he's no isabel: a trail story in pictures

I've known for a few months now that there ARE actually little trails around Charlie's barn. And in driving by on the road and around campus (he lives on a school campus, remember), I've noticed through the trees things that look like trails and trail heads.

The story was that they're not extensive trails but you can probably eke out a 45 minute excursion. And it's reportedly difficult to get lost out there. All the same, I had hoped to get our introduction to the trails with the benefit of a companion, both for navigation and social purposes. 

Alas, convincing anyone to go out there with me has been tricky. My likeliest riding partner has spent the last few years working hard to maintain her elder statesman, who has a storied history of various lamenesses from which he should not have recovered but yet somehow continues to thrive. She's therefore very picky about footing. Also she's wary of the long stretches of the trail that are asphalt, as visible above.

Finally tho, I got tired of waiting. This past weekend was gorgeous. And Charlie was feeling a little off - seasonal changes with spring grass coming up, and apparently a new shipment of hay had his belly a little bothersome - so I didn't want to actually school him. Felt like the perfect opportunity for a low key trail outing! 

So I confirmed with mgmt where the trails began and ended, and whether I was likely to miss any important land marks, and off we went! Naturally I did in fact miss the first turning - incorrectly crossing the above bridge when I should have turned. Nbd - the trail just dead ended at a road, but I could see a much nicer (non-asphalt) trail just on the other side of a small creek and started looking for sections of bank that looked traversable by horse.

I found one - right next to a pedestrian wooden bridge - but Charlie showed his greenness and was ultimately unable to make the crossing. Isabel wouldn't have blinked an eye.... And I'm pretty sure Charlie would have followed another horse. But oh well. It's saved for another day. Pictures further down. 

Getting back to the turn that we had missed, i was a little worried that Charlie would be reluctant to turn off the path towards home again, since the attempted water crossing had upset him a little. Shouldn't have worried, tho. He was fine. And this new section of trail was much more pleasant - broad smooth earthen path. 

The horse was maybe a little unsure of what we were doing, but he mostly walked out pretty nicely. Tho a much nicer, marching walk when he thought we were heading towards home, and more of a slow shuffle otherwise.... But that's fine. He basically stayed on the buckle and felt quite safe.

So when we very quickly came upon the back of the campus residences (with the above gazebo!) and I thought our trail might be coming to another fork (one of which seemed like an end point), I decided to stay on the fork that looked like it would take us back to that path I had seen earlier on the other side of the failed stream crossing.

And that's where things went a little bit sideways (not joking - this picture shows that little tree in the bottom left corner just moments before Charlie ran me into it - knee, elbow, everything. ouch!). We had to go down a very steep section, which doesn't translate well on camera but you can basically see how narrow the trail is here, and that it disappears in vertical descent just behind that tree.

Charlie was.... very very reluctant. And not without reason! This was a VERY steep trail and he's a big awkward horse. Good soul tho, he made it work without getting us killed.

Then things opened back up again into nice friendly smooth trail. Ahh. That's better! And we were right where I thought we'd be - on the other side of the little pedestrian bridge we had seen earlier.

Other sections of the bank were very steep, but I had tried to cross right next to the bridge where it was flattest (tho still quite steep, hard to tell in the shadows). Charlie got allll the way down to the water's edge, but was very uncomfortable (snorting and head shaking) and started dancing around a little bit - including getting a hind leg a bit under the bridge in a way that I decidedly did not feel safe about. But he offered to shift into a controlled and purposeful reverse (actually turning his head to watch where he was going!) to pull back out of the area.

While I would have preferred that the horse cross the water when I asked.... I also did not feel like this was the right situation to insist. Especially since he offered to extricate himself so carefully and calmly. Oh well. We will handle the stream crossing issue in a more safe schooling soon enough!

Anyway tho. It was also right around this point that it became glaringly clear that we were on a trail designed for humans, and NOT horses. On flat sections all was well, but the more technical sections (think ascents and descents) were VERY narrow and VERY steep.

Shortly after passing that little bridge we were headed basically straight up and around the side of a hill, on a very narrow ledge of trail with a wooden railing that we barely fit within. It also had bonus mushy edges that Charlie's hind leg punched straight through in one harrowing moment. 

Charlie was a good sport tho and kept climbing. Phew, good pony! We got to the top of the hill and I let him just halt and take a breather, and regroup. This was turning out to be.... not quite the easy relaxing trail I had expected! While stopped, I took the above two pictures, which kinda give the sense of where we are with respect to the hill - ie, on top of it.

This section of trail was fairly good - not too steep a drop off to the left. Tho it was a bit steep up to the right. And Charlie showed that he doesn't quite understand "staying on the trail" yet and jumped the shark here as soon as I asked him to walk forward. He quite unexpectedly went sideways further up the hill on the more uneven ground, and managed to run me into yet another tree, the one indicated by the arrow. Ouch dude.

We righted the ship tho and got back on the trail just in time to see that what goes up must come down. Our trail would be very rapidly taking us right back down the other side of the hill.

And again - the camera doesn't do the steepness full justice, but you can kinda see how we're basically traversing a hillside, and the trail is very VERY narrow, on soft ground, only very shallowly carved into the hill side. That red arrow is pointing to our trail. Which is also about to rapidly descend. Gulp.

Charlie did it tho. And didn't get us killed. The above shows the path we came down looking backwards. This horse.... he's a very good boy. But he is neither comfortable nor confident going downhill like this yet. I can't blame him tho.... We just need more practice. And maybe a buddy haha bc I think he would have felt better with another horse around.

As it was tho, I was fairly sure we would be on moderately level ground from here out, just following the road (on our left) back to the campus. 

The trails are actually quite pretty - and this section had another little stream (maybe the same one as before? idk) running alongside it. Plus all around the trail were these interesting wooden railings. But again it was pretty clear these were people trails, and designed accordingly. 

Like when we got to this wild cut away section of a giant tree haha. Actually we approached this log from a turn, and I didn't immediately see the cut section. I thought it was newly fallen wood that was blocking our path entirely. I had zero confidence that I'd be able to get Charlie to bushwhack a path around it, but my heart absolutely sank at the thought of turning around to retrace our steps back up that damn hill when we were so close to home!

Luckily there was in fact the cut away section. And while it was narrow and I felt a little guarded about what Charlie might think about it all, he was fine. Scooted maybe a liiiittle bit through it, but didn't bash any of my body parts into anything in the process so I was cool with it. 

And finally, not very long after, we emerged through the above mini meadow type area behind some campus buildings. This section being particularly notable for not at all accommodating a 17h horse, let alone one with a rider. I got quite acquainted with the finer details and scents of Charlie's mane as I basically just had to lay flat out on his neck and hope he stayed on the trail lol. Which he did just fine, good boy.

And then, voila! Like magic, our familiar civilization materialized around us again. I can't claim to be entirely unscathed by the adventure, as my elbow and knee bore the marks of their brief but forceful encounter with a tree.... But for all intents and purposes we survived. And the horse was pretty fine.

I'm not sure it was as confidence-building for him as I had hoped, in that idk if he was thrilled to tackle some of those technical trail elements. Izzy was always such a beast out in the woods - it was like, the more complicated the terrain or brush or whatever, the better she was. Almost like she viewed it as a puzzle, and you could just sit back, hold the buckle and some mane, and let her figure it out. 

Charlie was good about the "letting him figure it out" part mostly, but he's no arab that's for sure. And I'm not sure he relished those moments or took as much joy in them as Izzy did. On the flip side tho - he really is a lovely trail partner. He's green and inexperienced and it shows.... but he was also totally safe and manageable despite being by himself.

In previous outings he's definitely shown what appears to be enjoyment of trails - so I think in this case it was maybe just a bit harder than either of us anticipated. Next time we'll try it with a buddy and see if that doesn't improve Charlie's feelings about the trickier spots. 

post trail snacks for a hard working pony

So. Charlie's first solo trail outing is a success, even with some qualifications haha. And now I have a pretty clear map of our trails at home. They're definitely not the most horse-friendly... but they're nice enough and we can get used to the bad spots, I think. So we'll probably try again, esp if I can get someone else to go with me haha.

Do you have a preference for solo or group trail rides? Does it depend on how experienced your horse is?

Do you even like trail rides? Does your horse? Is your horse more like Isabel or Charlie out there? Or are you a dyed in the wool, distance loving rider? If that's the case, do you have criteria or methods for how you introduce horses to trail riding? Or specific types of trails you seek out or avoid? Or is it more like, 'whatever falls upon our path works for me!'