Trail Adventures: Indian Camp Creek

Last Sunday was another beautiful, sunny, 70+ degree day, so DH and I had previously agreed it would be perfect to haul out and ride! Saturday at the tack sale, I ran into my dressage instructor (side note: its been an embarrassingly long time since I've had her out for a lesson, can I keep calling her my instructor? I need to schedule a lesson lol) and she wanted to pick my brain about local trails. She was planning to haul out with one of her clients, so we discussed the pros and cons of various trails within easy hauling distance. I told her we were hauling out to Indian Camp Creek, which is hands down one of my favorite trails, and that we were amenable to planning our timeline around theirs if they wanted to explore the park for the first time with someone more familiar with it :) also since Trigger and Ruby are relatively chill trail horses, they can be a good influence if you're taking out a horse less comfortable on the trails -- which is something I've definitely taken advantage of when getting Cinna some trail miles!

Ridiculous weather for the first weekend in November, but no complaints here!

Trying our new Fenwick pad (yes it has an RRP logo on it, lol. The lady I got it from placed like 3rd overall in the trail competition a few years ago?)

She said the drop wasn't right for any of her western saddles, but it worked out pretty well for mine! 
You can also see the new girth strap and off billet in teal I bought, lol. 

It's a lot of teal. I know. I love it... .lol. 

We tentatively planned to meet up around 10:30, which turned into closer to 11:30 due to a variety of factors: we pulled out of the driveway and realized we desperately needed fuel, and the closest gas station (aside from the one down the road that's closed on Sunday, bah) was in the opposite direction we needed to head, then there was a slowdown on the highway, then the GPS was being squirrely, etc.... but it worked out just fine, as the parking lot was PACKED when we got there, and the delay meant we let most of the big groups go out in front of us. Our riding buddies for the day were on a cute gaited horse (Rocky Mountain I think), and an OTTB that Ruby and I boarded with a few years back. 

I asked him if the green shirt was to match his green saddlebags and he gave me the DIRTIEST look haha.  

First water crossing is thankfully very wide and inviting and helps to set a good tone for the ride!

Ruby cooling her heels NOT in front... always good for her to remember she doesn't always get to lead :) she got impatient from time to time but did settle in and enjoy being third in line. 

Always bringing up the rear, no matter what, lol

Always a rockstar in her sidepull. 

SUCH a beautiful day!

Once all the horses were comfortable we got a little silly lol
We made it like the first half of the trail without seeing a single bike (a new record) but of course after I said something (and then knocked on each tree I passed lol) we saw a few. Ruby moved back to the front because I have no qualms about yelling at people on bikes to slow down/stop and let us pass. MOST of the people out this day were very polite, we exchanged pleasantries with a few bikes and pedestrians, and saw some (leashed, thankfully) dogs, including a GIANT dane puppy who seemed VERY confused about seeing even bigger "dogs" lol. We also passed a few of the other riding groups :)

I think we missed the peak of the color, it wasn't quite there last time we visited, and by this time a lot of the leaves had fallen off. Oh well. Still gorgeous!

Stopping for a drink on the way out. Peep my new teal saddle bags -- I had the same ones in purple and I decided I used them enough to justify the teal ones, haha. So now I have spares to keep in the trailer for other people riding with us :)

We stopped at about the 2/3 mark for a bathroom break, and I put on Trigger's new kicks (since we were heading into the rocky section). They worked like a charm! He was very clearly more comfortable. 

I don't think this captured all of the trailers but gosh there were so many!

My app fritzed the fuck out haha. I need to figure out what to use for trail tracking again, I had been using OneHorse but I think they stopped supporting the app, then I used Equilab but it kept closing, so this was with the Equisense app even though I didn't have the girth attachment on. We rode probably 6 miles in a little over 2 hours (I started this one once we had already been riding for a little)

Not sure why this is out of order, but our happy place <3

DH and I had a really good time, so hopefully our trail buddies did too! I really, really love this trail, so it makes me happy to be able to share it with other people. Although it was a little frustrating to post a few photos to social media about what a fun day it was only to have someone come on and post a vaguely pity party-esque comment about wishing they had friends to ride with. It was so weird, because it's not like this was some sort of grand conspiracy or some sort of exclusive trail riding clique, we just happened to run into each other at the tack sale and discuss meeting up. And then the person who made the comment (who was someone I would have previously called a friend), made another backhanded comment about how I was just an acquaintance and they would never expect me to invite them out riding. It just left a bad taste in my mouth. I've met up with a variety of different people to go out trail riding over the last few years, I feel like I'm pretty flexible and chill about it, whenever people comment on my posts about it I always tell them I'd be happy to go with them to whatever park it is and show them around. Sometimes I do think about it far enough in advance to post where we're going and when in case anyone wants to meet up, which I guess I didn't do this time... but still... IDK. It just kind of annoyed me a little, but I guess in the end whatever comments people makes on my happy, positive post really says more about them and their frame of mind than it does about me, and ultimately that's not my responsibility. So. If you're local, and you want to go trail riding, it never hurts to reach out :) if it's going to be a reasonably nice day and I have no plans, I am ALWAYS up for trail riding!