Dana:

Well Lucy, I've been watching the weather on I-80 and at Buck Meadows and it appears you made the right call. It also appears that you got *very* wet last night :-o

I didn't get wet at all - well hardly much, anyway. Roo was a bit damp, but he was tucked in a fleecy, under his blue wet-weather sheet, munching his way contently through a very large amount of fud.

The first night was a little cool and I left my heater on all night on "low" and although it took the edge of the cold, it still wasn't what I'd call "toasty" (I could still see my breath). Last night (tucked in my warm bed with my bazillion blankies, wearing fleecy legs and woolly socks) I left the heater on "high" all night. Mmmm. That works.

Dana:

Right now there are chain requirements on I-80 from Baxter to the NV line. Truckee is 34 degrees with heavy snow.

Ahh, I'm glad you said this. I felt almost stupid on Friday - bright sunny day, skies clear and blue. I even gave Roo a bath and let him dry in the sunshine.

The drive down was about 130 miles or so, took me about three hours or so to get down there on hw-49 which is twisty-turny. Very pretty, but not the greatest towing-a-trailer road.

The RC was in a lush green meadow. I parked next to Gary Fend, Brenda Benkly and Karen Bottiani (and "their junior", Victoria, who is v. nice).

The Shine-and-Shine-Only ride up near San Jose had been cancelled, so with that and people opting not to go over to Nevada, RM Holly Foiles was a bit nervous about how many extra riders they would get, but in the end there were only about 30 in the 50 (don't know how many in the 25). Kevin Lazarcheff (sp?) was head vet.

Karen (on Blues), Brenda (on Express)
and Gary (on Smoke):

The ride started at 7 am - very civilised - 4 miles trotting down a flat dirt road, before we started to climb up onto the ridge. On the ride map, it didn't look like there was hardly any climbing at all, but it was deceptive because when I looked on the last loop, we'd done about 4500'.

I didn't want poor Roo to trot the entire way up that first long climb - knowing it was going to be a long day and I wanted him to finish looking great, so I pulled him up to a walk while the others (Gary, Karen, Brenda) kept trotting. Another couple of ladies caught and passed us, then we caught and passed them, then I decided to walk again. Of course, at that point, Roo had a hissy that he'd been left behind, so off we went again and ended up cantering in a surgy-rushy manner up the rest of the hill (which luckily was nearly done). So much for being kind and making sure he didn't tire himself out.

Jane Cloud and Lynda Moulton:

First loop was 20 miles and we trotted almost the entire thing on the hard-packed roads. The climbs were very gradual, as were the downhills, so there wasn't really anywhere to think "oh, time to take it easy now". I was a bit worried that we were going too fast with no break, but when I looked at my GPS we were always going under 10 mph (except for those first 4 miles or so, when we were going 10.7 mph), and often only trotting at 7 mph or so - it just felt fast... I think we finished that first loop at 10:15.

The last part of the loop was the same for all three loops - a fun singletrack through the woods - only the first time I was in the back and got smacked in the face repeatedly by pine tree branches, trying to slow Roo down, while he insisted on cantering to keep up with the others (who weren't going anywhere).

He was slow to pulse down - but mostly I think because he was all worried about where his buddies were and all the grass around - he was ravenous every time we came in, and it was hard to get him from the in-timer, across the grassy lush meadow, to the PnR folk at the vet area. It didn't seem like he was hanging because of fatigue - more hyperness, which wasn't great. The poor guy doing the PnR's was having a hard time with him because he wouldn't stand still enough for 15 seconds to be listened to.

He got all As on his card, except for Bs on muscle tone (a little crunchy from all the trotting?), B on gut (no surprises, given how hungry he was - but I wasn't worried, since he was stuffing grass down as quickly as he could), and a B on anal tone. He continued to get Bs on muscle tone all day (except for maybe at the end?). He had good impulsion at the trot out (so-so on the way out; racing me [and winning] on the way back), and was generally pretty happy except for being slow to pulse down.

We had an hour hold and then off we went on the next 15 mile loop. More of the same thing - hard-packed roads - long gradual climbs and downhills.

We walked more on this loop, which was welcome, and at about 25 miles my left knee began to whine again <grrr>. Same thing as at Rides of March - the outside of my knee. I'd been careful to stretch it before the start of the ride, but evidently I'm still doing sommat weird with it. The tights leg on my right leg rode up a couple of times, and I noticed the next morning that my left inner thigh is a little more bruised-feeling than the right. The saddle felt like it was nicely balanced to start with, but as it warmed up, I think it slipped back more and went downhill on me again, so I was running into the pommel a bit. I concentrated on posting more off my thighs, which helped, and I concentrated on staying on that right diagonal, which went OK. Anyway, I broke out the drugs - had to feed Roo a bunch of carrots first, since I couldn't get the drugs out of the pommel bag until there was space to get at them. Then I had to inspect all the pills to make sure I was taking the Tylenol, not the old vicodan <g>. Brenda had twisted her ankle the night before, so I gave her one too, which we had to give to Gary to see if he could read what the number on the pill was (written in 1 pt text - impossible to read on a horse). Gary ate Brenda's pill, so I had to dig another one out and a fine, endurance rider time was had by all, handing out drugs :)))

We finished that loop (35 miles into the ride) in the same way - along the single track in the woods. This time, Roo let out a massive buck and took off running to catch his friends. I was less than amused - having been kind enough to "not tire him out" earlier in the morning. If anything, he was even more hyped than the previous check, and his out time was 5 mins behind the others.

No problems with the vetting, and then we had a 15 min hold, so stayed in the vetting area letting them munch on alf/grass/carrots. Gary, Brenda, and Karen set off ahead of me at a walk and we caught them up very quickly. The last loop was the nicest - we started on singletrack and went up on a ridge near a lookout tower with lovely long views looking towards Yosemite. Roo was getting hungry again (15 mins wasn't enough time to eat for him), so I was letting him grab grass at the side of the road. We did one climb that he really felt pooped on and I worried and got off and lead him down the rest of that, but he picked it up again pretty soon and was zooming along, wanting to be in front (and then spooking when he got there).

It seemed like this loop went really fast, except for the exciting bit where the people were shooting (Gary's horse, Smoke, did a very cool sliding stop). At one point we were trotting along quite fast on a wide road and there was a lovely grassy bit to the side, which Roo promptly ran off the side of the road to get too without any pause at all (except for the abrupt stop when we got there). Pretty funny.

Gary and Smokey at the water trough

Back in the same way again - only this time I told them I wanted to be in front (was tired of being bucked at and having my face hit with pine trees). :)

We finished around 4:15 (started at 7 am), with an hour and 15 mins of hold, so ride time of 8 hours - and I think we were late leaving after lunch, so probably around 7:45 in reality?

As advertised on the ride flyer, the trail was mostly good-footing fire and logging roads, so great for four people to ride along next to each other and chat. As an "early in the year" conditioning ride it was also excellent - nothing over the top in terms of difficulty - the climbs and descents were all very gradual. The views were pretty and RM did an excellent job and were all very nice - kudos to them for putting on such a nice ride. 

Since we had to do tack off check at the end, I dumped my tack on the ground and then cinched it back on loosely for the walk back to the trailers. We walked a bit, grazed a bit, walked abit, grazed a bit - and suddenly Roo started to jumping around - UH OH! his saddle had slipped completely sideways (I had my bridle, BC and reins hanging off one side, so I think maybe he trod on them and pulled the saddle sideways) and was freaking out.

I managed to get him stopped and he looked a bit fraught and luckily there were some people nearby who were able to come and rescue us (I couldn't get the saddle undone without letting go of my death grasp on him - visions of him galloping off into the woods with the saddle wrapped around his back legs, trashing it, himself and then being lost for days.). The nice man carried the saddle back for me (thank you, whoever you were!), and later when we went back past that spot, Roo was still happy to graze, so I don't think he was permanently emotionally scarred by the incident (although it would have been interesting to have a HRM on both of us).

Oh - and when I went to fling his blankie on at the end of the day, he whacked me in the mouth with his nose really hard. <sigh> :)))

As it got dark, it started to rain and did pour all night, not that I cared, snug in my trailer. Roo didn't seem to mind and although I woke up at 6 am all worried that I'd bog down in the meadow and not be able to get out, that all went fine too.

Ride awards were useful buckets and bandanas. Supper was burgers.

A good time was had by all.