Nick Warhol's 20 mule team ride story part 2 of 3

["Nick Warhol" <nwarhol@attbi.com>]

I slept in the plush accommodations at Jackie’s house and woke up to another nice ride morning.  We got tacked up and warmed up the horses for a while, getting started a few minutes after the 6 am start.  I wanted to let the pack get ahead of us, since our plan was to just go a nice, steady pace all day and not be in a big hurry.   We left camp at the back of the pack and started trotting up the start road.   Less than a half mile from the start, there are only 3 horses in front of us.    Huh?  Heather points to the right, where we see 40 or so horses coming down the road, back towards the trail, coming fast.   So much for being in the back of the pack.  For a moment there, we were leading the ride!   The horses were good about letting the entire pack pass us, but it got them amped up a bit.  By the time we got to Jackie’s house, we were back at the end again.   What’s this?  Here are about 20 horses coming back to the road, again!   There was an old arrow on the road that fooled people, so here we were back in the lead again!   The entire pack passed us again, but we ended up staying with the riders in the middle of the mob.  Mark was pulling on Heather a bit, being the strong boy he is.  Holly was being great, with the occasional head toss, telling me she wanted to go faster.   She has big, effortless trot that just gobbles up the ground.  We climbed up the first range of hills that took us out of the valley and towards highway 395.  We crossed the highway and headed down a short road, where the trail turned right, across the soft, open desert on a virgin trail.  There were a whole bunch of riders going on up the road, the wrong way.   Hmmmm.   They didn’t see the arrow or the chalk line they rode across?  Who knows?    The half mile or so to the water stop was soft, perfect desert, so we let the horses go and blasted across the landscape.  Holly can really blast!   After a quick water stop, it was back across the desert, riding with a constant string of horses.  We passed a few riders here and there, who were stopped, or walking.   More water at the trestle,  (there was water every 7 miles on the ride), and across the open desert to the first vet check.   It was a pulse and go for the 100’s, so we did just that.  Holly was at 48.   We vetted and scooted out, heading up the canyon to the wilderness area around the mountain.   It was SO much better than last year, where there was snow and mud everywhere up here.  The conditions were perfect.  We took it real easy in the rough sections, walking through every rock patch and up and down the hills.  The ride was going quickly- I was surprised to see we were going a little faster than I went last year.   We rode with two other horses for a while, but left them after we did another fast blast down a perfect sandy road for a mile or so.   We climbed up and down through the hills, passing the old mines and dilapidated shacks, then headed down to the 35-mile lunch stop.   It was here that the first riders on the 65 caught us.   They started an hour after we did, and had a 15-minute hold at vet 1.   Jackie wanted to spread the riders out, and it worked perfectly.   We walked into the lunch camp and pulsed down again, Holly was at 48.   Good horse.  Mark also came down quickly.  We were treated to great crew service by Heather’s sister Miranda.  Lunch tasted good, and after our hour, we set out down the 6-mile road, trotting the whole thing at our nice, consistent pace.  We left the lunch stop in the middle of the pack in the 100 ride, somewhere in the thirties. We passed a couple more horses that were walking while we were trotting.   More water, then back into the desert, through a nice, but sometimes rocky section that led back to the water stop at Vet 1.   We kept moving, passing a few more riders as we kept going.   Holly and Mark were getting along perfectly.   They just kept going, and going, ears forward and strong.   We were not really going that fast, we just didn’t stop much.   We caught and passed a few more riders, but then had a little disaster. On the way to the third vet check, one of Heather’s stirrups fell off.  As in bouncing around on the ground, in the sand.   This is not good.  We stopped, and lucky for us, we were able to find the metal clip thing that holds the stirrup leathers together.   We put is back together with some duct tape, and without missing a beat, came into the vet check at 57 miles.   Holly was at 48 again, but Mark took a few minutes to recover.  We got word that there were quite a few horses being pulled, mostly for lameness.   We let them eat during the hold, then continued on, paying attention to the really muggy and humid conditions.   Back through town and into the dinner hold at 65 miles.   Here comes Joyce Souza out of camp, onto the last loop.   We said hi, not realizing at the time that she was leading the ride.