Bates Canyon; The Benches

I was invited to go on a Memorial Day ride both Saturday and Sunday of last week, May 27th and 28th. I, of course, jumped at it. Linda swung by Saturday morning and picked Cobre' up and I followed them out to her place. A couple (Patti and Jerry) were going to meet us there as well. It was nice to finally meet them, as I have heard a lot of stories about them and they are indeed wonderful people.

They arrived, we all got a bite to eat and started to get our things together to trailer out. One of the teen boys from next door came over and asked if he could join up and of course, Linda said sure. He got his horse tacked up and came back over ready to go. By that time we too were all tacked and ready to go.

And we were off! We got up to Bates Canyon and headed up the hills. Holy cow talk about a steep climb! Everyone's horses were out of breath and us too. It was very intense! The ride overall was great, minus the part where we were bombarded by cicadas, they were flying all over the place. We climbed more hills and finally hit the trees and we were finally in shade. It was nice but the further we got into the wood, the more and more mosquitoes there were. They were horrible! Everyone was getting eaten alive but we continued on. We wanted to reach water for the dogs and horses along with finding the old mining cabins way up there up. We did find the partly boarded up entrance to the mineshaft and an old shed right by it, but sadly that is where our trail ended. There was a HUGE tree down, and not any ways to go around it and it was by far too big for the horses to get over. We called it time to turn back and we did. The trip back down the mountain was a lot quicker but it was very steep. A few got off their horses and walked down the canyon with them in tow. Thankfully I have an Aussie saddle, so that kept my butt in place. We arrived back at the trailers, loaded them up and headed back to Linda's house. Untacked and got all the horses put away and fed and watered them. We then all went out to eat at a Mexican restaurant and the food was good and hit the spot. We were going to ride out there again the next day, but due to a few people being sick, plus all the crazy bugs, Patti and Jerry invited Linda and I up to their place to go riding out in Ceder Hollow on Sunday. Neither one of us had been there so we said SURE! Oh and I think Patti's bribe of making us breakfast may have weighed in a little on our decision. I mean who doesn't want a homemade breakfast on Sunday morning!?

Anyways here are a bunch of pictures from Saturday. Ceder Hollow's ride will be written hopefully by tomorrow.