Death Valley Encounter Day 1, 2011

Hoss and I arrived in ride camp relatively late in the day. No matter how hard I try and how prepared I am, I can never get out of the house early! We got in around 4pm, and camp was packed! After driving around a bit, I settled on a spot in the center near the porta-potties and the manure trailer.

Since we arrived so late, I got Hoss a bucket of water and gave him a bran mash with electrolytes right off. While he was eating, I got as much of camp set up as I could. My husband was coming up the next day, so I needed to set up the big tent for the both of us, which requires help. I was sure I'd be able to recruit someone to help me.

As soon as Hoss was done eating his mash and had drunk a few gallons of water, I took him over to vet in. The vet gave him the once over, then asked me to trot him out. Expecting Hoss's usual reluctance to trot out, I started out with a little encouragement to him. Well, the first thing he did was go straight UP, all four legs off the ground! I was so surprised I failed to correct him. I don't think he actually trotted, but the vet passed him.

I recruited a fellow rider to come hold up the middle of our big tent so I could get it set up, then got the thing all together. In fairly short order, I had camp set up, fed Hoss his dinner, prepared his beet pulp for his morning meal, and started on dinner for myself.

Once my dinner was ready, I opened up one of the lighter sleeping bags, laid it in my anti-gravity chair, sat down, and wrapped myself up to eat my soup and hot chocolate and enjoy the evening.

In the morning it was colder than I'd thought it was. Not nearly so cold as at Coso Junction, but there was ice in the water. I boiled water for hot chocolate for me, to warm up Hoss's beet pulp mash, and had the bright idea to use some to defrost his water bucket. Unfortunately I didn't give him his beet pulp right away, and he didn't eat it all. By the time he was halfway through, camp had gotten kinda exciting, and he was more interested in checking out what everyone else was doing than eating.

I had bought Hoss a new saddle pad and we used it for the first time. It seemed to work very well. He certainly moved out nicely!

In the early morning sunshine

Due to his airs above the ground the previous day, I elected to use a bit on Hoss in hopes of having better control. It certainly seemed to work. I didn't get the behaviors I was afraid I might based on his leaping about during his vetting in.

We got in a good, steady clip, and Hoss did a very good job on the steep climbs. The scenery was gorgeous and my pictures do not do it justice.

We wound up riding with the rider I had camped next to at Coso Junction. Our horses were reasonably evenly matched, although hers was a bit faster at both the walk and the trot. Hoss was okay with this by and large. He didn't pull on my trying to catch up all the time. We were able to keep a steady pace, not too close to other riders and not getting passed often.

We were walking through a deep, sandy wash when caught up by a pair of other riders. Hoss didn't seem to care for them. I was hoping they'd pass, as they'd been going faster than us, so it seemed logical they'd go ahead and keep up the pace they'd been setting. Evidently they preferred our pace, and stayed behind us. 

Hoss seemed to feel a bit hemmed in. After a few minutes of feeling his tension, and after he'd asked politely several times to canter, I pushed him up to a good canter and we were off. I don't know exactly how far we cantered, but it was quite some distance. The riders who had caught up to us didn't seem to agree a canter was a good thing, so we were able to leave them behind.

Coming across the flats before the vet check

There was plenty of flat, especially after the vet check. Because a bunch of horses came in pretty close together, and I had hopped off to help Hoss get his heart rate down, Hoss didn't get his pulse in right away – according to his HRM he was well under 60 when we walked in and before we got to the water. He really wanted a drink, so despite the fact he was down, I let him wait to get a chance at the water buckets. This meant the horse we were riding with was down before Hoss, and her out time was earlier than ours by several minutes.

At the end of our hold, our riding partner was out several minutes ahead of us. Several other horses, which had technically come in to the check behind us but got their pulses before us also left before we did. I packed up Hoss's crew bag and we hit the trail. He wasn't especially eager to hit the trail again, but that's not unusual for him. He'd rather stay where the food and water is!

Because there were several fast horses ahead of us, it was easy to keep Hoss up to a steady pace that would eventually catch us up to our riding partners. It did get tough to keep Hoss from going too fast. When past by swifter horses, he wanted to keep up, but I knew better than to let him. He simply cannot keep up those speeds over those distances, even on the flat.

We were finally able to catch up to our riding partners and continued on our way across the flats to the canyon crossing up and over and through back to ride camp. Much of the trail was rocky and we spent a good deal of our time walking.

Having had quite a lot to drink at the vet check, I found myself needing to find a bush. Well, there aren't really any bushes out there. Nor rocks of sufficient size, either. So I stepped Hoss off the trail, dismounted and took care of business. The funniest part was, Hoss seemed to decided this was a fabulous idea, and just as I was getting ready to get back on, he decided to relieve himself as well.

Looking back down into the canyon

We entered the final canyon with some pretty steep climbs and edge-walking drop-offs. Hoss handled it quite professionally, never putting a foot wrong. I still kept a close watch on him, as it was an easy trail to step off of with potentially disastrous results. The hardest part of the climb went up a rocky section of single track not suitable for much more than a steady walk. In some places, riders dismounted and led, to give their horses a break. Hoss was not so lucky. He gets to carry me pretty much every mile.

Up the canyon

Once out of the hardest part of the canyon, we began ascending toward the road back to camp. Hoss initially was giving all signs of wanting to trot, but as soon as we passed a pair of horses, he died down. I pushed and kicked to no avail. One of the riders we passed complained I shouldn't get after him; it was a climb, after all. Well, Hoss does a lot of climbs, and he could do this one, should he be properly motivated.

Motivation came when the two riders passed us up and took up a trot. Hoss was quite willing to trot along behind them and even had a nice spring to his step. He was not in the least tired at this point, despite what he'd been trying to convince me of earlier. I realized shortly after getting back to camp why he was so eager to stay with these particular horses. They were our neighbors!


We hit the road back down toward camp, and trotted much of the way in. Hoss likes to trot downhill. It doesn't seem to be hard on him at all. Of course, knowing he would always be a tad slow, I always pushed him to go ahead and trot down all but the steepest and nastiest hills.

We made it back to camp at about 4:30pm, a pretty good time for us. Hoss vetted through clean, and we were ready for the next day. I got him cleaned up and blanketed, and went to dinner.

The nicest treat was my husband had arrived about an hour before Hoss and I finished, so he was there when we got back. I had commented to other riders it sure would be nice if he had made it by the time I finished, but I had dim hope of that happening. I knew he would be up for a long time and really expected he'd end up taking a nap somewhere along the road. Instead, he drove it straight through. And he even managed to get me a hot sponge bath started before he crawled in to his sleeping bag and was off to sleep!