Camas Creek Canter, Friday

Everything had been leading up to this. Every training ride, every decision I made this year was based on the ONE ride that I had budgeted for. In the week leading up to it Sinwaan went in for his coggins and health certificate for crossing into Montana. I hear they are picky there about paperwork and I wanted it to all be in order.  Well, even though they squeezed me in for an appointment on Friday morning, I didn't get the papers until the following Wednesday just before closing. Close call, since that is the night Laurie came to get the horses. It all worked out, though, and it was a big relief to have him loaded in the trailer all bubble-wrapped with his red shipping boots.

Laurie was awesome and offered to let him ride in the front stall since there was a full-length partition for that one, no chance of him scrambling and getting banged up by (or hurting) another horse.

The Camas Creek Canter was a long 378 miles from Walla Walla. Laurie had her saddle in the shop for repair and it wasn't due to be done until 9 am on Thursday morning. I don't know what time she left town but they made it to camp by midnight.

I had left town Thursday morning with my mom and kids on our way to Ronan to visit my maternal grandma Joyce Baer. We made good time and enjoyed a fantastic and healthy meal for dinner on our arrival.

Friday morning was spent with the family and I headed out after "lunch" around 3 pm to ride camp.  I teared up as I pulled away on my adventure, alone. This is the first time I have ventured out without my family. My grandparents had loaned me their little car, tent, and self-inflating air mattress so I was all set for a night away in comfort. I was a little worried when I noticed the car had 214,999 miles on it,  but it was fuel efficient and only cost me about $15 in gas for the 3-hr round trip. I had been checking the weather report off and on in the weeks leading up to the ride and every time it had said 0% chance of rain. I was not so sure that would be true when on the drive over I went through a pretty strong rain storm. After the ride I did last year in the rain, I didn't want a repeat and was a little worried.

Is there a happier sight to an endurance rider then ride camp? And nestled at the base of such a beautiful mountain range! Ahh, this is my paradise. This lovely ride camp was in an alfalfa meadow on a private ranch in the Blackfoot Valley.

Sinwaan was all settled in next to Bunny tied to the trailer. He looked great. Laurie had pulled out my stakes for his electric corral but had not set them up. When I tried to put my stakes in the ground I found it was near impossible, the ground was so hard. He looked content on his long line so I decided to leave well enough alone and let him stay where he was, I put my poles away.

I don't recall the exact order of things but it involved getting checked in, and the horses vetted through (Sinwaan was looking great), setting up my tent (car and tent on far right in above photo) and once that was all taken care of, we tacked up for a pre-ride. I was slightly disappointed that my number was 8. I had put a note on the entry form asking for my lucky 21 if it was available. I decided not to ask (whine) about it. Jennifer (RM) was walking around with a grease stick and tagged Sinwaan for me, the interesting thing was at this ride they only marked one side of the horse. No red, unfortunately.

Photo by Eliana Kearns

As you can tell in the photo above, I was ecstatic to be in camp, and astride my horse for a pre-ride. I don't usually get to camp early enough to do that. With this ride being so far away, we wanted the horses to have time to recover before and after the ride.

Photo by Laurie Logsdon

One exciting thing for me was that the 9 mile loop was the same as last year. I had hiked it with Matt in 2011 and remembered a lot of it. We did our pre-ride in the opposite direction, though. As you can see, there was a really lovely strip of single-track that was shady and grassy. Before this photo was taken, we were riding out of camp and the horses were feeling good. We had started at a trot and they ramped up to a canter. Then the raindrops. I couldn't believe it. It felt so refreshing and was so short-lived, but it really made me doubt that 0% weather prediction!  It had been dry here all season so the small water crossing I had remembered at the out gate was bone dry.

There was one little stream that gave us some excitement, however. Bunny tried jumping over it every time!

On the way out Laurie started a conversation about riding without putting our weight in the stirrups. I gave it a try as Heather told me what she saw from behind, and we all tried it out. This would later prove to be an important conversation and practice. My right stirrup felt long but I didn't think to shorten it. I attributed it to whatever issues it has been having when it falls off every time I pick up the saddle. 

We had a really lovely ride about 2-3 miles out and then decided to head back for the ride meeting. At the turn-around point there was a nice view so we snapped some photos. Here is Heather on Bunny. Bunny is an off-the-track Standardbred mare.

Laurie, our hauler extraordinaire, and her gelding Otto. Otto is 3/4 Arabian and 1/4 TWH, and no he is not gaited. Otto used to be owned by my friend Ruth, but he was a bit too much trouble for her. Thankfully, Laurie and Otto get along great and he has found his calling with her as a distance horse. They rode a 50 mile ride on Saturday and placed 11th, then did the 25 mile ride on Sunday.

Photo by Laurie Logsdon

Laurie shot this photo of me on Sinwaan, taking a photo of Heather. That's Charlie the dog on the left.

Riding back down the single-track I spotted something flailing or fluttering around in the tree tops and then WHOOSH a Red Tail Hawk swooped down and flew right in front of me down the trail, just above our heads and about a hundred feet out. It was awesome. (The photo above is from my hike last year)

We got back in time for the ride meeting and learned all about our loops and ribbon colors to follow, and what not to follow (forest service ribbons), where the water was, and what to expect. The hold for 25s was 60 minutes, so I knew we would not want to waste time either on the trail or in camp since this was a mountain ride, we would need our five hours to get it done. Jennifer pointed out that in the first couple of miles on the single track there were some gopher holes that were not marked, to watch out for them. We had discovered them on our pre-ride so were aware of what to watch for. It seemed like a nice bunch of people.

At some point in the evening Heather's family visited and cooked up some hot-dogs (vegetarian) and when we were done with our pre-ride Heather offered me one. I was so excited to eat that hot dog, it was ridiculous. I admit, I did not pack very well when it came to the food for myself for this ride. My grandma had made some good homemade bread that I made a couple sandwiches with, and I had bought some trail mix and dried fruit, but otherwise it was meager. I was able to share with her some cherries I had picked that morning :)

We were done with the meeting with plenty of daylight left to braid manes. As I was working on about the fourth or fifth braid, Sinwaan started thrashing his tail and stamping his feet. I looked around and saw a big horsefly under his belly. I waved at it and thought it flew off. Not a minute later Sinwaan acted really agitated and was thrashing his tail and stamping twice as much as before. I was carefully looking all around and could not for the life of me see the darn fly! Laurie was sitting in camp observing and said "I wonder if that fly went up his sheath." WHAT??? I did not think it was possible but she offered to (ahem) dive in... and for that I was very grateful. She put some mineral oil on her hand and went in after it. Lo and behold she found it and dumped it on the ground. Sinwaan was visibly relieved. A closer look at Laurie's hand revealed some blood. Poor Sinwaan!! That mean old fly was biting him bad. Glad to have that taken care of, I finished up the braids and he looked ready.

The sunset was gorgeous. Montana in general just takes my breath away. The mountains, the trees, the fresh air... I was so happy to be here.

I had plenty of room in my tent so Laurie moved in for the night. And eventually so did Charlie. We had fun catching up and chatting until nightfall. I set an alarm for her on my phone, as her start time was 5:30 AM. Montana time. Back home this would be 4:30 AM. Let's just say I didn't get much sleep.  I always think that I am not sleeping all night long and then I wake up. So I probably got a couple hours here or there. I am always listening for the horses. About 2 AM one of them was pawing, so I got up and went to check on them and use the bathroom. All was quiet. Back to bed.