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pecuniumFive days in the saddle. Five nights sleeping on the floor of the horse trailer.
Surprisingly, I don't hurt as much as I thought I would.
We didn't ride that much, not more than 60 miles, and probably more on the order of 50. None of those rides was on level ground. The distance from valley floors to ridge tops was probably about 600 feet, usually. For those of you who don't ride, going downhill on a horse is hard work. Uphill is easy. Lean a bit forward in the saddle and the horse lifts you. He want's to speed up, and the action of his hindquarters is compact, so it's an easy ride.
Downhill, the opposite. He's stretched out, you have to hold with either your thighs/knees (and a small bit of butt, resting in the back of the saddle) or your toes; in the irons. The last puts a lot of stress on the interior tendons of the kneecap, which is to say it hurts. The thighs knees hurt too, but in a muscle pain sort of way, not a ripping the joints out slowly kind of way.
Weather, for the whole trip, was clear afternoons, foggy mornings. The kind of foggy mornings where the Monterey Pines rain on the truck and the tent. Days for lots of hot cocoa, and a morning fire isn't out of order.
We left at some ungodly hour of a Weds. morning, and missed the big hoo-ha ride (special permit, non-members never get to ride in this chunk of watershed pasture, supposed to be pretty, but the real frisson is the chance to ride forbidden territory. Only problem is the whole pack has t ride together. Seventy horses is too many. They get fractious, piss each other off, feed on quirks (Leus, for example has to be in front. All it takes is one other horse to have the same urge, and a race ensues. Leus is in good shape, he can run; uphill and down [bad for the knees, his and yours] for miles. He likes to run... think about this happening where the terrain isn't known and the path a cut on steep slopes. Now imagine 70 different horses, all possessed of quirks and the possibilities for positive feedback). We got in, signed our releases (you could die, it's not our fault) and tacked up. We did about 7 miles, all on trails the instigator of this little trek knew by heart, as Drina used to live in Orinda, and had her horse in this hollow of the hills for eight years before she went away to college.
Back just in time for dinner.
The food was done so-so. First, they have poor attendance control. I suspect one could just crash the whole event, and I am dead certain one can crash dinner. Too many people and no means of accounting for them. After the first night (and never for breakfast) there were no real announcements for chow. Since breakfast varied in the time of it's preparation, Maia and I got to the chuck-wagon late enough we almost didn't eat once. On the second night they ran out of pasta sauce. I think this was because of gate-crashers.
The second morning was a logistical nightmare. This was the travelling day. Which is to say we were going from Tilden to Sequoia, a twelve mile ride (mostly on the ridgetop, but only just mostly, so call it seven miles in along the spine of the Berkeley Hills, heading toward Oakland). The trailers (in which 70 horses arrived) had to be moved as well. They had to be moved first, not just because the gear to tend to the horses is in them (pretty damned important) but because no one can say who will get to Sequoia first, and so one might not be able to get the puzzle which was the arrangement of trailers fixed.
Pat and Maia (the five-horse slant needs a ground guide if it has to make turns into tight places, or back up) left fairly late in the queue, about 0930. The plan was people would start moving trailers at 0730, and everyone would be riding by 1030, so we would all be at the new campground by 1300, and could go for a second ride, in Redwood Park, should we so desire.
They got back at 1200, and we were the last riders out, at 1300ish.
The ride was nice. I was on Tchotchke, and she isn't the best fit for me. Rolls her back end oddly (it feels as though she's moving her rump like a ten-dollar whore looking for trade) which ties my lumbar up in knots. She's also not in the best shape, so she tires easily. And when she isn't gaiting, but pacing, well it's like riding in an unsprung truck on ruts and washboard. But it was a pretty ride. The hills above Arcadia are clear, mostly (at least in the front range of the Angeles Crest) and one can see for miles. Most of the Hill we were on were wooded, and of a variable nature. Anyone who doubts the idea of microclimate is invited to travel the trails we were on. Redwood groves, to dark stands of mossy oaks and fern to open stretches of brown grass and Madrone, with poison oak and yellow star-thistle (a pestilential weed. It gives horses paralytic palsey. A little as one blossom can make them reminiscent of someone with severe Parkinson's. Worse, even if that doesn't happen, the toxins seem to be as slow as mercury to leave the body, and they accrue. It kills them, and all it takes is a moment's inattention to happen. I had to pull a strand of it out of Tchotchke's mouth; which pleased her not at all). One can traverse all these landscapes in twenty minutes easy riding, or an hour and a half of brisk walking.
Sequoia is in Redwood Park. Which meant we got a speech from a guy at Chabot Space and Science Center (it was ok, as speeches go) and then went up to look at the stars. Vega was too bright for the big refractor. It hurt to look at. Spica was nice. As were the binaries (I forget which one it was, blue and orange) M-11 (a globular cluster, The Wild Duck. I don't know who called it that, but I want to know what he was drinking. I didn't see any relation to waterfowl). The 36" Cassegrain was focused on M-13, which was referred to by one of the attendants as, "The Hand Grenade" and by the Austrian woman who first looked at it as, "Oh! My God!".
Outside, a stargazer was pointing to Mizar and Alcor, the visible pair of stars in the middle of the handle of the Big Dipper, (no moon, and fog over the city) with his eight inch cassegrain, and showing the actual binary near it. Those of us who could make out the visible astonished him. Me, i have coke-bottoms for lenses, but it isn't that I can't see, just that I have lousy eyes.
Up in the morning and not going on the 19 mile ride to the EBMUD watershed. Instead we did 9 miles in and around the park. Lots of redwoods, lots of oak, lots of dark and evocative riding. Lots of spider webs on the side of the trails. Huge webs, with medium spiders, spanning the gaps between the redwoods which had grown from the stumps of those harvested a hundred years ago.
The next day was more of the same, then a quick load of the horses, and a short drive to Bort Meadow, nasty road (it took some 20 minutes to jockey the trailer around the bend... the holes to the left and right were fearsome. The truck and trailer combo is a trifle longer than a standard 18-wheeler), and short ride in the new place.
Up again, each day saw a few fewer people. A pair of trailers who made the trip to Bort were gone in the morning (they wanted dinner and the singing [a couple of people who came in. They weren't bad] I guess). A 12 mile ride around Lake Chabot (I don't know who Chabot was, but I like him) which has a couple of nice places for cantering (which is a dream on Leus. He doesn't like being held in, but if you keep him at 2/3rd open canter, it's the smoothest thing, wide open, at full gallop is also nice, but in a "oh my god, how fast and not quite out of control this is. He's knows what he's doing, but you don't have the same impression). The last bit we also ran, that was longer, (though it never feels that one canters long enough). The steady three-point cadence and the even two-point rythm of the saddle and the butt; the give and take of the reins and the sense of scenery going by, just slowly enough to apprehend it (the last is what makes the difference, perceptually, between gallop and canter, at a gallop one has not the time to appreciate, merely to react). A bit of a closed lane, the shrubbery wasn't the sort to overgrow the lane, and some threading of gaps, lest the foliage flay the face.
It was a good end to the trip.
We startled some deer. One young buck stood in the trail trying to figure out what we were, and why were were there. He had a look of offended dignity. Then he bolted, picked up a doe and they bounded off. Another buck (four-point) was disturbed from his bedding-down by us above, and a loud motorcycle below, he flew through the trees.
Some voles, speeding, inasmuch as a vole can speed, in their wobbly-bottomed way, across the road. A huge gyre of young hawks, skimming the trees and looking for voles, some as close as 50 feet, vultures, as close as 15 feet, and below us, and above, and riding the limn of the ridge, views of the bay, between the trees, people on boats, and bicycles (why anyone wants to ride those trails on wheels is beyond me). Trees, ferns, lichens, mosses, streams, fish (well, not really, but I know they were there) rocks, rills and songbirds we never saw.
So we got a lot of riding done (and I read, in the spare time, and the travel time, Volume One of Neal Stephenson's "Baroque Cycle. I'm still not sure what it's about but as with all his stuff I like it).
Five days and a couple of hundred bucks well spent.
Surprisingly, I don't hurt as much as I thought I would.
We didn't ride that much, not more than 60 miles, and probably more on the order of 50. None of those rides was on level ground. The distance from valley floors to ridge tops was probably about 600 feet, usually. For those of you who don't ride, going downhill on a horse is hard work. Uphill is easy. Lean a bit forward in the saddle and the horse lifts you. He want's to speed up, and the action of his hindquarters is compact, so it's an easy ride.
Downhill, the opposite. He's stretched out, you have to hold with either your thighs/knees (and a small bit of butt, resting in the back of the saddle) or your toes; in the irons. The last puts a lot of stress on the interior tendons of the kneecap, which is to say it hurts. The thighs knees hurt too, but in a muscle pain sort of way, not a ripping the joints out slowly kind of way.
Weather, for the whole trip, was clear afternoons, foggy mornings. The kind of foggy mornings where the Monterey Pines rain on the truck and the tent. Days for lots of hot cocoa, and a morning fire isn't out of order.
We left at some ungodly hour of a Weds. morning, and missed the big hoo-ha ride (special permit, non-members never get to ride in this chunk of watershed pasture, supposed to be pretty, but the real frisson is the chance to ride forbidden territory. Only problem is the whole pack has t ride together. Seventy horses is too many. They get fractious, piss each other off, feed on quirks (Leus, for example has to be in front. All it takes is one other horse to have the same urge, and a race ensues. Leus is in good shape, he can run; uphill and down [bad for the knees, his and yours] for miles. He likes to run... think about this happening where the terrain isn't known and the path a cut on steep slopes. Now imagine 70 different horses, all possessed of quirks and the possibilities for positive feedback). We got in, signed our releases (you could die, it's not our fault) and tacked up. We did about 7 miles, all on trails the instigator of this little trek knew by heart, as Drina used to live in Orinda, and had her horse in this hollow of the hills for eight years before she went away to college.
Back just in time for dinner.
The food was done so-so. First, they have poor attendance control. I suspect one could just crash the whole event, and I am dead certain one can crash dinner. Too many people and no means of accounting for them. After the first night (and never for breakfast) there were no real announcements for chow. Since breakfast varied in the time of it's preparation, Maia and I got to the chuck-wagon late enough we almost didn't eat once. On the second night they ran out of pasta sauce. I think this was because of gate-crashers.
The second morning was a logistical nightmare. This was the travelling day. Which is to say we were going from Tilden to Sequoia, a twelve mile ride (mostly on the ridgetop, but only just mostly, so call it seven miles in along the spine of the Berkeley Hills, heading toward Oakland). The trailers (in which 70 horses arrived) had to be moved as well. They had to be moved first, not just because the gear to tend to the horses is in them (pretty damned important) but because no one can say who will get to Sequoia first, and so one might not be able to get the puzzle which was the arrangement of trailers fixed.
Pat and Maia (the five-horse slant needs a ground guide if it has to make turns into tight places, or back up) left fairly late in the queue, about 0930. The plan was people would start moving trailers at 0730, and everyone would be riding by 1030, so we would all be at the new campground by 1300, and could go for a second ride, in Redwood Park, should we so desire.
They got back at 1200, and we were the last riders out, at 1300ish.
The ride was nice. I was on Tchotchke, and she isn't the best fit for me. Rolls her back end oddly (it feels as though she's moving her rump like a ten-dollar whore looking for trade) which ties my lumbar up in knots. She's also not in the best shape, so she tires easily. And when she isn't gaiting, but pacing, well it's like riding in an unsprung truck on ruts and washboard. But it was a pretty ride. The hills above Arcadia are clear, mostly (at least in the front range of the Angeles Crest) and one can see for miles. Most of the Hill we were on were wooded, and of a variable nature. Anyone who doubts the idea of microclimate is invited to travel the trails we were on. Redwood groves, to dark stands of mossy oaks and fern to open stretches of brown grass and Madrone, with poison oak and yellow star-thistle (a pestilential weed. It gives horses paralytic palsey. A little as one blossom can make them reminiscent of someone with severe Parkinson's. Worse, even if that doesn't happen, the toxins seem to be as slow as mercury to leave the body, and they accrue. It kills them, and all it takes is a moment's inattention to happen. I had to pull a strand of it out of Tchotchke's mouth; which pleased her not at all). One can traverse all these landscapes in twenty minutes easy riding, or an hour and a half of brisk walking.
Sequoia is in Redwood Park. Which meant we got a speech from a guy at Chabot Space and Science Center (it was ok, as speeches go) and then went up to look at the stars. Vega was too bright for the big refractor. It hurt to look at. Spica was nice. As were the binaries (I forget which one it was, blue and orange) M-11 (a globular cluster, The Wild Duck. I don't know who called it that, but I want to know what he was drinking. I didn't see any relation to waterfowl). The 36" Cassegrain was focused on M-13, which was referred to by one of the attendants as, "The Hand Grenade" and by the Austrian woman who first looked at it as, "Oh! My God!".
Outside, a stargazer was pointing to Mizar and Alcor, the visible pair of stars in the middle of the handle of the Big Dipper, (no moon, and fog over the city) with his eight inch cassegrain, and showing the actual binary near it. Those of us who could make out the visible astonished him. Me, i have coke-bottoms for lenses, but it isn't that I can't see, just that I have lousy eyes.
Up in the morning and not going on the 19 mile ride to the EBMUD watershed. Instead we did 9 miles in and around the park. Lots of redwoods, lots of oak, lots of dark and evocative riding. Lots of spider webs on the side of the trails. Huge webs, with medium spiders, spanning the gaps between the redwoods which had grown from the stumps of those harvested a hundred years ago.
The next day was more of the same, then a quick load of the horses, and a short drive to Bort Meadow, nasty road (it took some 20 minutes to jockey the trailer around the bend... the holes to the left and right were fearsome. The truck and trailer combo is a trifle longer than a standard 18-wheeler), and short ride in the new place.
Up again, each day saw a few fewer people. A pair of trailers who made the trip to Bort were gone in the morning (they wanted dinner and the singing [a couple of people who came in. They weren't bad] I guess). A 12 mile ride around Lake Chabot (I don't know who Chabot was, but I like him) which has a couple of nice places for cantering (which is a dream on Leus. He doesn't like being held in, but if you keep him at 2/3rd open canter, it's the smoothest thing, wide open, at full gallop is also nice, but in a "oh my god, how fast and not quite out of control this is. He's knows what he's doing, but you don't have the same impression). The last bit we also ran, that was longer, (though it never feels that one canters long enough). The steady three-point cadence and the even two-point rythm of the saddle and the butt; the give and take of the reins and the sense of scenery going by, just slowly enough to apprehend it (the last is what makes the difference, perceptually, between gallop and canter, at a gallop one has not the time to appreciate, merely to react). A bit of a closed lane, the shrubbery wasn't the sort to overgrow the lane, and some threading of gaps, lest the foliage flay the face.
It was a good end to the trip.
We startled some deer. One young buck stood in the trail trying to figure out what we were, and why were were there. He had a look of offended dignity. Then he bolted, picked up a doe and they bounded off. Another buck (four-point) was disturbed from his bedding-down by us above, and a loud motorcycle below, he flew through the trees.
Some voles, speeding, inasmuch as a vole can speed, in their wobbly-bottomed way, across the road. A huge gyre of young hawks, skimming the trees and looking for voles, some as close as 50 feet, vultures, as close as 15 feet, and below us, and above, and riding the limn of the ridge, views of the bay, between the trees, people on boats, and bicycles (why anyone wants to ride those trails on wheels is beyond me). Trees, ferns, lichens, mosses, streams, fish (well, not really, but I know they were there) rocks, rills and songbirds we never saw.
So we got a lot of riding done (and I read, in the spare time, and the travel time, Volume One of Neal Stephenson's "Baroque Cycle. I'm still not sure what it's about but as with all his stuff I like it).
Five days and a couple of hundred bucks well spent.
