Groom Creek Horse Camp - Prescott National Forest

 

The campsite I had reserved - #8- had a tree collapse directly on the horse corral, so the camp host encouraged us to switch to site #12 - which is located right across from a water faucet and some vault toilets. We have a shady pull through site.

The corral (seen here far in the distance) is only large enough for one horse, so we set up our portable corral for Lennox.

Lennox is quite comfortable and has plenty of room to move about. Plus, he doesn't have to share with Mercutio - something he doesn't like to do.

We rode the Groom Creek Trail Loop the first day. It is a nine mile loop, took us a little over three hours. The camp host had told us it was a five hour ride and we explained that is true only if you have quarter horses. Tennessee Walkers have a long forward walk that looks almost like a trot, so they cover more distance at a faster pace.  We rode the trail barefoot and the horses did just fine. 

The scab fell off of Mercy's cinch sore during the ride, but the sore didn't look any worse. I treated it with Blu-Kote before and after the ride.

It was a pleasant ride, but we were pretty tired and crank afterwards. Both Ari and I were sniping at each other the rest of the day.

The campsite is costing us $17 per day - senior rate. We hope to stay here until Nov 1. It's a beautiful campsite, even though there is no electricity and limited cell reception.

It's cold here at night, so we are running the generator so we can use our space heater to warm up a bit while we watch Downton Abbey on our flat screen TV.  We aren't really roughing it considering.

Blake Ranch RV & Horse Motel - Kingman, Arizona

 We had a one night stop at the Blake Ranch RV & Horse Motel. This is a popular stop for equestrians as they make their way down south for the winter. 

Large sites with full hook-ups for the LQs.

Decent size corrals for the horses. The corrals came with the small 5 gallon pails to hold water. Both horses emptied the pails in under five minutes. So we swapped them out for our large water buckets which hold 50 gallons.

No trails, but there was a laundromat, so I took advantage of that to wash our saddle pads and cinches. The wifi was poor, but our cell service was adequate. 

The RV park also sells propane so we filled up our tanks to get ready for our next stop - which is a campground where we will be without electricity.

High Canyon Ranch - Las Vegas, Nevada

 Snow and wind and low temps forced us to re-think our original route through Flagstaff and go through Las Vegas as we make our way to Arizona.  This is the first time we drove to Las Vegas. Ari and I have both been to Las Vegas at least a dozen times for conferences and vacations, but we have always flown in and then used the monorail or taxis to get around. 

It felt a bit surreal going from St George - a small city with mostly Stepford Wives vibe - mostly white middle class families, lots of churches, and extremely clean and tidy - to Las Vegas, which has a grungy feel to it. Casinos appeared to be open.  More people were walking around wearing masks than in St George. Utah is having a higher rate of COVID-19 than Nevada right now, so the difference in social distancing is making a difference.

A wind storm started shortly after we got settled in at the High Canyon Ranch about 30 minutes south of the strip. 

Lennox in his corral at the High Canyon Ranch

Mercy in his corral

The corrals at the ranch were good sized with plenty of room for the horses to move around and had some shelter from the winds.

The ranch provided water hook-up and electric to a 110V 20 A. We opted to avoid using the microwave to avoid flipping a circuit.

There are trails to ride from the ranch, but I wanted to ride in Red Rock Canyon. You can trailer to trail heads about 10 minutes from the ranch.

Patricia recommended that we eat at the Cottonwood Station in Blue Diamond, a small town about 10 minutes away. She claimed that they served the best thin crust pizza she had ever eaten. She also boasted that they had a great outside deck with a nice view of the canyon.

This sign is located as you enter the small town of Blue Diamond. There are herds of wild burros and wild horses in the area.

So, of course, we wanted to try it out. I have had a lot of bad pizza in my life. The worst pizza by far was Chuck E Cheese pizza, which just was awful. This pizza was the second worst. It was NOT thin crust pizza. It was flat bread pizza, and it tasted like cardboard smeared with tomato sauce.  We did eat outside on the deck (something we prefer to do any way with COVID-19). The deck was nice, but the views weren't that great. Service was very good.

I really enjoy food and at my age I am counting down the number of meals I have left in my life. I was seriously pissed that I wasted one of my remaining meals on this place.

High Canyon Ranch just went on the market, so I don't know what it's future is. Hopefully, the new owners keep it as a horse motel because the location close to the canyon is really excellent.

The storm continued into the following day. The wind was so high (around 40 mph), we didn't feel like it would be comfortable to ride, so we opted to make it an "errand" day. I went into Las Vegas and did laundry and grocery shopping. There are slot machines even in laundromats and grocery stores.

By Monday morning, the wind had settled down and the temps were up to the mid-50s, so we decided to hit the trails before we started to our next stop.

We opted to ride from the Late Night Trailhead. Patricia highly recommended this trailhead.

I am not sure why I trusted her recommendation after the pizza incident, but we opted to give her the benefit of the doubt.  The nice thing about this trailhead is that there is a large trailer parking area where LQs can fit easily.

Mercy has been suffering from a cinch sore. This sore is annoying both of us. It is right where the cinch for the saddle goes. I didn't ride Mercy the entire time we were in St George in hopes it would heal. 

I have tried all sorts of salves and medicines, even trying to wrap the area with vet wrap. So far, Blu-Kote, a spray that is an antiseptic, appears to be working the best. 

Ari was really happy with the ride.

We rode the Mustang Loop. It was a flat, easy ride. We kept the horses barefoot and they did fine.  The scab came off Mercy's cinch sore, even though I had put some gauze and padding to protect it. But it does appear to be healing better.

After the ride, we headed to Kingman, AZ for our next stop. Along the way, we stopped at this scenic overlook to appreciate Lake Mead.

Time Out in St George, Utah and Reinmakers Equestrian Park

 

Several equestrians recommended wintering in St George, so we opted to spent ten days at Reinmakers Equestrian Park. This stable fills up with horses during the winter months and is very popular (with good reason), so if you want to winter in St George, book early. 

The grounds are huge with more than one arena and round pen. Lots of amenities for horses and boarders and trails you can access off the ranch - although many boarders opt to trailer out to the nicer trails.

The horses are in large corrals with a shade area. They have automatic waterers so they get plenty to drink. The hay they are feeding looks like really good quality. Both horses started dropping weight, so we had to up their feed.

We have water and electric hook-up, but no septic. This is problematic for a longer stay. We are using the bathroom in the barn except at night so our black tank doesn't fill up too quickly. This means if you truly want to winter in St George, you board your horses here and stay elsewhere.

There is lots of shopping and restaurants, although nothing too fancy or out there. Most of the places are chain establishments.

I was able to find a Barnes and Noble as well as an Old Navy, so I am pretty happy. The town is laid out like Roseville - everything is spread out and far away from each other and you use surface streets to get from one place to the next, so it takes a good hour to go shopping anywhere.

I play Pokemon and wanted to take advantage of being in civilization, so I spent Wednesday night at Thunder Mountain Playground. This is a very wonderful playground - with a water play area, a volcano that erupts every 15 minutes, a train ride that costs only a dollar, zip lines, rock climbing, and just lots of fun play areas - all free. There are also tennis courts, a volleyball court, a lovely demonstration garden and walking path.

I stayed until dark and enjoyed watching the children playing. Since I am an old lady, everybody assumed I had a grandchild somewhere in the vicinity so nobody called the cops on me. A little boy ran past me yelling "I am going to play on everything on the way to the car!" as the parents tried to hustle him out of the playground before it was totally dark.  I laughed and told the parents how wonderful it is to have goals.

It was fun to watch how different children moved through the playground. One little boy stepped very carefully as if to feel the squishiness of the rubber mats.  One little girl skipped from one plaything to another. A toddler patted every object with her hands to test how it felt. Several boys ran at top speed, yelling to their friends, racing to their desired play space. 

Ari has been riding Lennox on the local trails every other day. I have been patiently waiting for Mercy's sore to heal on his flank. I don't know if I will be able to ride while we are here, but it is a lovely place to spend a time out before we continue south.

Paria River Ranch - Continued

 

Monday evening we rode with two other equestrians staying at the ranch. Monte and Bonnie are local residents who were just taking some time with their two Paso Finos. Bonnie's horse is a mare. Three geldings all vying for attention and one mare, yikes! But the ride actually went pretty smoothly.

We rode past a vineyard and I didn't really think anything of it when all of the sudden the horses started to spook and we saw a herd of cattle stampeding in our direction. Then, an ATV chasing the cattle out of the field of grapevines and the guy riding the ATV yelling "HA! HA!"

Monte figured it out quickly - the cows were eating the grapevines and the vineyard owner was using his ATV to chase the cattle out of his fields. 

We hustled out of the way, but when I looked back the guy on the ATV had chased the cattle through the river bed we were riding in and gotten stuck on the muddy banks.

Bonnie shook her head and said to me, "Not much we can do to help him."

Well, we might have ridden back, dismounted and helped him pull his ATV out of the mud, but not without possibly creating panic among the horses - being close to a noisy ATV and dealing with stampeding cattle.

Bonnie & Monte are wintering in the next town over from us, so we hope to ride with them again.

We spent two of our days here trying to locate the rock formation called The Nautilus with no luck. Trails are not well marked and even with using a trail app on our phones we were not successful.

This bird was perched on the corral bars hoping to pick up some seeds from the alfalfa the horses are eating. He was squawking at the horses to finish eating so he could have a turn.

I was sitting reading a book in the lounge chair watching the action when a road runner  - a real live road runner! looking just like the cartoon - ran past me and disappeared out of sight before I even had a chance to pick up my camera.

Utah sure is a beautiful state. I am looking forward to being in St George - a real town - at least for a little while.

Paria River Ranch - Kanab, UT

 This is our last stop before we take a two week break in St George and then head down into Arizona for the winter months.

Mercy has developed a sore near his cinch and I would like to give him at least a week to heal before riding him, but it looks like he will have to hang in there a few more days before he gets his time off.

The horse corrals are set up in two packs with shade for guests at Paria River Ranch. The owner is currently selling the ranch and there is much consternation in the horse traveler community about the future of this place. It is a popular place to stop and ride. There are water and electric hook-ups for LQs and also small cabins for people who don't have an RV or LQ to stay in. 

We're about 20 minutes from the Arizona border. I drove into Page, Arizona to go grocery shopping at a Walmart (the closest place to shop). It was a little surreal crossing state lines just to go shopping.

Getting ready for our morning ride. 

Temps look to be in the mid-80s, hotter than Bryce Canyon, and the nights are warmer as well.

Our first ride was to Moonrock Canyon - just up the street from the ranch. It's called that because the rock faces are white, like moon rock.

The barefoot trim I gave my horse seems to have done the trick. He seems a lot happier.

On the way back, we had to ride through the Paria River.  Not that much water...it was more like a creek.

The chimney rock looks really cool.

A balanced rock also pretty cool.

Riding desert canyons is a different kind of beauty than riding in forests, but you still get a sense of awe.

Bryce Canyon, Utah

 

You can ride from the rodeo grounds to the rim of Bryce Canyon. We love this ride (did it back in 2003) and the best time of day to do it is sunset or dusk so you can see the rocks change colors.

During the ride I noticed my horse was babying his feet even though the trail was pretty much sand. Twenty years ago, Ari & I took a class on barefoot trimming. The idea was not to replace regular farrier visits. Instead, we wanted to be able to do easy touch ups on our horse's feet when we are traveling so our horses stay healthy. 

We dug out our barefoot trim equipment - a hoof trimming tool and a file.

The way I trim is I take a little off, put the foot down and watch my horse put weight on it. If he licks and chews after he puts weight on it, I know his foot feels better.

Three of my horse's feet had frogs (these are the foot pads) with tears and shredding. So, I cleaned up the pads and shaped his hooves.  I could tell he was a lot happier after his manicure.

I highly recommend learning basic trimming if you keep your horse barefoot as well as taking a classes on how to evacuate your horse in the event of a fire or other emergency and a basic wound care and vet class.  These classes are usually offered at horse expos, but some vet clinics teach these classes as well.