Today we went exploring. What a good time! We drove up Underwood and parked way up the hill. It was steep and rocky and a little narrow, but Lynn just motored us on. Piece of cake (although she worried about it all night!). The elevation where we parked was 4200.
After we parked, we headed up a skid road. There wasn't much brush to stop us, although there were a lot of down trees.We rode on both roads and through the trees. There were some beautiful views overlooking the river gorge (South Fork) and back at Ironside. We had to skirt some down trees, but all the horses just did what was asked of them. They are all such good mountain boys. We hit some deadends, but somehow ended up making a loop back onto our first trail. Ziggy knew where we were, but I think the rest of us were surprised.
We got back to the truck and kind of rode around looking for another avenue to explore, but decided to load up the boys and head downhill to another spot and ride out of there. Although it didn't seem like it, we had put in about 3 hours at that point, but no one was ready to stop. The boys loved eating all that high mountain grass and definitely wanted more, so they were okay with going on another trail.
Once we got out and on another skid road, we found ourselves in some prickly brush. I saw Ziva jump up and over a small bush rather than let it touch her. The trees have grown over the road some, but it was a nice ride. Unfortunately, we came to a log that wasn't high or low enough to navigate and both sides were too steep to go around, so we headed back.
The boys were happy to see new trails and the dogs all stayed close. Ziva really want to chase some quail down a super steep hill, but she listened and stayed with us. Hailey was a on a dead run after something--high above us on the hill--but she came right back when Lynn called her. We heard a big wood pecker or two, but didn't get to see them. I saw some tracks of something else, but I am not sure what it was. I don't get to go tomorrow, but I'll relish this one all week. It was a great day. (as usual!)
It is a place to explore. I think it will take a few times to figure it out. If we go back I want to ride out the road to the west of where we were parked then up the hill and then go east... we'll see. I also want to ride under Castle Rock. I need to try to remember which road you take... CRS! Had a nice ride today. We rode to top of Hennessey Rd. I did some trail trimming, my hand is sore! Almost a blister... :) You might notice what I did. Or maybe not... :)
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