Sat July 25 Trail Report - Horses!

I'm sorry to say the club had NO idea there was going to be a horse competition on the trails today -- so my apologies to those who "tried" to ride today. We aren't talking a horse or two -- we are talking 50 or so horses doing "loops" on the trails. Last year, Rick helped the organizer layout a course using a 12 mile, mostly-snowmobile (and some fire road) course and the horses did two loops on this course. So when I started riding, I said to my riding partner, "don't worry, when we jump on the single track, we'll be fine." WRONG! Much to my surprise and disappointment, the course was laid out this year to include the far west end of Rock's Ridge (behind Wolf Pond where its the softest and yes, the trails were soft today), the first half of Wolf Pond Trail before the big rock gardens, all of shale run and Preserve line (ARGH! and it was soft too), and I'm fairly certain Matter single track which may have been fairly solid. The horses were NOT on Rattling creek, Fawn Kill, or Rugged (watershed territory). We were not contacted this year to help with the course and we had no idea it was going on. You can't imagine the frustration when I saw the hooves digging in the soft single track and they were the first 3 of 50 doing two loops on that section. I was truly afraid to go back and check what it looked like when they were done. Not sure what we'll do if anything. It IS public land afterall. But -- its possible the horse folks have a trail work session scheduled to fix what may be rutted (maybe?). In the meantime, watch for horse ruts on Rock's Ridge West (far end), Wolf Pond, Shale Run, Preserve Line, and Matter Single track (unless they fixed it today when they were done).