2013 Tevis Educational Ride, Foresthill to Auburn

...or, Only One Day?  You Wuss!

Apparently they tweak the Ed Ride a little bit every year.  This year, there was a bike race on the upper part of the trail on Saturday, so we were scheduled to ride the trail out of order.  Saturday was Foresthill (60some miles) to Auburn (100 miles), and Sunday was Robinson Flat (30some) to Foresthill (60some).

It's pretty crucial to preride FH to Auburn.  Yes, Tevis is held during the full moon, but it's black as tar under the trees.  You have to believe that your horse knows the trail and trust her to move down it fast enough to finish, and your horse deserves to know where the end is.

The logistics of Tevis are mindblowing, but the logistics of the Ed Ride are even more amazing to me.  You must have crew for Tevis, and your crew moves your rig from point to point to meet you.  You don't have to have crew for the Ed Ride - the outstanding volunteers will move your rig for you.  I'd signed up to have ~someone~ move my trailer, but Wayne talked his friend into coming and we ended up having Dean move my trailer to haul both horses around.

So here's D the day before.  She's just a tiny bit thinner than I'd like, but not too bad.

This year, they did a staggered start.  Mentor-rider teams left every five minutes, so we wouldn't get caught up in that "fresh horse racing with the pack"thing.  The three of us left at 6:30 on the dot.

We rode through the tiny town of Foresthill, which was oddly deserted - on race day, everyone in town brings lawn chairs and coolers and sits by the trail/road, cheering the riders along.  Bill Gore was there taking pics, and of course he got some beautiful shots of Dixie.

About a mile outside of town the first disaster started to unfold.  My Pretty Princess started slinging her head.  That was the fourth time she's done that - once at Washoe '12, when the flies came out by the lake. Once at Rides of March '13, when the old saddle was pinching and I was sick and riding like shit.  Once at Washoe '13, when the sleet came in sideways.  And once at TevEd, and I didn't know why.  I wasn't riding like shit!  The saddle and tack fit perfectly at Washoe a month previously!  I couldn't see any flies!  What the hell, horse!

And she wasn't just flipping her nose up and down.  When she does this shit, she will drop her head between her knees and toss her head so hard the reins will go over her ears.  She'll thrash her head back to my toes.  She is paying no attention to her feet when she's doing this, and I knew if she tripped we'd go over the damn cliff and it'd be a bad scene.  I got off at one point and tightened up her girth and crupper - maybe the saddle was sliding forward and hurting her shoulders?  Obviously I took no pics at all, but trust me, it's a gorgeous trail.  Just wide enough for one horse to comfortably trot, lots of natural water and small rock pools, very nicely maintained trail.  Lots of gentle up and down but nothing too killer.  Dixie started drinking at 12 miles, maybe, and kept drinking great all day.

I just chocked up the reins as short as I could and booted her forward every time she tried to toss her head and toughed it out.  By the time (10 am) we got to the first vet check at Francisco's, I was ready to pull.  I came in and the volunteers asked how my ride was going and I blurted out my woes.  A volunteer immediately knew what was wrong.

"Oh, it's flies!  I live out here and my gelding does the same thing.  There are hordes of teeny tiny biting gnats out right now.  Slather on some fly spray and see if that helps."

So I did.  I got her pulsed down and vetted, borrowed some fly spray, and just coated her head in it.  If you're one of the four people who's been reading this thing all along, you'll remember that back in '09 the spray bottle was our biggest nemesis.  Dixie used to absolutely panic if you went anywhere near her with a spray bottle - like galloping around the round pen til she was completely lathered.  Well, it's 2013 and she's learned to tolerate all kinds of previously-intolerable bullshit from me, so I just yanked her head down and squirted her all over with fly spray and she was a big girl about it.

She'd rolled in the red dust at FH the day before and she was just manky with it.

And she did not toss her head again.  Lesson learned #1.

So we headed out again.  The river crossing was lovely and not too deep.  There's a dam higher up the American River, and on Tevis Day they hold the water back so the flow is very low.  But they won't hold it for the Ed Ride, and the river gets pretty high after 1:30.  We got there well before and the water was only up to the horses' bellies.  I knew I shouldn't, but when the water touched my feet it felt so good and cool that I let my feet get wet and it felt amazing.  Bill was there again, taking more gorgeous pics of my gorgeous girl.

\m/

The climb up after the river.  Don't we just look like we know what we're doing?  ;)

The second section wound along above the American River, and we started to see other trail users.  Two guys had fishing poles and those floating chairs, and Dixie was like, oh that's NBD and walked right past them.  She has the best brain :)  The river was just gorgeous below us.  The day was starting to heat up, but I was drinking and eating and I felt fine.  The last section of road into the Lower Quarry was pretty hot and rocky, and the horses were all hot coming into the second check, but they made it.

"I hate you, human.  Are we ever going to turn around?"

Dixie took a little while to pulse down, but once she did she stayed near 50.  A lot of hot-and-tired B's on her card, but she was eating and drinking and we only had six miles to go.  We headed out along the river again.  We worked up the canyon, away from the big Hwy 49 Foresthill bridge (it's like 700+ feet high above the river) and popped out at No Hands Bridge, which is much lower and shorter and used to be a railroad bridge.  It's not infinitely wide, but it's easily wide enough for a car and it's got some little guard rails and well it's called No Hands Bridge so when I saw the photographer I had to do it.

Just beautiful.

A selfie.

 Look, Mom, no hands!

And then the evaporative cooler on the back of my helmet dried out.  I got hot.  I went from "huh I'm kinda hot" to crushing heat headache & making bad decisions in about 20 minutes.  I was out of water for Dixie, I was almost out of water for me, it was blindingly hot, and Dixie was huffing along at about 100 breaths per minute.  I got off and started walking her and that just got me hotter, but I'll be damned if I hurt my horse when I can possibly spare her.  I walked uphill in the heat, which isn't something I can do, but Dixie was so hot and we were only two miles from the finish and I was just terrified that I'd colic/thump/tie-up her.  Finally Wayne and Becky convinced me to get back on - I probably looked half-dead - and we dragged ass into the fairgrounds.  I took my helmet off because it was SO HOT and I didn't care if I fell off and died.  

There's a big rock tank of cool water just at the border of the fairgrounds.  I yanked D's bridle off and she went in up to her nostrils and drank, and I soaked my helmet and stuck it back on and the cold water running down my back was better than drugs, dude, it felt SO GOOD.  I yanked all of Dixie's tack, hung it on the fence, and walked her up to the hoses.  She was probably at 120 when we came in. I sprayed her down for a few minutes - somebody was talking to me so I don't really know how long it was, less than five minutes - and checked her pulse.  She was down.  I took her over to Melissa Ribley and she vetted out perfectly.  We did the thirty-whatever miles in 7:15, a completely respectable pace.

It was Dixie's first point-to-point ride, and I think she just lost heart toward the end.  She can be directionally challenged, but she knew that we were nowhere near the trailer and she couldn't understand why we hadn't turned around yet.  But when I yanked the saddle at the fairgrounds she knew we were done, before she even saw her trailer.

Here she is back at Foresthill.  I really think she looks almost exactly as good as she did the day before. I know it's not the same angle but I was doing real good to take a post-ride pic, period.

I fought that crushing headache til after 6, but I did manage to do one extremely smart and productive thing:  I trimmed her hooves.

Friday night I'd gotten Kevin and the Easyboot people to come look at Dixie's horrible feet and ridiculous boots - everybody who looks at the way her Gloves fit double-takes, because there's just no way they should stay on.  But they do!  Oddly, I lost two back boots on Saturday, but the fronts stayed on.  You can kind of see how abysmal they look in the Lower Quarry pic, if you're a boot nerd :)

Anyway, Kevin said take off a lot more toe, at the very least go back to the white line.  It's the kind of thing I know, and if I was looking at someone else's hoof pics I'd say "well duh, pull the toe back," but that's why you need outside eyes sometimes.  Dixie has incredibly thick hard feet, and I was dreading working on them.

After the ride, I thought "I should pull those wet boots off and let her feet dry out."  I sat there for a moment in the shade, and then I thought, "... and I really should trim them while they're soft and wet."  It was so hard to force myself to trim - I had to do one foot, then stagger back to the shade and drink another bottle of elyted water, then do another foot, etc.  But I got it done, and soggy feet are so much easier to trim.  I think in the future on trim days I'm going to boot her, hose her legs, ride for an hour, then pull the boots and trim her soggy feet.  It was that much easier.

And ~oddly enough~, the boot fit looked much better after the trim.  :rolleyes:

Then I decided not to ride Sunday.  It wasn't for points or miles.  I want to do Sunriver 100 in two weeks, and I really didn't want to override her and injure her.  I live close enough, and I have wonderful friends in the area, and I can come back and ride the canyons some other weekend before we try Tevis next year.  And the consequences of getting heatstroke in the canyons are very high - there is no easy way out, if I heatstroked out down there.  I do not know if I could walk out if my horse couldn't haul me out, and it just wasn't worth it overall.

I was so close to doing everything perfectly, too.  I know that if I get conditioned for the heat, if I keep my neck cooler wet, and if I eat and drink regularly, I can do this.  But I wasn't conditioned, and I really didn't want to injure myself, so I pulled.  Partly I feel like shit for not being Tough Enough and Badass Enough, but I think that's just pride talking and I made a good decision.  :-/

So I played trailer driver on Sunday!  We all got up at 4 am, loaded Vader and Mocha Jack in my trailer at 5:15, and headed up to Robinson Flat.  Wayne's friend and I waved them off at 7 and headed back down at 7:30.  I packed up my camp and loaded Miss D and got on the road for home at 9.

Next: the usual post-ride gear/training stuff.

Moving, rides, reviews

This weekend I moved Dixie to a "stall" at the same stable she's been at. What everybody out here calls a stall is what I'd call a tiny paddock with a run-in shelter. So, ugh, my horse is in a stall, but it's not like a 10x12 no-turnout stall inside a barn.

Yes, there was a tiny bit of drama, but you know rehashing drama is not my thing. Let's just say that the other owners in the field - all of whom had been there longer - wanted to feed alfalfa, and Dixie's allergic to alfalfa. A stall costs $120 more a month (with cleaning), but at least I can set up a slow feeder (like irish horse's!) and she can nibble 24/7. And she IS a super lazy horse who prefers to stand around all day - she wasn't doing a very good job of utilizing a traditional pasture setup.

So here's the view through the feeding window at the back of the run-in. You can see that even though she's plumped back up from her dehydrated post-ride state, she's still a little thin - hopefully I can fix that in September.


Kinda artsy :) Since then, I've printed and laminated a better stall sign, but all I had to work with that day was a manilla envelope, a sharpie, and some duct tape.


From the front.


Next ride: I think I'm going to do Tami's new ride, the Red Rocks Rumble (pdf ride flyer). It's October 6th, so that'll give Miss Dee six weeks off. I know the whole Red Rocks area, and I've ridden the first 30 mile loop with ~C earlier this year. God willing it don't snow early, I'm going to my home stomping grounds!

Before that: I'm hoping to do an LD with a newbie at Ride Bear (pdf flyer). It's super-local - if M can't make it, I think I will go volunteer anyway. I feel kinda guilty, because Red Rock Rumble is the same weekend as Quicksilver Fall Classic. But I get so excited when I think about Red Rocks!

Tack Review: This endurance thing is getting easier and easier, and I don't think my tack musings deserve their own post-ride blog anymore. :o

• Cooling: I forgot my $2 helmet liner cooler in the trailer, but luckily the trailer followed me to the vet check.  ;)  The ride was far from hot, but the helmet cooler works great and it was nice to have.  Sadly, I left my cheapo cooling vest at Foresthill, and I thought I ordered another vest but perhaps I have dreamt it?  Anyway, I didn't really need extra cooling on that ride.  
• Boots: I taped them on because they're getting pretty easy to apply, but then because I'd taped them on I couldn't pull them on the trail to check for gravel.  I had to fold down the gaiters and scrape the gravel out with my fingers - if they hadn't been taped, I could've pulled the whole boot off, banged the junk out on a rock, then reapplied the boot.  I don't know!  Like stall vs. pasture, it's another question with no easy answer.  But the bottom line is:  the Gloves continue to work perfectly.
• Accommodations:  I slept on an eggcrate and two sleeping bags in the back seat of the truck.  I have become a camping minimalist and who needs fancy-schmancy shit like tents?  Just give me somewhere mostly flat to lay a bag.
• Chow:  Miss Thing hates beet pulp again.  Also, she eats more than one half-bale-bag full of hay on a one-day ride.  I need to call Henry and get another half-bale-bag before he runs out!
• People Chow:  I think most of my pre- and post-lunch "why did I pay money to do this to myself" blahs are carb related.  I actually don't eat super low carb day-to-day, but when I'm out volunteering or riding a ride, I have noticed that when I eat a lot of carbs all at once (sandwich, sugary energy bar, handful of fruit) I get the sugar crash a lot more frequently.  So this time I tried a smoothie made from coconut milk, whey protein powder, and a little hot chocolate mix.  Surprisingly not vile, tons of calories of fat and protein, worked GREAT.  I couldn't find my other can of coconut milk at the second check so I just drank beer instead.  This may be the silliest substitution in the history of the sport.

In other n=1 personal experimentation news: I gave up dairy and had no zits. Then on the way to Tahoe Rim I drank a Starbucks, and another on the way home from the ride. I got three zits that weekend. A week back on the no-dairy bandwagon and I have no zits again. I can't say that I'll never drink milk again - a really good latte is totally worth it - but my daily coffee is lightened with coconut milk these days.

GC analysis

So how did I end up with only an hour left to cover seven miles? It's all in the vet checks. Most of the 50s I've done have had only two vet checks - the loops are 20/15/15 (or some combination thereof.) Gold Country was 12/12/18/7. Instead of stopping and pulsing my horse down twice, I had to pulse her down three times. Instead of losing an hour and a half to mandatory hold times, I lost two hours. If Dixie had pulsed down the second she walked in to each check, and I had crew to shove me back in the saddle and back out the gate the second I could leave, I would've had exactly 10 hours to cover 50 miles. But I lost another 45 minutes to pulsing my big thick-skinned horse down, and probably 15 more to me getting my shit together to get out the gate again. I only had 9 hours to ride 50 miles. I had to sustain 5.5 mph to get it done.

That's not prima facie unreasonable, even in July, but it wasn't foremost on my mind. I've never cut it that close before, not even at our first 50. It just never occurred to me that we'd get so out of time - especially when the vet-check cutoff times were so encouraging. Of course I didn't take a single picture of my vet card, but I want to say that the first vet check, 12.5 miles from camp, had a cutoff time of 10 am? I got there at 8:30. I stayed an hour to an hour and a half ahead of the cutoff times. I'd have done better to completely ignore the cutoffs AND my GPS and just go by the mileage points listed on the map + the time on my phone to figure out how I was doing.

I was going to shake my fist at the heavens and say "Well I'll just not do rides that have three vet checks," but you know what? The ride flyer (for this year, no less) says it's a two-check 15/15/20 ride.

I dunno. I know my horse is marginal at this sport, but she's not dangerously marginal. She had good vet scores all day, and I rode her pretty intelligently. Maybe her recoveries will continue to improve like they have for the last couple of years. Maybe she'll pulse down faster.

It was a tough ride. It definitely didn't feel that hilly, but the GPS says it's the hilliest 50 we've ever done. It was very hot, and I suspect the shitty smoky air didn't help things. I'm super proud of Dixie for finding fifth gear at the very end, but I'm upset with myself that she had to find fifth. That's not how I like to ride.

Stuff! Now that I'm really getting the hang of endurance camping, I'm getting way more lassiez-faire about everything.

I didn't even bring the truck tent. I just threw a tarp in the back of the horse trailer and tossed my cot back there. It was fine. I brought plenty of food and ate enough of it I suppose. Some powerbar things (gross) and some nut-and-fruit trail mix (boring), plus tons of fruit at the VC's and steak and chocolate milk at lunch. I really kinda thought the chocolate milk might make me hurl, but it looked SO GOOD when I opened the cooler and it went down GREAT.

Usually, I mix powdered electrolytes for my camelbak. Hot salty lemonade is pretty gross but I drink the hell out of it. This time, I did the whole ride with water in my camelback and electrolyte pills in my bag. I ate a handful of pills whenever I thought about it - I honestly have no idea how many or when. I did not drink as much water as usual. It didn't seem to do me any harm. I kinda missed my hot lemon water though.

Still rockin' that same long sleeve runner's shirt. It totally regulates my temperature - it keeps me slightly cooler in the heat and slightly warmer in the cold. I loves it. Still rockin' the barefoot shoes. I laced them pretty tight to hopefully prevent blisters, but I still popped a blister on one foot. I didn't notice til I got home so I guess that's almost success. I've been going commando and not getting the panty-line chafing.

The participation award was a Cooltie, and they gave it out at sign in. It does, in fact, work. It feels kinda disgusting - it's a warm slimy wet thing tied around your neck - but I felt cooler than I otherwise would've.

Last week, I got a Fitbit. It's a little pedometer, smaller than a cigarette lighter, that clips onto your body somewhere. It tells you how many steps you walk in a day, then extrapolates how many calories you've burned, miles you've walked, etc. The hard-but-not-impossible goal for most desk job people is to walk 10,000 steps in one day. Would you care to guess how many steps the Fitbit thinks I took on Saturday? And how many calories I burned, even after I went back and told it I'd been Riding Horseback (Trotting) for 12 hours?

My quads are KILLING ME. Gonna bike a lot more around town and try to get in better shape for Tahoe Rim.

Sticking your helmet in every water trough is definitely the way to fly.

Horse stuff!!
Used Gloves again. I've gotta be getting near 200 miles on that set, and they're noticeably easier to put on. I only taped the fronts - her front feet look way better, but the Gloves' V still doesn't stretch like it should. I actually lost a rear boot, but the gaiter kept it on. Will probably tape all four for Tahoe Rim.

So Easyboot people, is this the point where I put the powerstraps on? Now that the boots are ~easy to apply~?

My Renegade friends have been giving me vague disapproving vibes about my boot disloyalty, but the Gloves really do fit better right now. Shrug!

Totally forgot to buy applesauce. I only had four single-serves of applesauce, so I rationed them out. Turns out Dixie eats hay-and-BP mash with a half oz of Enduramax mixed in, yay! She ate a lot of her elytes and I only syringed at the first two checks.

She didn't drink til 16 miles. She drank great all the way back to camp, then after lunch she was pissy and wouldn't drink again til the trough at about 39 miles - but again, she drank heavily at that trough, the trough 2 miles from the last VC, the last VC, and the trailer. I have finally started to relax and trust that she's taking care of herself. Her hydration scores were consistently good.

And speaking of that - this was the first ride where I assumed she was ok. Every AERC ride we've done, I have been assuming that she's about to die and hopefully the vets would notice before she fell over. This ride, I just assumed she was ok, mechanically and metabolically, and hoped the vets would notice if I was wrong. YAY.

Dixie looked good after the ride. Her flanks got a little tucked in from the inevitable dehydration (endurance athletes, equine or human, can't replenish their fluids completely during an event - they always finish a couple % dehydrated), but they'd improved the next morning.

All four legs had a tiny bit of fill overnight. I need to walk her more often before bed and before we load up to go home. Do poultices work, or do they just make the humans feel better about things? What about wrapping, does that work and how would I learn how to do it? Is it just disguising the problem, or does it actually help prevent future lameness?

Of course nothing rubbed her. This is the up side to having a thick skinned horse that takes 10 minutes and 10 gallons of water to pulse down. :)

Dead Renegades

These are two year old ~500 mile Renegade hoof boots.



The toes on the fronts are gone


So is the tread


The rears are in better shape. They have slightly fewer miles, and they're still good backup boots.


I changed out the velcro toe straps once, and one of the cables frayed badly and needed to be replaced, but other than that I did no maintenance. I definitely got my money's worth out of them!

This is just another post that someone might be interested in in the future. :)

Rode that horse: Boca Reservoir

First, thank you to everybody who commented. It really did make me feel a lot better to know that I'm not the only one who gets besieged by the bad thoughts. Thank you. :)

I hauled Dixie up to Boca Reservoir today. I even took lots of pics! With the good camera! But I left it in the truck so you'll have to suffer with text because I'm too lazy to walk all the way to the garage. ;)

Boca is a good riding spot for me, I think. It's surprisingly unpopular - there were four camping rigs in the day area, and a couple more day-trippers on dirt bikes. It's west of the California ag inspection station - not that they have ever inspected me for anything, but I live in mild dread of the day they ask me for a health cert. Probably 30 miles from my house, so much closer than the actual Tahoe trails.

There are several campgrounds (some horse-friendly) at Boca and at the northern Stampede reservoir, but they close on Oct 1. The day use areas are fine: vault toilets, on the lake for horse water, decent gravel, no fees, and easy to pull thru if you don't like to back your rig. The lake is incredibly clear and even bluer than the picture on Wikipedia. Dixie thinks the dirt is tasty. She has a thing about eating small quantities of dirt from alpine lakes. It's some kind of trace mineral thing I guess.


View Larger Map

We parked at the day use lot at the northern end of the lake and took the gravel road east then south on "E Boca Springs Rd." Like all little grey roads on google maps of the Sierras, it's really an unnamed fire/logging "road" rather than something you'd drive a vehicle you cared about over. There's even a sign warning you not to take a car on it. I absolutely adore Forest Service signs, because they printed and stuck up one hundred years' worth of signs in the 1970s and they're not going to update them until we all have jetpacks or something. The warning sign for Boca Springs Road is Forest Service brown, with an outline drawing of a 70s station wagon and the "no" circle-slash through it. Directly behind the sign there's a creek washout that might high-point my four-wheel-drive truck, just in case you didn't believe the sign.

If you look at the google map, I could've taken Forest Road 72 north all the way up to Verdi Peak, or E Boca Springs south a couple of miles. I decided to take the shorter route today - I was not training or conditioning, just out having fun primarily. We made it about 2.5 miles up this gloriously beautiful trail. A nice 5 mile round trip.

Dixie was sure there were bears in the woods. Or perhaps wolves, she's not too clear about what the mortal danger is. There was a lot of stopping and staring on her part, and I just enjoyed the vistas. Didn't see anything bigger than a hawk. The "road" got narrower and narrower, and many stretches were nothing but fist-sized rock. I was worried about her front right boot but all four stayed on and kept her comfortable.

We climbed a lot through forest, then wound through a meadow, then went through another patch of forest and heard gunshots. I listened for a while and we walked into the next meadow, but I couldn't see the shooters and I just wasn't sure what direction they were firing. Most people who actually go target shooting in the wilderness are careful and responsible people who pick their backdrops wisely, and I was wearing my bright red B:tVS shirt, but I decided to turn around anyway. (Stuff like that is exactly why I don't like to train in brand new areas - since I'd told myself it was a pleasure ride, I wasn't upset that it was "too short" or anything.)

When we zipped back to the start, I noticed two guys pulling in to ride dirt bikes. I asked Dixie to keep trotting, but she wanted to veer over and investigate them, so I let her. The one guy was already suited up on his bike, and he killed the engine to talk to me and wait for his buddy to unload his bike from his truck. Dixie carefully inspected his bike and let him scratch her head! (Who is this horse? Where did she come from? Is she really mine?) They said there's actually an (unofficial?) gun club range back there and that's the shooting I heard, but agreed that riding in the mountains toward unknown gunfire is possibly not the safest of ideas. They confirmed that the other leg of the road, 72, is much longer, but I didn't even ask them about footing - our definitions of "good footing" are too different. The buddy got the bike unloaded so I bid them farewell.

We crossed the main road and headed back into the day use area and I saw a new RV. It was parked at the other end of the (very large) lot I'd parked in. A yellow lab in paroxysms of excitement came leaping toward us barking its head off. The human was right behind it, trying to get "Rose" to chillax a bit. She was having none of it. I rode my very calm horse very slowly toward them, talking to Rose and her owner, then hopped off and walked in when the human got a hand on Rose's collar. Rose had never seen a horse before and was clearly having the best day of her entire life. She wasn't aggressive, just unbelievably excited about the huge! white! monster! in her world. She was so cute, and I think both Dixie and I were good horse ambassadors. I know Dixie was - she was totally unfazed by Rose and just wanted to eat some weird scrubby plant growing in the parking lot.

After the humans had chatted for a while and Rose was dragged away, I rode Dixie down to the lake. She got all four feet wet, thought about drinking, and ate some half-dead aquatic plants. I thought about insisting that she wade further into the lake, but why? I'm sure I could've insisted and have her do it, but there was no real need.

We spent about 15 minutes hanging out at the trailer, but Dixie wasn't interested in eating any more mush so after I finished my snack we rolled out. Laura's last post on EI was about barefoot vs. shod, and I commented that I hardly talk about my boots because they are hardly blogworthy, but here goes: I put them on in about 1.5 minutes and they stayed on the whole ride. The "road" I took was NOT barefoot friendly. Boots or shoes+pads only. We walked/gaited/trotted only. I was worried about the right front, but even though it didn't fit right it didn't budge.

Dixie had lovely picture-perfect feet going into NASTR, but the idleness of late summer (and my own amateur trim jobs) let a lot of REALLY HARD false sole build up. I've been working diligently on them for a month now and last week the false sole finally started to shed on its own. A sharp hoof knife didn't budge it. New nippers didn't budge it. A sharp rasp glanced right off the stuff. A little rain finally broke it up / triggered Dixie's body to shed it - 1/8 to 1/4" chunks of sole have been coming out for a couple of weeks now. Three of her frogs shed off completely, and three feet flaked out all the dead sole and got trimmed. Not the RF! When we got back from the ride/lake, I pulled off most of the frog and flaked out a bit at the toe but there's still this huge wedge, especially in the medial heel. I think tomorrow I will aggressively mustang roll the medial wall so that the false sole is all that's weightbearing - I don't know what else to do. It's like iron.

I'm gonna have to turtle* this NEDA ride next weekend - Dixie is at about 75% yak status and she's not in tip-top shape. I'm thinking about going back to Boca on Monday and doing 10-15 miles on FS 72, just to get Dixie's cardio back in shape for next weekend, but that's all the prep I care to do. The NEDA ride is 20 flat sandy miles, and if it takes 5 hours, who cares? I could clip her neck, but I'm not planning much for the winter so I think I'll skip it.

*probably tie for turtle, if Susan M rides. She is firmly in the "getting one's money's worth per hour" camp and she always turtles rides she attends!

Next post: more pictures, fewer words.

Milton never went to California

Paradise isn't lost, it's hiding in the Sierras.

Doesn't look like much from the topo map, does it?

At last week's NEDA ride, R invited me to come ride the high country with her. Monday I went to Paradise Lake with her and two other high country trail riders. Words fail me - I can't describe how beautiful it is up there. I took a lot of (bad) pictures so they'll have to suffice.

I got to the parking area at Boreal a little early - I wasn't sure how long it would take to get up Donner Pass with the trailer. I wasn't quite motivated enough to braid Dixie, but I did play Pretty Pony with her.



Dixie was remarkably solid the whole time. She didn't spazz about the mountain bikers, but she did worry a lot about backpackers. She tripped once, just like each of the other horses. I can't tell you what a relief it was to be on a surefooted trustworthy horse! She stepped over some very large logs, followed me up a 2' ledge onto a bridge and back down the ledge on the other side, followed me down a very tricky rockfall section of trail, and stood patiently whenever we stopped. Such a good horse.

This is near the trailhead.


I think this is looking from the ridge along Andecite Peak toward Castle Peak.


The biggest meadow we crossed.


My poor iPhone just can't handle pics at high altitude. I've noticed that the higher I go, the worse the overexposure is.


The altitude didn't bother me - I actually hiked quite a bit of trail - but you could tell you were very high up. The sun was brutally intense - and, of course, there were snowpacks and wildflowers everywhere. This little meadow was waist-high in yellow, white, and purple flowers.



R has a picture of Dixie and I standing on a big snowpack - when she sends it to me I'll add it here. :)

Dixie approved of Paradise Lake.


More lake shots.




I firmly maintain that I have a horse because I'm too lazy to walk places, but I am seriously tempted to buy a tent, hike nine miles out to that lake, and sleep on that rock ledge.


I continue to be impressed by my Renegades. I bought some new toe straps last week - the rear straps were pretty grotty and one of the fronts was failing. I couldn't remember which front strap was bad, and they looked about the same, so I just shrugged and left the fronts alone. Turns out it was the right - that damn strap kept coming undone. I hopped off and re-velcro'd it several times on the trip out, and on the trip back when it came undone again I just left it loose for a mile or so. The boot never budged, over rocks and logs and through bogs. When we stopped to give the youngest horse a rest, I pulled the rear boots, put a good toe strap on the front right, and we motored on home. Straps are cheap - don't buy three just because you know one of them is good. Just buy four straps, Funder.

Dixie didn't drink as well as I'd like, but she's gotten really good at grabbing grass on the move, and she didn't sweat a lot. It was a hard ride, but very slow and pleasant, and she never huffed and puffed. Of course she didn't want mash at the trailer. R suggested I try wetting her hay at home, to get her used to eating gross soggy food, and I'm going to try that tonight.

My rig towed amazingly well over Donner Pass. I had plenty of truck to get up the pass, and it held its speed on the long downgrade coming home.

I got some great feedback on my trim post, and I haven't forgotten about it! Smazourek, thanks especially for the comments on Flickr!

Endurance ambassador

I just got home from a quite pleasant ride at Washoe Lake with two adventuresome trail riders, and I cannot believe how good Dixie was. She really is the opposite of all the endurance stereotypes. (Hopefully I am too, aside from my fashion sense and tack choices!) She trailered great and I met up with T at the turnoff to Eastlake and we waited there for a couple minutes for H to show up to lead us to the park at the north end of the lake. Dixie did not kick the trailer to pieces; she just stood and waited. Then we got down to the park and I fly sprayed her.

A million years ago, when Dixie was a real Problem Child, she would try to break halters to get away from fly spray. I tried to roundpen her out of her fly spray fear and 30 minutes later, dripping wet, she'd still panic and run from the sight of the bottle. I have off and on squirted her with water from a spray bottle - and by off and on, I mean maybe 5 times in the last two years. But she's been so good about stuff, and I decided that I'd just assume she was going to be fine. I showed her the bottle, squirted it all over her neck and butt, brushed it in, squirted the brush, brushed her face with fly spray. No big deal. She didn't like it from the near side and danced away but I just told her to quit and kept spraying and she stood there like it ain't no thang. So: if your horse comes totally unglued about fly spray, ride 500 miles a year and she'll improve. Nah, it's not the riding.

We saddled up and rode down to the lake. Dixie hasn't seen Washoe Lake (or any lake) since the trail trials last spring, and she didn't like it one bit then. She was snorty and dance-y and sort of hypnotized/terrified by the motion of water on sand and I didn't push the issue because she was pretty worked up that day. Today we rode to the lake and the big TB waded right in. Dixie walked up to the shore and snorted a bit. I let her look and asked her to walk in. She offered to duck out, I straightened her up, and she walked in. Like it ain't no thang.

We rode a mile or so down the lake til we hit a patch of biting flies, then we veered inland and went to check out the other horse park at the south end (the one where the Washoe Ride is held). We walked over and looked at the new stuff and found a tank of water. I knew she wouldn't drink, but I asked her to go stick her nose in the tank and she did, then we hung out while the other two horses decided not to drink either. ;) We all gallivanted around the nice new arena then headed back north toward the trucks.

The road was nice hard sand, not the deep sand by the lake, so we decided to trot and canter. Dixie gave me some nice gaits, plus a lovely round canter for a bit, all on a loose rein and totally calmly. The other two horses were not so perfect - not so their owners had any trouble, just bad enough to make Dixie look like a spotted angel in comparison.

The wind had picked up so we went back to the lake. There were whitecaps and waves, and those were pretty scary, so I'd let Dixie walk on the dry sand for 100 yards, then ask her to go let the waves slap her hooves for 10 yards, then repeat. We were maybe a quarter mile from the trailer when Dixie suddenly pointed the tips of her ears straight back at me in a very quizzical manner and the woman behind me said "you lost a boot!" They both told me at the same time!

I got down, got the problem back boot off, got the other back boot off, and got back on. Just like that. Dixie didn't run in circles or scream or yank her feet away or try to walk off while I was mounting. Absolutely no drama. Ain't no thang. (Boot failure: The toe strap came unstrapped. The velcro on those boots is pretty old, and I'll need to replace it before I do an e-ride in them, but I was pretty impressed with how well they stayed on in wet deep sand.)

In fact, the only drama was back at the trailer, where I had to beat* my poor horse into walking over and getting tied up at the trailer to eat hay. She didn't want to stop. That's three rides in a row now where she's very clearly said "I'm not through and I'd like to do more please." I think tomorrow I'll get up early and go up the road to Cold Springs and let her scramble up the foothills of Peavine - maybe that'll satisfy her!

*Ok, I twirled the lead rope at her butt for a while then cracked it quite forcefully on the saddle to make her move. Abusive, I know.

I am going to break one of my unspoken rules and tell yall that I love that horse. She is a fine beast. I didn't know what I was doing with her but I was stubborner than her and she's turned into quite a good trustworthy mount.

A Nevada fall ride

Yesterday I rode over to D & B's house and we trailered out to Red Rocks. D is an endurance rider who had to take this year off - life gets in the way. She took a cute bay Arab mare. Her husband B just likes to ride, and he took a super cute dark bay Anglo-Arab mare, pretty green. We rolled along at a good clip and had a great time.

Here's the Garmin. You can tell that Dixie got hot and tired in the last couple of miles - she was drenched in sweat by the time we got back. Not really blowing hard, just totally sweaty. (I did remember to bring her cooler!) She is hairy like a damn yak. I think she's in fantastic shape for a normal horse and mediocre shape for an endurance horse, but I'm ok with that. It's the end of our season - I'm not doing any SW or PS rides this year.

(I'd love to do Desert Gold or Death Valley Experience some year! I don't know if I will, at least not on Dixie - I would absolutely have to clip her, and then I'd have to blanket her, and ugh. It seems like a lot of responsibility. She has amazing hair that keeps her perfectly content in the sleet and snow, and if I fuck with it, I'm going to have to keep her equally comfortable.)

I was extremely pleased with how well our three mares got along. D's mare really wanted to be in front, and she made nonstop nasty faces at the other two when they dared to pass or get too close. B's mare is green, and she would periodically break into a canter (with that little happy-horse half-buck) and zoom past us. Dixie - yall, I can't believe this. Dixie did not make faces. She didn't fight to pass. She didn't velcro her nose to another horse's butt and refuse to pass. She stood tied to the trailer IN BETWEEN the other two mares and didn't squeal or glare, even when B's mare was eating out of her hay net. She did bite B's mare on the nose, very calmly, for trying to shove her nose into the same square of the haynet that Dixie was eating out of.

Both my friends wore Renegades - D's mare had them on the fronts and B's mare had them on all four. D lost a boot pretty catastrophically about 8 miles in. The cable broke, so the boot part flapped loose and the captivator held it on her ankle. Everybody freaked out and took off in a canter for a couple strides but came right back down to us. I had the most carabiners and D rings, so I got to carry the boots back after that :)

Dixie went barefoot, because I know the trails out there and I'm just so pleased with her feet right now. It's funny how even booted-barefoot people keep a close eye on bare-barefoot people. We were walking up a sand road and Dixie wandered off into the ditch and kept walking. D said "are her feet sore?" I said I didn't think so, she didn't feel off or unconfident. I let her keep walking up the ditch, and not 30 seconds later she stopped to pee, then scrambled back up onto the road.

Stuff we saw: four birds fighting. They were too far away to really see colors, but I think it was two crows/ravens harassing a pair of golden eagles - it sounded like creaky crow voices, and the bigger birds were HUGE. We saw cows - everybody had to stop and stare for several minutes, then sneak past them. We saw snow - it spit snow on us all day. And on my ride over to D & B's, Dixie and I faced down the deadliest of enemies, the llama.

There are two houses in that subdivision with llamas/alpacas, but I never can remember where they are, so I keep stumbling upon them. At least this time I saw the llama first, so I could slow Dixie down and start talking to her. When she spotted it, she froze and started snorting hard. The llama was making that hack-up-a-lugey sound and it had its ears pinned at us. There was a tense faceoff for probably a minute before Dixie unfroze and I could ask her to keep walking. When we got even with the llama, she saw two donkeys behind it and thought about freaking out again, but I yelled at her about how they're just damn donkeys and she likes donkeys. She kept going, then a dog charged us from its yard on the other side of the road and she skittered a bit, then gave one of those incredibly loud snorts and got over it. Such a good girl these days!

I am thinking about Rides of March already. Should I clip for that? She had a thick coat for it this year, and the weather was super warm and she sweated a ton. Winter will be mostly over by then, at least the kind of winter I worry about. I'm ok with blanketing through a couple of freak snowstorms in March/April.

Miscellaneous gear stuff

• The Toklat Woolback is awesome and I'm so glad I got it.
• My knees didn't hurt, but I moved my stirrups up a notch AND I took a lot of Advil. I'm not sure what to credit there.
• I never did attach a tube clip for the Camelbak. I ended up using double-sided velcro to make a loop off a D-ring and it worked just fine.
• I tried riding in the rope halter for the second loop, but Dixie hates that even worse than she hates having a sweaty headstall on her ears - I didn't even make it out of the arena before I got off and put the headstall back on.
• The Renegades stayed on. The footing wasn't challenging to boots, so I can't brag about how amazing they are, but I'm still very happy with them so far. I need to work on the right rear.
• I remembered to braid a dog tag in Dixie's mane, and it stayed on just fine.
• How the hell do people attach glowsticks? I suspect they're just duct taping them to the breast collar. I tied one on a pommel bag ring.
• Speaking of pommel bags, Henry's is the best possible bag. Room for a liter of water, velcro pockets for ride cards, BIG zippers that even sleep-deprived Funders can work - it's totally awesome.

Gratuitous goat

I didn't end up competing at the 4H show on Saturday. It was a big show, and none of the Western classes started before noon, and I just didn't want to sit on the ground for 4 hours. I packed Dixie's saddlebags with hay and let her eat and hang out in the commotion until the brand inspector arrived, then got her inspected and headed back home.

Her goat, Billy, was very glad to see us. He spent the whole time we were gone lounging in the other horses' pen, but as soon as he saw us approaching he leapt up and ran over to Dixie's pen and started chowing down on her hay. He is a very funny fellow. They were pretty cute eating together, so I wanted to get a picture. As soon as I walked up with the camera, I got a bunch of these shots:



I was patient and eventually he got bored and went back to the hay with Dixie.



I was thinking about going to volunteer at the NASTR ride, but my husband wanted to spend time with me. Awww :) We ended up going shopping and had a nice day together.

Yesterday I took Dixie on a big ride - 20 miles in just under 4:30. I booted up and tried stashing my water in the pommel bag - I think I like it, but it needs some modifications. Some friends called when I got out to her barn, so we met up with them for part of the ride. It slowed us down considerably, but it was fun for me and good for Dixie.

We headed out at a fast clip for the first 7 miles to meet up with my friends who were trailering in. It was my first time riding with them. They're normal trail riders, and the woman's a little timid, so we just walked. Walking is fun for a change but it sucks after an hour or so! But the conversation was good.

We headed up into the hills. I was looking for a trail over to Antelope Valley to take me back home by a different route, but the BLM fence is actually in good shape along that section. There was one dirt road, but it had a cattle guard. The scenery in the hills is fantastic right now - lots of wildflowers, lots of different species of grass. Some dirt bikers zipped by and Dixie was unfazed, yay!

After the others headed back down to their trailer, I tried to work my way south along the ridge to head home, but my trail didn't work out. We headed back down to the foothills and gradually back into the valley. Dixie acted like she could care less about the two other horses while we were riding with them, but once they peeled off away from us, she was somewhat distraught. She screamed a few times, spent too much time looking for them, and wanted to head back down to their trailer, instead of home. At one point she was looking off toward where they'd gone and stumbled hard, to her knees. Before I decided to leap off, she lurched back up and walked out fine. Kind of scary, but she did a slightly better job of paying attention to the trail after that. And as far as "don't leave me!" panic goes, hers wasn't bad at all.

Our only other encounter was some people out shooting cans. When they saw us coming, they stopped shooting, and I talked to them briefly. Dixie was fine with them once she realized they were people, and the (distant) shooting didn't upset her.

Gear:

I think I like the new pad. It didn't get sweat logged like I feared it would, and it didn't rub. When I stripped her tack, her back was evenly sweaty and all the hair was laying correctly. The boots all stayed on, but the left rear had a lot of grass seeds and dirt in it. I think I didn't get it aligned right when I put it on - I'll have to pay closer attention.

Getting the water bag tube out of the pommel bag, drinking from it, and stuffing it back in securely was impossible at the trot and annoying at the walk. I think I'll sew a tube hook on the other side of the pommel bag and let the tube ride across the pommel and hang off the far side. My backpack has a compartment for a camelbak, and the right strap has a hook for the tube. I never use the backpack as a camelbak - I have a real camelbak bag for when I want to use it. The hook on the strap does an amazingly good job of snagging securely to spaghetti strap tops when you take the backpack off, so I'm looking forward to removing it. I am very tired of my backpack trying to disrobe me! If I mod something up, I'll take some pics to share.

I took pecans for a snack and they were great. Dixie liked her De-Lyte Bites. I took one serving to see how she'd like them, and she thought they were good. I brought an electrolyte goo thing for me, and I really needed it at about 15 miles when I got the "don't care if I die in the desert" blahs. Some goo perked me right up and got me home.

My poor knees were the weak link. I am toying with the idea of switching riding footwear again - I think padded hiking boots plus padded enduro stirrups is too much squishy. I love the stirrups so I might try some very thin soled tennis shoes.

Questions!

So we should be good to do the LD at Moonshine on the 26th, right? It's just under 2 weeks out, and we just did our big training ride, so now I can just bomb around if I want and have fun again?

Shoe/stirrup recommendations? Or I guess more precisely, knee recommendations? Yesterday I would've paid a vet tech to inject me with Adequan behind the barn!

Any thoughts about one Renegade full of dirt when the rest were self-cleaning?

Attack of the boot

Sunday I was way too sunburned to ride again. I did go out and braid Dixie's mane. I wanted to see how they'd last overnight. If I go to Cooley Ranch - or any ride, for that matter - I'd like to braid her mane the day before we leave, when she's still sleepy and laid back and ho-hum about everything. One day ridecamp will be ho-hum, but it's not gonna be this year.

She's mad at Sassy, the bay in the background. How dare that wicked mare stand so close to Her Highness!


I even gave her a Bam-Bam topknot. She was skeptical.


I took the topknot out and left the poor thing to her own devices.

On Monday, my husband and I took Cersei up to a beautiful lake in the Sierras - I'll post pics from that tomorrow. Tuesday I went back and the braids were still in! They looked "slept in" and wouldn't have passed at any show, but the hair was contained and off of her neck. Woohoo!

Then I took Dixie and we did some deliberate conditioning work. We did trot sets up a not-too-steep and not-too-long section of hill. I let her pace downhill, and once she actually hit a fantastic running walk. After we finished the last set and were headed back towards home, a boot attacked! It sprang off her foot and rolled in front of us, clearly coming out of another dimension to attack her. Dixie startled, bucked!!, and tried to bolt off. I hollered and pulled her up, then hopped off and led her back to the boot. She let me strap it back on and stood at a rock for me to remount, but she was hot and spooky on the way home. Poor girl.

I kept meaning to deliberately cause a boot failure in a controlled situation, but I hadn't gotten around to it. I still need to strap one loosely around her pastern and lunge her - I bet that causes another buck!

* I'm going to Vegas with my BFFs for the weekend, so I've scheduled a couple of posts for while I'm gone. Have a lovely weekend, yall!*

Snow far behind

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF DAMMIT DAMMIT DAMMIT

I just wrote a huge post and Blogger ate the whole damn thing and it's my fault for not saving it to the clipboard before I clicked submit. I am just furious. Here is version 2, which is not as awesome as version 1 was.

I'm way behind on reading yall's blogs. Sorry. :(

I think Dixie's in good enough shape to do 2 LDs in mid-June, so I've been riding to have fun and to test out gear, not to get miles or increase fitness. Saturday I rode with all four Renegades, and today I rode with the new crupper. Here's Saturday's ride:

I think Dixie looks awesome right now! Great weight, great muscling - she's totally ripped for a TWH. And look at all that amazing mane!


I put all four boots on.


I think maybe the pastern straps were too tight. When I took the boots off two hours later, she had some warm pink spots on her heel bulbs where it looked like the hair was worn, and I'm pretty sure it would've turned into rubs. Renegade people, any advice? Here's the front and back pictures, if they help.

We rode up in the hills toward Antelope Valley, and I got this cool picture of the storm moving down on Reno.


Cersei hung in there with us.


Dixie met some burros. The word burro always makes me think of burrow owls, which makes me think of that Dead Milkmen song. (Warning! It's offensive. And weird. And funny.) Anyway, Miss Hateful didn't pin her ears or squeal or kick or bite the fence - she loved them, even though they didn't live in a hole in the ground. It was totally adorable.


After I pried Dixie away from the burrow owls I turned on the video camera and cantered on home. Warning! No matter how smooth you think the canter really is, it makes for a very seasick video. Still, it was totally cool that I could do such a thing.

Right as we got back in the neighborhood, it started snowing again. My husband edited this and subtitled it - thanks, sweetie!

Snowy Summer from Funder on Vimeo.

The day was actually really pleasant. It was cold when a cloud was blocking the sun, and pleasantly warm the rest of the time. Just weird Nevada summer snow. I'm not complaining :)

I'll put up today's ride tomorrow. And read some blogs!

6 days

I still haven't freaked out or chickened out about Rides of March, although I've seriously come close a few times. I'm not sure we'll finish in time but we're going anyway.

I've been not riding, mainly. I have come to the conclusion that all those "How to Condition for Endurance" articles are bullshit, and if you do ride 4 or 5 times a week you end up with a very tired horse. I gave Dixie a whole week off, then Thursday we had a badass ride - 5.5 mph for 7.5 miles.

Today we had a slower longer ride, with a lot more hills and boots on her feet. Checked out Calle de Mariposa, which leads to a hill overlooking PV and a locked gate. :( I am pretty close to deciding that the best way to get to PV involves a trailer ride ;) I've got one more hill trail to check out first.

Soooo tired. More later.

Easyboot trial - do these fit?

I got J's boots on today! They're old-style classic Easyboots, size 0. I would never in a million years have guessed that this horse would end up a size 0! But these certainly aren't too small. I don't think.

I got them on and strapped down TIGHT, just like the directions say, then we headed out for a hand walk around the pueblo house. There's one section of road with new gravel, that stuff the size of a ping pong ball that horses hate to walk on, and I've always let her go around it. I insisted that she walk with me over the big gravel, and she wasn't sure about it for a couple of steps, then realized the boots protected her feet and started striding out heel-first. Yay! We went through some pretty deep sand, over hard road with teeny bits of gravel loose on top, over a bit of pea sized gravel, and even got the boots wet. She wanted to drink out of a puddle and got one boot wet and full of sand.

I am not sure they fit right. Any Easycare people lurking? Anybody know how classic easyboots are supposed to fit? Here's some pictures...

She was standing like this eating a bit of grain, so the right front is way back in all the pictures.


Left front lateral. Is the boot supposed to gape open there at the quarters? Because the cable's on the tightest setting.


Right front lateral gapes the same way.


Left front medial fits a bit tighter against her hoof.


Apparently I didn't take a right front medial.

I played with the contrast a lot so you can maybe kinda see how the boots fit in the heels.



Her feet are almost "round" - not circular, but the same width as length. It's within a couple millimeters. Based on what the two sites say, she might be better off in Renegades, but I'm willing to try the Easyboots.

Thursday I'm going to go riding - back up the rocky hills - for a more comprehensive test.