Death Valley Encounter, Day 3: Tower Trail

Due to Hoss's colic episode, I didn't expect to ride at all on Day 3. I slept through the start for the 25s and 50s anyway. So, at 8:30am, when Hoss was looking particularly good, I made a spur of the moment decision to take Demon on the fun ride.

We saddled up and made sure Hoss had food and water before we left. By this time I was comfortable leaving a full meal in front of Hoss while I was gone for a couple of hours. I took Demon up to the check in area and let Annie know we were going to join the fun ride.

I was pretty sore from riding Hoss the previous day. He'd worked me pretty hard, despite obviously ending up being sick. So I really felt it when I got on Demon.

Demon was feeling very good and enthusiastic about getting out. So we headed off down the trail at a good trot clip.

The trail was fairly fast and flat, and since it was an 11 mile ride, I felt good about letting Demon open up and go as fast as he wanted. We had a couple of very good gallop stretches. We rode a portion of the Loop 2 trail for the 50 milers which goes up to Great Falls.

Great Falls is a really neat geological phenomenon. Sometimes there's water, sometimes there's not. It makes no difference what time of year it is or what the weather has been like. Water is allowed in or stopped by a crack in the rock way in the back. There were lots of burro tracks up to the falls. They'd been going back there regularly to check for water. It must be there reliably enough for them to be traveling there as often as their tracks make it appear.

Coming back down from the Falls the trail gets super sandy and deep. I had to make Demon walk through this. Most of our trail at home is hard and rocky, so he does not get work in deep sand. Although we live in San Diego County, the beach is an impractical distance away to go condition in sand.

Once we were out of the sand, we picked up a nice trot for the last few miles back into camp. This was mostly fairly hard road with good footing, slightly downhill. We did intervals of walking and trotting until we got back to camp.

Back at camp we vetted in for the 50 on day 4, and I brought Hoss up for the vet to check him over. The vet declared vet cured of his colic episode. By this point Hoss was convinced I was starving him and ate up every bite of everything I offered him.

Sadly, I neglected to grab my phone out of the truck before Demon and I left, so no pictures.