May 2011

From 30th March:

"They measured the snowpack again on Monday - 172% of normal in the Northern Sierra, 165% in the Central Sierra. Squaw Valley had over 57' of snow this year and will stay open at least until Memorial weekend, and possibly on to 4th July."

After talking to the main trail guy at the weekend, it seems more and more likely that Tevis will be starting from Soda Springs this year because of the huge amount of snow in the High Country. What the trail will do after that remains to be seen.

One option is to cross the ridge at Lyon Ridge Vet check (where there will likely be snow) and drop down to French Meadows Reservoir, picking up the Poppy Trail, before rejoining the usual trail to Dusty Corners.

At the other end of the Ride, they are concerned at how high the river could be. If too high to cross, there is a plan in place to go back up the Foresthill Divide at Poverty Bar, join the south side of the Foresthill Loop, go over to the top of Mammoth Bar (where they would have the "Quarry" vet check) before going over to the Clementine trail and down under Foresthill Bridge.

Until the snow melts down to 6000', the upper parts of the trail aren't available and then, in theory, we'd have to drive over to French Meadows and pick up the trail from there. Otherwise, the options are to ride from Michigan Bluff backwards up the trail to Last Chance and back - which means doing the two deepest canyons twice and is about 28 miles round trip? so quite a work out. Alternatively, it may be possible to drive in to Deadwood and ride backwards from there, but you still need the snow melted to 5500'.

But it's early days. Right now, Uno's a bit sore from being ridden barefoot, so I should really just be concentrating on getting him through the two days at Washoe Valley this coming weekend. I'm going to glue both horses, so hopefully that cushioning will help with any lingering soreness.

pft and I had such a blast on Day 1, even if it was a bit fraught in the afternoon when we needed to make time.

I worried that Fergus would need tack adjustments (pft's had problems with saddle pad slippage) or boot fiddling (I couldn't fit the stupid back boots with the PowerStrap on with tape and had a heck of a job getting them on, even though I'd just trimmed him)....

...But as is usually the case *I* had pad slippage (couldn't figure out why the velcro wrap under my leg was "touching me" [I hate that] and took five mins to realise that my pad was practically falling out the back of the saddle. Stopped, reset the saddle and pad and tied it on, while Uno stood on me and generally fidgeted.

Then towards the bottom of Jumbo Grade just after wading through the creek that was the trail (lots of water on Jumbo Grade this year), I thought "huh, he *sounds* lame" and looked down and the boot was totally off and twisted around the front of his foot. Testament to Uno that he hardly indicated anything was amiss, even if he did go "clomp, belonk, clomp, belonk" while trotting.

We also had to stop to pick up an entire set of keys on the trail (turns out they were Sally Hugdal's).

And were on time to leave after the lunch check until we realised that neither of us had any drinking water, so then we left 15 mins late.

pft and Fergus did *great* trot-trot-trotting away. I'd told him to work on long-trotting during his training rides, and oh boy did it show. A year ago, pft would have needed to stop a bunch of times, but instead they just kept trucking along.

On the hills the pones did good (normal-floppy "this is haarrrrd, do we have to?" on the big hills, and then sudden enthusiasm from Uno when we turned in the direction of camp) and then we got to the SOBs and again, pft and Fergus' Training Hill training kicked in and both horses just went straight up. At the top of the last steep-steep one, Fergus started trotting and kept going. pft was super-pleased. Our boots stayed on beautifully.

We did great downhill trotting coming in (seems to go on for miles and miles) and Fergus continued to pull us along at warp speed.

Came in at lunch and Fergus pulsed down great (52?), Uno so-so. Uno got a C on guts (no surprises - he hadn't eaten or drunk anything). Went back to the trailer. Fergus ate everything in sight and wanted seconds (which he got). Uno nibbled then went to sleep. <sigh>

Went out on loop 2, and neither horse was particularly motivated. The steep nasty hill was better than usual - lots of grass to eat and the sun went in and the breeze blew to keep us cool.

Uno didn't try to lie down in the deep-deep sand after that, but Fergus made a puny attempt to do so.

Fergus got v. floppy after that and didn't want to go any more and worried pft. Having bin there before, I wasn't worried. We put Uno in front and Fergus seemed a lot happier. Maybe leading for the first 35 miles was a bit much to ask of him?

We finally got to the meadow and Uno wanted to pee, so while he was busy with that, I went to get carrots from the cooler (the check was unmanned for once). Then got sidetracked because we were supposed to sign the clip-board, so I signed pft and I in, then signed in Sally, Ericka, and Karen V who showed up just after us (we'd been trying to keep ahead of them all day, and finally manage to get there). Then I looked up and Uno, instead of eating the nice grass, the nice hay, or napping, was sidling off back the way we'd just come in, the little sh*t. So I went around one way, and pft and Fergus went the other and caught him. <grrrr>

We were going to stay 10 mins to let them replenish, but after that stunt, we decided just to go, a bit worried about time (Dave Rabe and the Carr's were 10 mins ahead of us). Worked hard (including trotting some rather dubious rocky stuff that caused me to hold my breath) and caught and passed them towards the bottom of Jumbo grade, then promptly lost all our time on the next uphill when Uno's boot came off.

When we looked inside the boot, there was a great gob of wet sand in the toe (like a couple of tablespoon's worth?). Think this was because the boot was gapping at the top in front where his foot is flared at the toe (having been working to eliminate this since before 20 MT when I noticed his glued-boot doing the same thing), so it's snug at the bottom but gapping at the top (despite the Power Strap). The whole boot seemed really stretched front-back and huge on his foot. The athletic tape was gone. :(

So we spent a few minutes rinsing it out while Uno stood on me and generally fidgeted, and there came Dave and the Carrs... and then came Sally, Ericka and Karen V.... and then we were last again <pout>.

Got up, leaving pft, Chili and Grizzle in their warm beds. It was v overcast and started to spit icy snow as I was tacking up :(

I put on my raincoat and expected the worst but it blew through and was just cool and windy for the first 15 miles or so, then the sun came out and it was lovely and sunny all day (with a NV wind to keep us cool).

The night before, I'd replaced his errant and stretched left front with a brand new boot (sans PowerStrap) because I figured it would stay on better, and wrapped the crap out of his foot with athletic tape. In the morning, I wrapped athletic tape around the top of the boot, hoping to keep the sand out at least through the creek-section of Jumbo Grade that we were doing in reverse this morning. Didn't expect it to last, though.

Tami and I rode together and didn't push it since both horses had gone the day before. She was telling me an interesting story all about saddle fit/foot wearing/chiro so the long uphill went by fast.

On the long walk downhill, my feet hurt, and my quads and shins whined, but Uno seemed quite happy - starting to munch grass. Huzzah! His athletic tape fell off. No surprises there. But the boot looked solid.

Once through the mini-Bailey Canyon and back to the water trough by the paved road, the trail turned into cobbles. I knew it was a bit rocky, but didn't remember it being *that* bad before. It could be that I was hyper-sensitive because I knew Uno had been sore in the couple of weeks prior to the ride from bruised heels, but I was holding my breath when we did trot. Both Tami and I wished that we'd put Goober Glue in the bottom of our boots for extra cushioning, but both of us were leery to take off boots that had stayed on well the previous day and mess something up.

The horses had a floppy moment (funny the way these floppy moments happen in the same place, year to year), but when we finally reached the water trough Uno's thirst mechanism finally kicked in properly and he tanked up and drank over a gallon of water.

Ooh! Ooh!. At NV Derby we were trying to remember how much each gulp is supposed to be - and at this ride Jamie did his mini-talk again and it's 32 gulps = one gallon. So now we know.

Luckily, the rider behind us, caught us 30 seconds *after* he finished drinking. If she'd been a minute earlier, he would have fretted and not drunk <sigh>.

We got off and hand-walked all the way back down the hill and she caught and passed us, leaving us in last place. Oh well.

Came in nicely pulsed down (my shins, quads and feet still whining from the walk). pft brought Fergus over, so we only had to listen to May screaming from the trailer, instead of both her and F.

For our hour hold, Uno ate somewhat, esp. when I asked pft to stand there and hand-feed him whatever he could get him to eat (great crew job, thanks!). pft also replaced my athletic tape overwrap with some fine yellow duct tape (a birthday present from Katie - thanks Katie!). Again, we didn't think it would last, but it actually stayed on great the rest of the day - and no more sand got in. Uno looked a bit pissed off by all the fussing over his feet (he was probably trying to nap), but at least he ate. I also took off all his neoprene wraps and cleaned any sand out (there are places on this ride where you're trudging through fetlock deep stuff). Both back feet had rubbed from the gaiters at the front where the two halves cross over at the bottom, so he had weepy sores there - he'd had flakey skin there beforehand. He also had another weepy spot below this that near the coronet band, at the time, I thought was from gaiter rub, but in retrospect it couldn't be, since it's too low. Smeared desitin on everything.

This loop starts with some fun singletrack. Last year we did this part on our own and he dumped me spooking at a rock. This year, much better - I didn't fall off on Day 2 (breaking a two-year tradition) and he was pretty happy munching his way along the trail.

The second loop has some really tough climbing - just really, really long, trudgy stuff. The total climbing for both days was a little less than 14,000'.

Just before the really big climb there's a nicely placed water trough where once again he tanked up, stood on me while I reset his saddle (which had slipped back and I'd forgotten to move forwards at the lunch hold), and managed to catch his curb hook on the trough and yanked it open. Even though I had a Leatherman with pliers, there was no way I could get that sucker closed back up, so we went without the curb chain for the rest of the ride.

When we hit the really dull, long, climb, Uno was going along quite happy, munching grass regularly at the sides of the road, then trotting a few paces to keep up with Fancy, then munching some more, so I was very happy and much more relaxed than I had been all day.

Again, we hopped off and hand-walked back down the long hill (and again my feet, shins, and quads whined). Once the trail levels off somewhat you just have a long downhill of a mile or two to trot-trot-trot on. This was the second time in two days we'd done this (both times, seemingly at warp speed) and my legs and feet didn't think it was a funny joke. Hey, endurance riding is HARD!

As we approached camp, May began to scream for us (spoiled by blabbermouth Uno shrieking first and setting her off). We wondered where Fergus was (his bellow is very distinct - and then saw him and pft riding around near the vet check - they'd been out on the trail, practising their gaiting and impressing the crowds by their gorgeousness (per Sanne). Unfortunately, despite Uno screaming and Fergus' returning bellow, he didn't see us coming in and had returned to the trailer before he realised where we were. Uno was ravenous, while Fancy wanted to get back out on the trail.

Another 15 min hold and off we went - again at warp speed. Uno was starting to stretch his head down a little bit to stretch his back out, so I had to ask Tami to slow down a bit. She was happy to oblige, since she was getting cramp in her hands trying to hold Fancy back. We did the last loop in less than an hour - and walked some of it. I think it was a six mile loop. Probably the fastest we'd gone all day :)

At the final check, Uno got mostly As - finally!!! (it only took all weekend and 100 miles). Fancy, OTOH, vetted through with a 36 pulse. Freak. Tami thinks she *might* be ready for the 100 at Oreana :)

Tami and I stuffed our faces with chili and hot dogs, Uno ate his slurpy, Fergus looked sad that he wasn't getting one, and pft relaxed in the trailer. After a couple of hours, we put everyone and everything back in the trailer and drove home. I managed to stay awake until after Donner Summit and then was out cold for the rest drive home and not even sure I'd be able to wake up enough to feed the home-horses when we got home. Tired Tim.

pft and Fergus did me proud - they did so good and I'm so jealous about how well Fergus handled it all and plotting to "borrow" him for something. Not sure what, though :) pft's riding and stamina has improved so much in the last year, he stayed good and balanced all day and didn't get to the crappy riding stage at all, and did such a nice job of managing Big F.

Chili dog was a good girl. For the first time, we left her tied up outside while we rode and she hung out by the trailer and napped in the sun all day.

We left the pones out overnight to graze and Uno seemed a little slow this morning (Fergus didn't look like he'd done anything). When I brought them in, Uno's left rear leg was a little puffy and his pastern rubs quite sore - particularly the lower one, so I think he must have scraped it on a rock or something similar. I hosed it but even that hurt him, so got it cleaned as best I could and smeared him liberally with Bickmore's gall salve. Will have another look this evening. His gaiter rubs are both bald - about the size of a dime - so I'm going to have to figure something else out there. The neoprene wraps ride up and don't protect the lower edge. He doesn't seem to rub as much on the front, though, so it must be rear pastern flex that's causing it. I will experiment with looser gaiters, although I'm always worried he'll pop out of the boots if I do that. Probably should have glued, but really couldn't be bothered by the time we got up there. In any case, I will need all the glueing stuff for NASTR 75 next month, so will use it all then.

Best of all, I was happy that Uno seemed comfy in his boots. I was worried that I'd screwed up his feet trying to bring his toe and heel back too quickly - I knew I'd trimmed him too short a few weeks ago and was worried that he'd stay sore from that, but apart from being a little tentative on some of the worser (worserer?) rocky parts, he was sound and got As for gait all weekend.

Trying to keep everything together gets easier when things start to accelerate, because you don't have so much time between pondering what happened and what to do as a result.

Needed to make sure nothing was going on with Uno's teeth, since he's such a slow eater. Our visit to Loomis Basin coincided with the outbreak of EHV-1, so we had to wait in the trailer until he was temperatured and given the all-clear.

The teeth activity was without drama. Uno was drugged to the eyeballs, so stood there glazed-eyed while Dr Carlton dremelled his teeth. Apparently they were quite straightforward - a few hooks, but nothing terribly remarkable.

Afterwards, I detoured to the yarn shop in Rocklin and spent a happy hour perusing wool while Uno snoozed in the trailer in the carpark.

After it rained most of Saturday and Sunday, we finally got out to ride on Memorial weekend Monday and managed to do, not only CA Loop, but also the out-n-back singletrack to Poverty Bar.

First thing - do NOT put yourself in a situation where you have to trim two horses the morning before even starting your long training ride. Your back will tell you this is a bad idea.

And do not assume that "all Uno needs is a quick touch up" after not being trimmed in four weeks. What exactly was I thinking?

Secondly, if you put the horse that "doesn't do in front" in the front, and the horse that "can't trot that slowly" in the back, do not expect either of those horses to perform to their optimum. Or for any of the parties involved to have big fun.

The mission for Monday's ride was for Uno to "see the portion of trail that we would be riding at night". Which meant he had to *see* the trail, not troll along behind Fergus' tail, occasionally glancing at the passing scenery. So in front he went.

Ann and Jess kindly volunteered to shuttle our rig back to Driver's Flat for us and they dropped us off at the top of Bath Road so that Uno would see the *whole* of the stuff we would be doing in the dark. He dealt well with riding down Foresthill high street - not spooking at the yellow lines the way other of my horses have in the past. He dealt well with traffic and road crossings. He even walked fast. For a bit.

When I ride this trail, I don't think "what a pretty trail", I think "what will this part look like in pitch black under the trees obscuring the moonlight?".... "which part should I be most paying attention to, to remember where the trail turns sharply and is narrow?"... "how many turns are there before you get to that tricky creek?". I'm probably over-analyzing it and would do better to just go and ride and get on with it. But despite that, I figured that Uno might do better if he's seen the trail beforehand.

Well he did see it. In slow motion. We inspected every single tree root, every single tree stump, every single rock, every single creek crossing (extremely hard to contemplate crossing when you're in the front, apparently), etc... etc... Boy was it hard work. I had to peddle him the whole way, lest we slow to slightly less than the crawly pace we were already doing. And we did that for nearly 20 miles.

Admittedly, by the time we got down to the last part of CAL-2 (where I took most of the pics I put up on FB), I'd given up trying to "make time" and resigned myself to just getting him to go along. The thing about Uno is that he's actually pretty good where he can see stuff. On the wide open parts of the trail (like "wide open down to the river") he was fairly relaxed. But in the tight parts - the parts that look like a fairy grotto, with moss, and ferns, and waterfalls, and overhanging vegetation, he's a mess. Stuff was *touching* him, things were hiding in the bushes... Every time we came to a corner, we had to slow to a walk, lest there be something alarming hiding around there. Every time we did a switchback, he'd look at it, look puzzled, then look puzzled again up at the trail next to us that we'd just come off.

When we finally got down to the river road (a mile or so before Francisco's), I gave in and let Fergus go in front so we could actually make some time. He trotted in front, while I inspected my saddle pill collection: anti-histamine... nope... vicodan... nope... hmmm, blue and red pills... wonder what they are... guessing pain-killers so I'll take one.

At Francisco's we stopped briefly. I made pft fix his saddle pad. He grumped. The pones grazed. We admired the swamplike qualities of the meadow and thought about all the horses coming through there and how mucky they would get.

At this point we were both wiped. The pones didn't look any worse for wear (having been walking for the last 20 miles), but I figured the chances of us making the side excursion down to Poverty Bar and back were virtually nil. But pft, bless him, took the narrow turning when we got there and off we went (he said later he didn't realise there was an option, and yes, certainly, if he'd known I didn't think we were going, we wouldn't have gone).

By now I just wanted to *move* so we left Fergus in front and proceeded down the trail at unaccustomed speed. That trail is pretty narrow in places, but the worst thing was that it isn't well used so it was actually hard to see where the trail was. Well, that is, you *know* where it is, since you're on a lil' ledge high above the river. But telling where it ends in the long grass and where the drop-off starts was harder.

We arrived at the end as dusk was approaching - briefly inspected the supposed "up" trail option that they may or may not use, before turning and running back along the 2.5 miles back to Driver's Flat Road. It got darker. pft doesnt' like riding in the dark. And he esp. doesn't like riding in the dark on an enthusiastic Fergus who knows where he is, where he's going, and is finally allowed in front to "get on with it". I clung to Uno, limpet style, doing my best to stay on top, and keep him vaguely in the middle of where we were supposed to be and not cutting the corners of the right hand turns (right hand drop off) as we rushed along. Every so often Fergus would stop to graze. Usually where Uno and I were most exposed. And Uno would stop and realise things were "touching him" and suddenly spurt forward at speed, causing expletives to fly out of my mouth. pft finally persuaded Fergus to walk, but Fergus' walk means Lucy and Uno walk ten paces, trot 20', walk ten paces, trot 20'... repeat. So we got our night-time skinny-ledge-trail practice in. <gulp>

That was the sobering part. We only had to ride a mile or two on narrow drop off in the dark. On the day, I am going to have to do 20 miles of this. On another horse (any of the other five I've ridden on this trail) I wouldn't mind. But I just don't know with Uno.

...It's not like he really did anything wrong. I mean, he wasn't the one who nearly fell off the side of the switchback, or the one who tripped on a rock and nearly fell over, but do I trust him to not do something stupid? Does he have that self-preservation? In the time I've been riding him, he's done two stupid things - one was bolting through a space where there was no space for a horse to bolt (I bailed off into some poison oak). I think he's over that. But the second was leaping up an embankment for absolutely no reason. I often wonder if whatever-it-was-that-he-thought-he-saw had been on the high side, would he have leapt off the down side? Don't know. But it's his capacity for that kind of thing that causes me to be constantly on high alert, even if he's not doing anything.

Admittedly, he was at his worse, in terms of being put in front. And he and Fergus aren't well matched, speed-wise on that sort of trail (twisty, narrow) where I want to jog along at a slow trot, and Fergus wants to do his "whoosh" trot. But I have to say, at Tevis unless we end up with a partner who can be out in front and trot at a sensible speed (one where Uno doesn't keep thinking "ack, I'm being left behind and must speed up without care for where my feet go"), then there's very little chance of us finishing the ride.

Anyway. It'll probably be a case of "just do it" and it'll either work out or it won't.

At Driver's Flat, we plodding up the hill in the pitch dark. It goes up 1000'. When we started, I thought I'd rather go up Driver's Flat than along the narrow trail to Poverty Bar and up. But by the time we'd trudged to the top, I was reconsidering.

There were glow worms winking on the bank - that was pretty cool. And Uno was relaxed (what with the vegetation being on the far side of the road). And pft was queasy from having only eaten a small burrito since the previous lunch time. And he wonders why he felt crappy.

Pones looked good at the end (10 pm). No boots were lost, despite not bothering to wrap with tape, and being on fresh trims. And we were home by 11:30 and in bed by...er... 1 am. So much for finishing the holiday weekend bright and refreshed.