Monica and I took Ari and Galen up to the Whitehorse Trail outside of Oso,
WA yesterday. This was only our second trail ride since…last November? Yikes! Our second outing with my new-to-me trailer and the first with Galen’s new EasyBoot Fury Heart boots. We were doing an inaugural ride on the newly opened trail/parking lot (kind of fuzzy on exact details, but it was early morning!). It took us about 90 minutes to get from the farm to the trailhead, mostly easy driving. The parking lot is very large and easy entrance/exit. We greeted (safely) a few other riders there for this event and started out before everyone else, so Monica could take photos of them coming down the trail.
After our photo op, our first obstacle arose. Our horses had suddenly become around 18 hands tall! Without much trail riding, our mounting skills had sadly atrophied. The trail was flat, with beveled sides, with some fairly steep drop offs. We did finally get on our horses, but it wasn’t very pretty. Somehow, I sprained a finger mounting, how does one even do that? Discussion about aging bodies and possibly buying one of those portable mounting blocks with a string on them for future rides ensued.
We rode along for probably 5 miles or so. Some nice scenery, very easy trail, except for some clattery bridges and occasional fireworks and nail guns. While our horses are experienced, they haven’t been out much lately and there wasn’t much to keep them focused on the trail. We did realize that something slightly technical can be an asset – thinking about feet lessens thinking about trolls in the woods, under the bridges, etc. The footing is quite nice and was pronounced good for bikes too. If you are riding, you will need some sort of hoof protection, as it’s all gravel and one team turned back a bit early, as their barefoot horses were getting ouchy. But, some lovely bridges and rivers, mountain vistas and lovely, moss covered trees made for an enjoyable ride. We turned around at about an hour of riding and headed back. We met up with some friends on the trail too.
Then, it was back to the parking lot where we exchanged socially distant sodas (place a can on the ground, back away, other person approaches). I didn’t take any photos of that, but we had a large circle, where we were properly distant, but could still hear each other. Horses were snugged back in the trailers and home we went!
All in all, a very satisfying day, nice trail, good friends and wonderful horses. The big, trail riding grins are still lingering. 🙂