Little Scraggy 2017

When I went to get Ashke from turn out so we could start our adventure, he was out with Destiny (his sweetheart - she lets him graze next to her) and when he saw me he turned away. I ignored him and started talking to her, eyes on her eyes. Ashke snorted and moved in between us, almost thrusting his head into the halter. I snorted a bit with laughter.

My green-eyed boy!

I was going to make this a media dump, since I had a ton of pics, but my computer ate most of them, lucky you, so it's not as much of a media dump.

Suffice it to say we did 12.6 miles with 1600 feet of elevation gain and loss in six hours. It was slow, but both J and A made it (not without three falls off trail - A was not hurt and got right back on.)

As we were finishing the ride on the road back up to the parking lot, J said to Ashke, "Thanks for waiting for me buddy. I know it was really frustrating for you to have to go so slow, since you are strong and could have done that so much faster. But if you hadn't waited for me, I wouldn't have made it."

Ashke reached to his left and touched J's arm with his muzzle, leaving a bit of foam. Do not ever believe your horse does not know what you are saying, because they do.

 If foam is an indication of how much a horse likes his bit - we have a winner.

 He can just reach the slobber bar with the tip of his bottom lip, and he plays with that while walking.

The foam drips from his lips.

 So much foam.

 On top of the elevation climb and loss, was the heavy fire smoke in the air from the West burning.

It was a problem for everyone.

 Ashke waiting patiently.

 One of the breaks where I actually got off the horse.

I need to get a halter-bridle so I can drop the bit at times like this. He can't graze with the bit on.

 Pleasure? Pain? Stupidity?

I have no idea . . .

Gorgeous country

 And a fun trail with lots of obstacles.
They run an endurance ride up here the first weekend of August.

Ashke was very patient, even when he didn't want to be.

 Where A went off trail.
I did figure out why she falls to the left, when she falls. It's because she reaches down with her left foot first and on trails with the drop off on the left, she misses the trail and overbalances.

 She rolled all of the way over and carried the bike over her body and further downhill.
J carrying the bike back to the trail.

 It was really steep here and we were lucky that all that happened was a bruise on her right buttock.

Where Little Scraggy meets the Colorado Trail.
Another one of those "one time a year" rides.

 Ashke and J communing.

On the way back we finally crossed a seasonal stream that had water. We hadn't been moving fast, but we had been out for a while. Ashke stopped to drink, but the water was so shallow I could hear him struggling to slurp it up. I got off and removed the bridle, whereupon he drank for a solid five minutes. Then we put the bridle back on and headed back to the trailer.

There was a lot of slick rock and Ashke and I made our way around everything we could. He did a great job of taking care of us and I only felt him slip once. The slick rock is why the mountain bikers funded and expanded this piece of trail into a loop. There was one pretty big piece of slick rock that J rode:

 J riding the slick rock down.

We went around.

Here are the videos from my gopro. Many of them appear to be the same  and most are just walking. The ground is incredibly rocky and there was no real reason to hurry since bikes+elevation. I won't be offended if you don't watch them all.