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We Are Flying Solo

Showing posts with label vacation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vacation. Show all posts

June 8, 2013

Beauty Discovered: A Ride Through The Rogers Neighbourhood

This OTTB doubles as an ATV
While insanity rages on everywhere else, I am already full of desire to return to my new favourite riding hideaway.  Where the only sound is one of horseshoes on rock, the soft creak of oiled leather, the quiet blow of breath through wide nostrils, the wind rustling secretively in treetops.  Where as you climb up the side of the mountain, your view is framed by attentive brown ears and the sunlight is filtered by beech leaves, which hide spring warblers.  Where, as you zigzag back and forth across the worn Appalachian Trail, you are equally likely to encounter a longhorn steer, a feral pony, a placid mule, or a staggering backpacker (poor silly buggers, WALKING, I can't believe I ever did such things). 

When you reach the wind-stripped grassy balds on the roof of this world, you can't help but catch your breath at the ancient beauty of weathered rock, once an ocean floor, and a patchwork of dark and light, evergreens scattered amid the paler greens of deciduous trees and wiry grass.  It seems like there is never enough time to take it all in before you, like the crystalline streams rushing beneath the rhododendron, must tumble back down the boulder-strewn hillside to camp.

This is Mount Rogers National Recreation Area, a jewel we have chased for years and only now gotten to  experience for ourselves, thanks to a generous invite from our farrier and his family.  Alongside it, the equally majestic Grayson Highlands State Park, both in VA  We stomped over about 18 miles of trails on Saturday and perhaps 8 or 9 on Sunday.  When can we go back?

It's not easy being green...in the parking lot
A handsome pondering of the climb.
Pete sees an opening to fuel up...
What happens when you point in front of a 5-year-old
Hey, take my picture!
Erm...that doesn't look like Encore...
Ummm...over here...
Are you drunk? Or hanging off the side of your horse?
See, like this!  Pete strikes a handsome pose at the top.
The Scales.  A historic livestock weigh station.
All trails go up.
Feral ponehs!
The ponies check us out in Grayson Highlands State Park.
Farrier and his boys get a closer look.
Squeeeeee!
It's a wee bit rocky...
You got anything good for lunch???
Beautiful balds.
The group reaches the summit in Grayson Highlands.

Too...much...pretteh...must...stop...camera...

But I wasn't the only one enjoying the view...THANK YOU, JOHNATHAN AND DONNA!

May 24, 2013

Climb Every Mountain

Neighbouring Grayson Highlands SP has feral ponies.
With fuel prices up, bills to pay, time at a premium, and my bestest riding buddy with a schedule perhaps even more difficult than mine, it's been a long time since I've been able to hit the road and enjoy the woods with a pony.  These trips are also an important part of our conditioning regime; 20 miles of walking up and down mountains is an unparalleled way to strengthen your partner's hind end (and wear out yours!)

I shall wait no more!  BFF and I share a farrier, whose wonderfulness you can find on the team page; he and his family go to Mt Rogers National Recreation Area every year, which is part of George Washington National Forest.  This year, we actually scored an invitation, which sent me on a hunt for the perfect campground, as I require that my horse have a safe and comfortable place to rest after carting my butt up clifffs for 8 hours!  Bonus:  if my horse loses a shoe, I won't have to go far for a repair.

Reservations are now made and we will be off shortly to explore new vistas of Appalachian beauty and relax with good friends and a good beer.  Hopefully I will even remember to take pictures.

Team Flying Solo wishes everyone a safe and wonderful holiday weekend.  Share your horse riding/hugging/dreaming stories for Memorial Day!

Mt Rogers NRA - I can't wait to be back on the trail!

June 2, 2012

(Much Needed) Good Times With Good Friends

While Encore was pacing in his prison alone (so he says), I ran away like a rabbit with fire ants on its tail to the mountains.  The legendary bromance duo of Solo and Pete were reuinited, their love/hate/love no less diminished by time nor distracted by the addition of a lovely TB mare named Kate.

Matched bays survey the top of the mountain.  Crystal riding Kate and of course, lifeshighway riding Solo's incorrigible Arabian best friend, Pete.
The mighty eventer, he is fire, he is speed, he is....oooo, beet pulp!
Old lovers often reunite over...beef jerky. 
A break is the optimal time to mug any immobile humans for plastic bags with food potential.
Did you hear that?  BAG!!!!
Crystal and her mare, Kate, both lovely in the shade.  Kate has an amazing story of being rescued multiple times.  Born a throw-away baby with deformed legs, 13 years later, she is an endurance prospect and Crystal has turned a sour and frightened mare into a good-minded horse with a bold walk and a bright future.
Pete the amazing 50 mile endurance racer.  If a carrot snaps in the woods, HE can hear the sound.
Of course, the smurf must have his moment with the top ten 50-mile racehorse!

What happens when I try to take a picture of Solo while sitting down.
My heart is full, chasing adventure with my partner and friend, and he did well!

October 12, 2010

Can't. Keep. Up.

My time and energy to write is failing to keep up with all the things that are happening! So here is my cop-out with a list and teaser of coming attractions:

We finish our Ecuador trip with the most spectacular day that it is possible to experience inside the wild, amazing Cotopaxi National Park. The expanses of high grass and beautiful silence are simply beyond imagination.

Solo and I choose our new dressage saddle. We do not have it in hand yet, but there are some little English elves hard at work in a factory right now!

We also completed an amazing long format clinic with Becky Holder this weekend, fresh off her beautiful performance with Comet at the WEG's a week ago. Important lessons were learned: (1) Becky Holder has the cutest dog in the world. (2) If one leans forward during steeplechase jumps, carnage ensues (oh, this is a good story, you'll like this one). (3) Solo's booty CAN be engaged to great effect. Thanks to some VERY kind and generous co-clinic-ers, we even have pictures!!


Now, all I need is an eensy bit of free time to write all that in. Waiting....waiting....

October 6, 2010

Day 6.1: The Running Of The Bulls

I also learned that Sam loved one thing more than anything else: running. And he loved something else even more than that: running while chasing bovines. So when the bulls were turned loose after a vaccinating session, his ears about popped off with excitement. You can almost hear him gasping Want, waaaaaaaantttt....

October 5, 2010

Day 6: A New Landscape

When we left, I was tucking myself in at the Hacienda San Francisco. In the morning, we had to meet the van again to connect with Sally, who owns the outfitting company, and make our way to our new horses. We bumped around the edge of the valley and through the tinted window, I caught the first glance of what was to be a constant companion and undefinable presence for the next three days: Cotopaxi, which at 5,897 m (19,347 ft) towers as the second highest volcano in Ecuador (Chimborazo is the highest at 20,560 ft and just for reference, the summit of Everest sits at 29,035 ft).


In front of a chapel on a rutted road awaited our partners. I was introduced to Sam, a striking buckskin around 15.3 or so with a keen attitude and a strong will. One part English Thoroughbred, one part freight train, one part friendly companion, and one part enthusiasm.



Mum was paired with a very solid citizen named Jalisco.  (Yeah, it's HARD taking pictures from the back of a horse.  You try documenting nine days while never standing still!)


Anna found herself with a little liver chestnut named Alverito who was the very definition of his breed, a Peruvian Paso.  Although apparently from the back of Sam, he is the size of a Shetland pony.


An English volunteer, Hannah, brought up the rear with Caesar, who would be our chagra for the remainder of the trip. Hannah started out with one of Sally's experiments, a dark bay Hanoverian who Sally had brought down to see if the heavier horses did well at altitude (they don't). She led Anamike, a dappled grey Arab mare, while Caesar, riding the improbably named grey, General Pintag (it's a bus route in town apparently), ponied our familiar other-grey friend, Gitano (Anna rode him on the first half of the trip -- Gitano, not Caesar).


Our goal for the day was to ride south towards Cotopaxi, where we would arrive at the night's lodgings. It soon became apparent that we were in a whole 'nother world from what we experienced north of Quito. There was much more vegetation and livestock had flesh on their bones. It was greener and fresher and felt more...enriched, and yet at the same time, more wild. And Cotopaxi itself peeked out at us, flirting from behind the rolling hills.




Soon, we passed through a gate into a private hacienda. And by hacienda, I mean a massive ranch that sprawled across what was probably square miles. The owner bred (of course) Spanish fighting bulls and grazed them on the high meadows around Cotopaxi. Check out that pasture view.


Then, suddenly, we are on a high, tawny meadow. And I canter on, the snowy cone of Cotopaxi ahead of me, an entire alley of volcanoes, some extinct, some merely sleeping, surrounding me. It is almost pure bliss (if I didn't have to use every dressage muscle in my body to half halt Sam and convince him this was NOT a horse race), tinged only by the realization that I can only truly capture it in memory. Nothing else could hold its grandeur.



General Pintag really likes his job today. Gitano is just happy that no one is riding him!


Mum and I pose for posterity with Sam and Jalisco. One cannot pass by a Kodak vista!!  But I don't know why the volcano looks all weird behind us.  Perhaps the spirits are angry...


Anna and Alverito want some camera time too!


Caesar and the grey boys only make the landscape look even better.


We are getting close to the national park now and the land betrays its own past. Dirt becomes pumice and boulder fields are strewn across the slopes from the last lava flow that Cotopaxi threw into the skies.



The mountain over Anna's shoulder is Cincilagua. Which I have probably spelled wrong. We could never remember its name, so I called it Chinchilla instead. I longed to see a wild chincilla, but apparently they do not live this far north in the Andes. I had to settle for hungry puppies. Not quite as heartwarming.

The road in the last picture is the road down to our lodge, a sort of chalet called Chilcabamba. And what it lacked in facilities, it did manage to make up for in scenery...which you now have to wait for the next post to see.