First Big-Boy Trail

Nothing better after a stressful week than to go on a nice trail ride! Today I took Calvin off the property for the first time with me on his back. Unfortunately, to get to the longer and more challenging trails, we have to leave the property. So to get to the trails, we have to walk along backcountry roads that are somewhat moderately trafficked.

We went out in just a halter and leadrope reins. That way he can stop and eat easier and I don't need to "train" him other than what I can do in a halter. This trail ride was definitely challenging, anything a person could encounter that would scare a horse, we encountered. This list includes: leaf blowers, weed whackers, barking dogs charging the fence, other horses in their stalls, goats, cars passing, pavement, random shaped objects that were scary, other riders passing us, and finally, people cutting trees. Did I mention we were by ourselves? Don't worry though, I told people where I was going so that they could find me :)

Anyway, this was just on the way to the trail I was helplessly trying to find. The trail I was trying to find, Trail A, I actually never found. So here is what happened:

First we saw baby horses! How adorable are they? Don't worry the baby in the back isn't dead, just sunning.

This was a trail that was not Trail A. It was somewhere off the same road this one was on, but this trail dead ended, still a nice view though!

I then found a private road that was marked "private" but figured it wasn't correctly marked, I don't have pictures of this one. Turns out though that it was private and I wandered onto someone's property! Oops, time to turn around...

Then we found what I thought was Trail A, but nope! This one, who's name I do not know, I guess goes to an abandoned house if I kept traveling toward the truck that ran off the road, but we didn't go further as it was scorching hot and we were tired.

This was the view from the top, not too bad huh?

180º view, looking toward the canyon.

 

Here were the goats and various birds.

We then saw 4 deer on the way home! They are hidden in the shadows, if you expand the picture maybe you can see them.

Almost scary enough to stop eating...

For his first time on the streets, through residences, and on a new trail he was very well behaved. He had a bunch of spooks, but he mainly just stops when he's scared and snorts. Once he learned to trust me and keep moving, he would just stare and snort at scary things. Even though he was scared, he was very brave in that he went everywhere I pointed him...sometimes he just needed more convincing :) Such a great young horse!