Third (and penultimate) trip report

22 Aug 2007
On the road

The last part of the trip has been an adventure (“Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner!"). Friday we made the move to Point Reyes, with a stop at Henry Cowell State Redwoods Park. Riding Redwoods is an interesting thing. The terrain is always mixed, with switchbacks and water. As one rises, the landscape changes to mesquite and sagebrush. It’s as if the redwoods are cliquish, and refuse to hang out in certain parts of town.

Where, however, they do spend their time (as in French’s Canyon, in the Berkeley Hills) the walk/ride is more than worth the up and downs. The depths are still, and dim, with a deep green soaking off into the hillsides. The trees are tall enough to keep all but the most direct light of the noonday sun from reaching to the ground.

Which is fine when the sun is up, but late in the day it can get gloomy. We saddled up with a fair bit of speed, and left the parking lot at 1600ish. I was on Rudy, who was doing better. He still doesn’t have a reliable giddy-up, and the stop isn’t as strong as I’d like, but a day on the trail and he had a better sense of what the whole idea was.

Ice, at some point in the exercise, crowded him, and Rudy elected to show his displeasure by kicking at him. Not a daintily done little cow-kick, with a foot shooting out to flick at what offended him, but a full-on both legs, raise the rump and fling the hooves back kick. It was an interesting sensation. Not the rise of a rearing horse, nor the jolt of a bucking one, but an easy; if swift, lifting, and pushing, of the seat; as his rump rolled forward.

After a bit Maia had us switch horses, which was fine by me, as my right knee was bothering me. After about a mile she decided we needed to switch saddles, as the one we had on Rudy was moving. He’d broken the conway (a type of buckle-stop) on his breast-collar. I had, it seems, been trimming the saddle with my leg, which was by my knee hurt.

So we rode along, in and out of the woods, through the scrub and the brush.

The sun faded and we meandered back to the truck, loaded up and made our way to Point Reyes, leaving Henry Cowell around 9 p.m. and arriving at Pt. Reyes around 0130. It was too dark to find a campsite (as the lot was full, even though Stewart Horsecamp has space for at least a score of trailers).

We tied the horses to the trailer. Maia and I pitched our tent (Pat and Gary slept in the bay above the gooseneck, in the tackroom). About an hour later Ice (skeetermonkey’s Arab) started screaming in dismay and shock. Maia got up, and discovered Rudy had slipped his halter and wandering around seeing who had the best hay.

Come the dawn(ish) we woke up and found a place to set up camp. There was a brook running behind the site, which was pleasant enough. Maia and I had the shade of a Russian Olive, so the tent never got to be an oven.

We managed, as per norm (it’s just one of the things I’ve, mostly, gotten used to) to get on the trail about 4 p.m.. It was 4.3 miles to the Morgan Horse Camp Station. We, of course, didn’t get there in time to see the exhibits, though that was the aim of the day (this is also pretty much typical. Tacking up ought to take about 40 minutes. For reasons inexplicable it seems, no matter who it there, how many horses are being used, etc. to take not less than two, and as many as four hours... I’ll stop whining about it now).

I was riding Leus, Gary was on Ice (who is more in accord to his desires... he wants a horse which acts like a car... goes when he tells it too, and no faster than he wants; stops when he tells it to, and heads to the left and the right in accord with his every desire. When stopped it doesn’t prance, step or otherwise move about. It’s a completely unreasonable set of desires, unless he has his own horse, and was willing to spend three days a week riding/training it).

The ride was nice, mixed terrain, variation in view, under the trees, and in the open. There were a couple of long flats, where cattle were grazing, and some savannah like stretches with Russian Olives, and long grass.

On the way back Maia decided to let Gary ride Rudy. About 1/3 of a mile after we started he decided his tack didn’t fit.

While they were fixing that, and I was holding Ice, Sienna (Pat’s horse) started to do a bit of curvetting. It seems we had attracted the ire of some yellow jackets; and their opinion of horses is, “biggest threat”. When the one on Sienna’s face was gone, one hit her on the butt (which she thought was Ice) and she started to buck a bit. That was when I saw one lighting into Leus’ neck.

Great, I have a spooky horse in my hand (Ice) and one being stuck under me. Happily Leus is mostly bombproof and didn’t really react to the wasp. Maia collected Ice, and Pat fell off Sienna. It didn’t look too bad. Sienna was still doing twisting, jerking, moves to get the things off. One of those upset her saddle and Pat slid off; not even at a real walk.

She landed on her shoulder and then hip, holding the reins.

Another yellow-jacket lit into Leus’ flank. No warning. One moment there was no wasp, the next it was on his rump, twisting and stinging and trying to bury itself, ass first, into him. I smacked it and Leus took a step forward.

We left, in as good order as we could manage.

But, the damage was done. Pat wrenched something, and the (even slowly done) walk back to the camp was long, and painful. We got her some ibuprofen right away, but when we got back it was all haste.

Unload the bed of the truck, drop the trailer; while the horses get untacked,/fed and she and Maia off to Kaiser. There is zero cell-coverage, so they are out of contact until they return. Even with all haste it wasn’t earlier than 2200 they got on the road.

Which is when I made dinner (a vaguely Indian stew of TJ’s prepped rice, and two kinds of pre-made food, coupled with some naan-like bread I made from tortilla dough).

They weren’t back when I got up at 0700. Weigh some bermuda. Have some coffee. Talk to the neighbors. Eat a bit of brekkie. Read some more of my book (Fate of the Mammoth, by Cohen... like Petroski’s, “The Pencil” but with mammoths as the paradigm of evolutionary thought; where he used the pencil as that of engineering).

Still not back at 0930. I was starting to get worried. I’d asked the ranger, earlier, where the nearest cell-coverage was. He didn’t, quite, laugh at me. The nearest chance was Olema, five miles away. The nearest guaranteed, was Petaluma, or Novato, each about 20 miles away.

But there were pay phones; at Morgan Horse Ranch Station (which gets its name from the Park Service using it to breed Morgans for rangers). So I decided to tack Leus up, and ride to the phone, in the reasonable certainty that I’d not be able to get hold of anyone, and that, in all likelihood, they would be back before I was.

I left a note (Gary having arisen, had some breakfast, and gone back to sleep) saying where I was going, when I expected to be back, and listing the things I had with me (some food, a hoof pick, first aid for man; and beast, water, the tack I was using).

I forgot to say when I left.

It was the same trail, but a different ride. I wanted to go out, hell for leather, and run all the way to the phone. Leus would have done it, but it’s not the best course of action. The downhills would be hard on his legs, and murder on my back. Large chunks of the trail have limited visibility, parts of it are narrow (for those who have a map of the Pt. Reyes area, I was on the Rift Trail).

But I did encourage him to a brisk walk.

When we got to the pasturage, I gave him some leg and let him have some head. It’s nice to stretch out. To get into the 1-2-3, rhythm of a canter; to feel the wind as a fluid, and merge with the horse. At the half way point (about 1/3rd of a mile, maybe ½), I reined him in, and offered him water.

Then a bit of gaiting the ¼ mile to the gates, and off across the second pasture, where the path was narrower, and the cows had done more wandering. That was the best galloping. I’ve flown small planes, ridden in helicopters; where the pilot was having fun, been on roller-coasters, traveled on motorcycles; through mountain passes on narrow roads, all of them are poor approximations of a good horse.

As the trail winds, you lean a little, as it curves back, you lean back. When you do this, the horse flows along, like water moving downhill, all easy motion and thunder. You, the rider, are in the center of the thunder, and it answers to your will, the same way your body does when you run. Unlike water, the horse will flow uphill, bunching beneath you and pushing you along.

If one can learn to do that, none of the rest match it for a sense of speed, power and control. It is as if thinking made it happen.

It was over too soon, and the trail closed in, up to the plateau and a bit of gaiting to the phone. No joy. Maia’s cell went straight to voicemail, and none of the places I checked to see if she’d left a message had one.

Leus drank some water and we reversed direction. I let him go slower (though we did take a slow canter across the flat... it was there, why not?).

The horse telegraph told me they were back while I was still half an hour out.

Pat, it seems, had wrenched her back pretty solidly (word of note, if you are falling, let go. From what I saw it was the twisting/pulling, of her hanging on, as Sienna moved away, combined with the impact, which did the damage. Pat says the landing was as hard as any fall she’s taken, even though her horse was barely moving).

She also reacts badly to morphine (massive nausea) and they stopped in the parking lot to sleep it off. About the time I started tacking up, they were back on the road. About the time I got on the trail they were out of cell service.

But I had a nice ride.

Last post of the Horse trip

Monday Maia and I took a ride. Gary had gone home (by plane) because he had things he was committed to before we left. Pat wasn’t up for it. It was going to be a longish ride. Out to Morgan Horse Station, then along the waterway to Arch Rock, and then back. Round trip, about 16 miles.

We got out latish. We did, however, get recommendations which let us turn it into a loop, and cut about four-miles off the trip. All was uneventful. She was on Ice, and I was on Leus. We ran, some, through the pastures and Ice tried to run-away with her. He wanted to pass Leus (who is more than a hand shorter than he is) but that wasn’t happening. I pulled Leus off the trail (one sided stop, and up the hill) and we walked to the next gate.

The slot along the creek was incredible. It took me awhile, because of the trees, and ferns, to notice just how wide, and deep, the “V” of the canyon is, the more notable because the water in the bottom, which; perforce, cut it out, was so small and slow. There were several places I’d like to take some pictures. If it were more private there are some naiad/dryad shots I’d like to try, but even on a weekday, late in the afternoon, the traffic was too steady to make that really practical.

Then we cleared the last bit of trees and the ocean was spread out before us. There were some sea-going raptors hovering on the wind rising up the bluffs.

Ice, it turns out, hates the ocean. He was restive and fractious as Maia and I took turns going out to the end of the trail, onto the promontory.

As we turned up the Coast Trail he was pushy. He stayed pushy, pressing Leus to a faster walk, or even a trot/gait, for so long as he could see the water, even when the water was so far away as to be nothing but a vaguely visible presence at the horizon.

Up hill and down, through overgrown paths, and past bowls of pale green; with trees rising out of them. Pine and mesquite, Madrone and chaparral.

Then came the fading of the light.

Riding in the twilight is one thing. Riding in the dark another. Riding in the gloaming through the woods, is something completely different. The colors fade away, and the sounds too. Everything is flattened. It gets to a point where the only thing one can do is trust the horse. The road ahead curves to the left. No, it doesn’t. That’s a small patch of grass, which looks as a road would look.

The dim slice of grey, which creeps lower, and right; that’s still the road.

There is no sense of depth, and the trees become a presence. Every so often a distant light intrudes, when the lines of the giants all around conjoin to allow a sliver of some inhabited place; some other world, to sneak through. And then it’s gone again, as if it never were. Those are memories of some other time, when there were details in the world, and something other than the path was there to give definition and meaning to things.

Conversation is hard; because so much effort (though it’s passive) is being spent just to know what is; forget what might be.

And the little nuisances (those giant nettles, to which horses are particularly sensitive) now loom large in the minds eye, because they have become invisible. They might be anywhere. The edge, where the ravine falls to distance unknowable, is where the horse wants to walk. So; for fear’s sake, one spends the effort to keep him to the center of the trail (because the nettles and the poison oak are to the other side; and he will want to crop the grasses, where the former would be disaster), even though you know he has better eyes in the night, you are afraid that the small places where the edge crumbled when you could see will be repeated, and you will overreact in the gloom.

Eventually, the trail bottoms, and the dark is almost complete. The trees thin. There are campsites, and fires, and people. The dreary terrors and the joyless pleasures of the trees are left behind. Life resumes.

For those who are of a mind to know what it was like to ride through Mirkwood, this is how you do it, because that is what it was.

Postcards

We leave on Thursday.

If you would like a postcard from exotic climes, leave an address.

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