet when we got to a small trickling brook. After much coaxing from Abby and Harrison, their horses crossed quite willingly (at least it looked so). Cricket still wouldn't budge, we didn't exactly have all day so Abby took Cricket a different route for me, I didn't ask her to, she insisted it was to dangerous. :) Ha ha.. Anyway, I held Brego who was huffing and puffing because he threw her right before Abby took Cricket, I didn't see it very well but I know shes OK. Abby got Cricket safely around the trickle and we got back to our horses. After getting settled down again, we all saw this large rocky area above us and thought it would make a good place to take pictures. Did I mention it was a little steep? Well it was, not to much though. We got to the top and we looked around and decided to take the other side to get down, it also was steep. At home I taught Cricket to Mirror me so in a dangerous situation she will just do as I do rather than freak out. So as we climbed down (I was last in line for this one part) I planned the way I was going to guide Cricket down, little did I know what she was planning. As I skidded/walked down the hill, I planned to climb up this boulder ahead of me and allow her to pass me while I just jumped off the rock. As I climbed up the rock I realized Cricket wasn't to the side behind me anymore but I thought nothing of it. I jumped off the rock and looked behind me to see Cricket on the Rock and looking down at me preparing to jump in the same manner I had done. I was shocked and giggling, I quickly backed her off the rock with the yo-yo game before she could jump, hurt herself and possibly/consequently me. Moral of the story: watch your back if you've taught your horse to do what you do! It was SO cute seeing her on that ledge now that I look back on it without the scariness of the moment!! :D  

After we got down the hill we went into a small pasture-like area and then back onto the trail. The trail was just a beautiful as before and we decided to cross this marshy bit to our left. Remember what happened with the water crossing before? Yeppers, people!! No, they didn't really feel like crossing this time either but Leah and Brego eventually did. I stood there with Cricket determined we were going to cross like the others did, this was becoming a relationship issue. Anyways, Abby and Harrison both offered their services and I refused. So finally after quite a bit of approaching and retreating, Cricket saw that this wasn't going to kill her and she crossed without crow-hopping or bucking. Cool! Obstacle overcome! We soon crossed a longer stretch of marshiness and Cricket didn't even pause. We road onto the road again and didn't take anymore detours. We got to a large turn around and wen back the same way we came. All puddles were crossed without trouble from then on. Oooo, there were also some dirt bikers that Cricket didn't really think safe, it was rather funny but some right brain kick-back came my way. It was nothing really.

Things we were unable to go with: 0  

Serious injures: 0 

Scrapes: 3-- but not horse related, only from rock climbing. 

Number of times going over the handle bars: 0 

It went REALLY WELL! ! ! ! ! ! 

Vanya Sulie! Toodles!

Elrohwen 

PS. Abby was the one taking the pictures so there weren't really any pictures of her.. :(