XP - Schellbourne, NV

[Ms steph teeter <stephteeter@yahoo.com>]

We rode into Schellbourne Station (Nevada) yesterday.
rossed western Utah and eastern Nevada during the past
four days. We trailered from our camp in the Wasatch
range (near Park City, UT) and started the week at
Fairfield, UT. Packed up camp and loaded the horses in
the dark, arrived at the departure site just before
dawn. The mornings have been gorgeous. We've finally
gotten used to getting up at 4am and hitting the trail
just before dawn. We're well into the ride for the
sunrises, which have been spectacular. I had expected
these days through western Utah and eastern Nevada to
be hot and boring. Not at all! They've been beautiful
- crossing mountain ranges, open sage valleys, up into
the juniper, even into pinyon pine habitat yesterday
crossing the pass at 7800 feet. The footing has been
very good overall. We can usually get off to the side
of any gravel roads we have to travel -  though we
have to pay extra attention to avoid gopher holes
(John and Buns took a tumble in a hole - got dirty and
a little shaken, but not hurt), it's typically good
going. Much of the XP trail is two track - nice
footing. 

One day we across the southern tip of the Bonneville
salt flats - very different landscape. At the west
reach of the alkali flats there was a beautiful
National Wildlive preserve - fresh water, green
marshes. The clouds had been building all day and the
colors were vivid - so much green after the gray
landscape we had crossed. Just beyond the preserve was
a high pass to cross - lightening and thunder
accompanied us up and over the pass - a little
refreshing rain, and some great bolts and thunder
claps to keep our eyes wide. 

The weather has been fantastic - quite a bit of cloud
cover, enough breeze to stay comfortable. Just right.
But... it's bound to get nasty hot soon. Dave
mentioned last night that we might ride during the
night if it gets too bad in central/western Nevada.
Might be fun. 

Our horses are starting to feel the rocks - a few
ouchy steps every once in a while. I put pads on
Jeziret this morning (Dennis Tribby is shoeing horses
for whoever needs it) and we'll start using easy boots
on the others. Otherwise the horses are doing great.
Squeak's back was starting to get sore from the
Sportsaddle - too much pressure on his spine, so John
will start riding him with the extra RP saddle and
supracor pad. We're using the Dixie Midnight no-sweat
pads under the regular pads every day - really helps
keep the backs and pads dry and clean. It interesting
getting down to the bare essentials - no sense in
packing/carrying more than we need. Water bottles,
easyboot, leatherman tool, hoofpick, people food
(nuts, granola bars, jerky), GPS and batteries,
sunglasses (riding into the afternoon sun), misc.
first aid stuff, polar fleece vest ... that's about
it. Our crew has been able to meet us frequently - we
pre-arrange  meeting points based on mileage and GPS
way points (I bought another GPS so our crew would
have one too). They're out there waiting for us in the
'Skater-Mobile' Suburban - it looks like an old hippy
van, but skateboarder graffiti instead of flowers and
butterflies :) The have buckets of sweet feed (COB w
molasses) and water and a flake of alfalfa hay set out
by the crew trailer (which is also being painted w
signatures from the riders and crews!) . The horses
have learned to dive into the buckets and gobble and
drink while they can. We let them eat for a few
minutes, fill our water bottles and head back out. The
boys also offer food/water to the other riders that
come by. They're so cute and cheerful - I can't
imagine a better crew. We also let the horses graze
quite a bit along the way. There's a lot of forage in
these high elevation deserts. 

Personally, it's a challenge for me to ride so slow
(I'm a wee bit competitive :)  but I think it's the
best thing for the horses if we're hoping to do a lot
of miles. We slow down over marginal footing, let them
graze, get off and walk a lot (a lot!) and at the end
of the ride they feel full of energy. Takes very
little out of them to go this slow. And we get to
enjoy the scenery for a long long time... Our ride
times have been around 10 hours. There's a one hour
hold for lunch, so that gives us 11 hours ride time to
finish in time. A few days it's been a little closer
to cutoff than I like... but the horses have so much
energy left at the end of the day we can hurry in if
we have to. Since we're riding so slow and they have
so much opportunity to eat along the trail we're not
giving them any electrolytes during the day, and it
seems to be fine. They're staying well hydrated,
plenty of appetite and pep. I add an ounce of
electrolytes to their mash (grain, soaked alfalfa
pellets and beet pulp, wheat bran) every night, and
leave a bucket of loose salt in the corrals for them.
It's nice not having to pack electrolytes and
syringes.

This 2-day rest at Schellbourne Station has been
great. The kids went to town (Ely) yesterday for
shopping, laundry, errands and a movie. Most of the
camp went to town too and they saw a lot of friendly
faces. They've pretty much met all the other kids and
are starting to do things together - really fun to see
the dynamics and flirting. John and I stayed in camp,
puttered around during the day and played scrabble in
the bar in the afternoon, pork-chop dinner, phone
calls home... nice to relax.

Tomorrow we ride through Egan pass and camp at Ruby
station. Should be a nice ride. Feels so right to
think about saddling up tomorrow and riding west...
it's going to be hard to stop at Virginia City.  Dave
is already talking about another big ride in a few
years - Mexico to Canada along the Great Western
trail.... hmmmmm.

Steph

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