What's In A (Trail) Name?

Tuesday October 6 2015

Mankind has named roads and trails since the beginning of time, to indicate where you're coming from and where you're going to, and to give you a kind of invested ownership in a place. Same thing here in Owyhee with the trails we ride. For example:

Tevis Trail

You've all heard of the 100-mile Tevis trail in California, and you've no doubt heard about the steep cliffs and canyons you ride above, and places such as the self-explanatory "Pucker Point" where you don't want your horse to make a mistake and step off the trail. Our Tevis Trail is about 15 yards long, and it's not near as steep or deep as anything on the real Tevis trail, (it's more like a 50 foot slide than a 500 foot drop), but you'd just as soon not slip off there. It's so short, that by the time you start to pucker, you've already traversed it. It's the tame Owyhee version of the Tevis trail. That this very short trail even got a name is because it's one of our main access trails out southeast toward the BLM hinterlands.

Toilet Paper Hill

Obviously, this hill is so-named because someone had to get off to wee, and they dropped their toilet paper. (Yes, they picked it up the next time they rode it.)

Tamara's Hill

"Wow, what did I do to get a hill named after me?" Tamara asked. Well, it's because that hill needed a name, and it was the first trail that Tamara rode when she came out to visit Connie.

Badlands

If you've ever been to Badlands National Park in South Dakota, you've got an idea of what our Owyhee Badlands trail looks like - only on a much tinier and more modest scale. Lots of water-eroded rivulets coming off these mud-clay hills and tiny hoodoo sculptures. Squint, and use your imagination to make it as big and bad as Badlands National Park.

Blonde Cow Wash

This is a great training sand wash, about 1 1/2 miles long on the upper end. It's so named because we saw - what else - a blonde cow in it once.

Bilbo Baggins Trail/Frodo Baggins Wash

Great names, yes? Bilbo came about, because back then around the time of the Lord of the Rings movies, I was riding a short, compact little horse named Billy, who just reminded me of a little hobbit. That's the thought that popped into my head, as I was riding Billy along this trail. Naturally, this trail with Billy became the Bilbo Baggins Trail. 

There's another nice training wash that branches off Bilbo, which makes a nice loop - so naturally, this became the Frodo Baggins wash.

Antelope Loop

Connie came upon, you guessed it, a little herd of antelope in this nice short little wash/trail.

Lost Juniper Wash

Not only is Lost Juniper Ranch next door, but there's a secret juniper tree in one of the side folds of this wash that only those privy to the information know where to look for it. There's even a Raven nest in this secret juniper tree!

Three Cheese Casserole

Up the Training Wash, down Spring Ranch Road wash, up Blonde Cow wash. If you do all Three Cheeses, it's a strenuous workout. You can also do Two Cheeses, or Two And A Half Cheeses, to make the workout a little easier.

Merri's Trail

I found this short-cut trail to our regular Hart Creek loop, after a new fence cut off our regular access. I actually have cows to thank for making the trail; I just followed the right one that connected. Of course there's also a Steph's Trail, a nice 1 1/2-mile flat trail up on a ridge that is her regular favorite; and a John's Trail, where he discovered a nice back detour around a homestead that keeps us off private property.

Krusty's Trail

Steph's wonderful old Orlov Trotter, in cahoots with my horse Stormy, found, marked, and stomped down this trail down our canyon as an alternate to the regular road.

Bones Trail

This nice shortcut from the BeeHives to the Highway crossing is marked by cow carcass bones.

Around the Block

If you wanted to close your eyes and imagine you were in a big city (although pray tell, why would you do that!), you could walk a big city block around skyscrapers. This 16-mile loop goes up Spring Ranch road to the Owyhee mountains, along the base of them, and back down Bates Creek Road - like going around a biiiiiiig city block.

Hallelujah Trail

Regina discovered this awesome trail for one of her spring rides in the general area of the Snake River. It's a 2-track jeep road along a Badlands rim. That first time we rode it, the skies were blue, flowers were popping out of the desert, and the view to the Owyhee mountains 15 miles away was just awesome. Hallelujah!

AK-47 Trail

Carol and I were sent out to ride and mark this cut-off trail out of Lost Juniper Wash to the BeeHives. As we set off on this trail, some hoodlums were off in the not-too-distance firing off AK-47's, kalashnikovs, M16's, cannons, whateverthehell was in their arsenal. Neither August nor Dudley wanted any part of that! We turned around and rode home, just in case they had high powered scopes and too much beer and thought we looked like moose in the desert.

Dead Cow Baby Loop

This is an 18-mile loop: Bilbo/Antelope Loop/Lost Juniper/AK-47/Beehives/Spring Ranch Road/Blonde Cow/Pickett Creek Canyon. Along Spring Ranch road this spring, as we were doing this hodgepodge loop of trail sections, in a span of riding it 2 days in a row, we came across 3 dead baby cows. Well - what else are you going to call this epic trail? We really did try calling it other names, but Dead Cow Baby Loop defined it best and stuck.

Endurance Ride Fever

Friday July 29 2011

Gold Fever.

It's one of the main driving forces behind the flood of a quarter million emigrants that travelled overland to the West in the mid 1800's. Many of them found their way along the California Trail and laid eyes on the City of Rocks in what is now southern Idaho, at the southern end of the Albion Mountains.

It's Endurance Ride Fever that brings some people to places like this - the desire to ride well, and ride far, to explore beyond the boundaries; the hankering to show off and share beautiful country, the taste of dust, and the flavor of how it was in the old days for the pioneers.


We got a taste of the City of Rocks National Reserve today, riding a 10-mile loop around the valley of the City of Rocks, riding below soaring granite spires where turkey vultures soared on the updrafts. We trotted along a part of the California Trail, riding around Register Rock, where many emigrants wrote their names in axle grease, which you can still see today.


What we saw was the tip of the iceberg. What we saw only whetted our appetite.

We've got Endurance Ride Fever, bad.

[slide show here]

Exploring Trails: The Albion Mountains

Thursday July 28 2011

Hovering above, and reaching 30 miles northward beyond the City of Rocks are the Albion Mountains in southern Idaho. That's where we were headed with the Recreation Manager for the Minidoka Ranger District, to get a lay of the land and a tour of the road/trail system. David is an old friend of mine from my Forest Service trail work days and it's a delightful coincidence that he's here managing part of the area Steph is hankering to put on an endurance ride. Of course it's an added bonus that he knows the area well, knows horses, and welcomes horse use as part of the recreation on the district, even if it is a bunch of rabid endurance riders.


It's a scenic mountain range with captivating possibility of trails - loops around alpine lakes, and trails running all the way from City of Rocks, around Cache Peak, the highest point in Idaho ("south of the Snake River" : ), and - if we wanted to go that far, Mt Harrison.


There's a ridgeline trail, through forests of pines, firs, and aspens, with sweeping views of the basins on the east and west sides of the mountains. The terrain is not too rugged nor too steep, nor the trails too rocky.


We poured over maps and looked at trailheads and schemed over the possibilities. Maybe one day a ride around City of Rocks. Maybe one day a ride from the City of Rocks up into the Albions. Maybe a ride just along the trails around the lakes in the mountains. Maybe all of that in a multi-day ride!


Time, exploring, and many hoofprints will tell.

Snake River Trail Magic

Monday May 2 2011

Some days when you're out scouting new trail for the Owyhee Fandango endurance ride, you don't know what you're going to come up with.

But there are some days where it all falls into place.


When you want to get to that old road the other side of that box canyon, you magically find a cow trail that takes you there.


When you climb up and over a hill and see a fence blocking your way, magically there's a gate in front of you and it's already open.


When you're up on the bluffs and you want to head to the river, you magically find a cow trail that takes you directly there.


When you're on a high-up trail and you come to cliffs and you hope your trail doesn't dead end, magically it continues.


When you want to find a ride-able trail down off the Snake River Canyon cliffs, you magically come right to one.


When you want scenery, it magically just doesn't stop.

Today was one of those days magical exploring days.

[Photo gallery here:]

These Old Trails

Sunday January 16 2011


The skies glow as evening comes to the Mojave Desert of Ridgecrest, California.


The snow geese hit the skies by the hundreds, honking and squawking, flying in Vs to find the best spots in the desert to sleep, after dining on the grass that's sprung up from the winter rains.


As morning light reaches the snow on the Sierra Nevada peaks, we haul out to the Garlock road and get dropped off,


and ride up and over Laurel Mountain (with the big golf ball radar station on top), 15 miles back home.


I'm riding Gretchen's horse Kav, who I'll ride in next weekend's 50-mile Fire Mountain ride.


Gretchen's on her horse Spice, and Wendy (from Cool, CA) is riding her handsome young gelding. We make our way up the shoulders of Laurel Mountain, the horses working up a sweat in their long wooly coats, even as we pass a few remnants of ice and snow along the trail.


We all cool down on the top, before we start winding back down off the hills, and we cross the highway and join my old stomping grounds of trails that I once named. Here is Maggie's Trail, where I used to gallop a horse named Maggie. We cross Fadwah's Trail and Ross' Trail (both named after 2 of Jackie's old endurance horse). We pass Stormy Summit North, East, and West, where my retired Thoroughbred racehorse Stormy learned how to go out on the desert trails by himself.



It's been a month since I've been in the saddle, and my muscles are feeling it, but it's great to be back on a horse with friends on old familiar trails.