Saturday April 24 2010
When you've put on endurance rides for years like Steph has in Owyhee since 2001, (multi-days since 2002, including the now-regular 3-day Owyhee Fandango in May, and 5-day Owyhee Canyonlands in September), it would be much easier to keep using the same trails every year. (Even then, we have enough to where you have a different trail each day.)
But that's not the way Steph operates. She'll spend days, weeks, summers, out exploring new areas and trails, on horseback and on ATV and on Google Earth. Go out and explore, come back and pore over Google Earth, go back out and explore. (I don't need to mention she loves riding both horses and ATVs.)
Besides enjoying putting on the rides themselves, she loves showing off this beautiful desert country - the amazing creeks and canyons and mountains, and the hidden surprises - old homesteads, mines, petroglyphs, rock dams.
And things like this rock corral we came across (re-discovered actually) today while scouting new trail for the 3-day ride in May.
I'll contact the land owner and see if he knows how old this corral is and what it was for - there wasn't evidence of a homestead in the immediate area. Somebody went to a lot of trouble to build this.
And things like some cougar-ish looking caves in the red rock cliffs near the rock corral.
I'll have to come back on foot and check those out a little closer.We found trails for a new loop that connected this old Rock Corral Trail with the new Forgotten Girth trail we'd found and followed back in August.
So if you come here for the Owyhee Fandango May 28-29-30 (25, 50 each day, and a 100 on the 3rd day!), you'll get to see some more new trail, and more great surprises, in this most awesome country.
As always some amazing scenery and places to explore. Beautiful and fascinating.
ReplyDeleteThe rock coral is an interesting find. Great scenery, I'm sure you all enjoyed scouting it out the trail.
ReplyDeleteI am so fascinated by your scenery, Merri, it's so different from ours.
ReplyDeleteI am sorry about Kazam. But sometimes things just don't work out. And it is sensible to prioritize health over horse, even if it is difficult to make the decision to let go of the horse.
Comment:
ReplyDeleteThat is an interesting old corral. In parts of Britain one finds stone walls and corrals made from the rock that one littered the ground. The farmer cleared space to plough and built his "fences" in one operation. But I guess that the land is too barren to farm up where you visited, so the rocks simply were convenient to some former occupant. Or was that area really ploughed once?