What a great weekend this turned out to be. We had 21 people
show up for a great weekend of riding, relaxing and oh the food!!!
Some of us showed up on Wednesday to get set up as I had a small mission for
Thursday. Those of us who wanted to ride Thursday followed me on a trail that
I had ridden 11 years ago during a pack trip. Back then, I do not remember
the trail being in poor shape. My mission was to find the remaining link to
a possible loop trail from Asa Lake. Six of us headed out on Thursday morning,
we found the trail, everything was going fine, until the trail turned into
nothing more than a goat trail, with a several hundred feet drop down to the
river below on our right. The trail had not been traveled yet this year and
was barely there. We had to travel this trail for about a half mile before
we could find a place to turn around safely. I could see this was not going
to get any better. We all got turned around and headed back out. Making a
safe loop trail out of Fridays ride was out of the question.
Friday dawned nice and smoky in the mountains. We broke a
new trail from behind camp up to the trail that would take us to the Highlnads
Cabins. From there we rode into and past Asa Lake, got onto a section of the
Pacific Crest trail to the ridge overlooking Noble Lakes where we had our
lunch break. It was a beautiful ride. The trail was in pretty good shape.
Lunch was at a beautiful spot. We passed through several meadows that were
just awesome. The wildflowers were incredible.
Saturday turned out to be nice and clear. No smoke lurking
in the air. We rode to the intersection of the Disaster and Arnott trails,
down the Disaster trail for a ways to an old Indian ground. We had lunch there,
and the game was on to find old arrowheads. Jerry and Katherine were in a
full blown contest. They both found several pieces, Katherine finding the
best one. While they were doing that, some of us were watching the great American
ant races carting off crumbs of our lunches. It was pretty amusing. I almost
forgot to mention, that earlier in the day, we acquired another horse from
the Highlands Cabins. He followed us, and even jumped a cattle guard to stay
with us. There was no deterring him that day. He followed us all day, sometimes
wreaking havoc. At lunch when he was into everyones saddle bags, or carrying
bridles off, we dubbed his new name, “Dennis the Menace”. He really
was a sweet little guy. He followed us back and we delivered him back to the
owner. They had not even been worried about his disappearance.
Saturday afternoon when we got back to camp, we were greeted by crashing trees
up on the mountain, and one helluva rain and hail storm that lasted about
90 minutes. Settling the dust and cleaning all the trucks and trailers. It
set us back a bit on cooking, but it was fun cramming under Ron and Katherines
awning to wait it out.
Hope you enjoy the pix, courtesy of Heidi Burckart and Jodi Hembree.
