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[RC] 20-Mule Team 100 - part 4 - Aaron TurnageSarah stopped by when she was ready to go and we headed out together. Unfortunately Gail had been pulled so Sarah and I were bringing up the rear. Hey, someone?s got to do it and I?ve done it enough times to hold the title well. =) The full moon had come up by then and was shining so brightly that the glowbars were pretty much unnecessary. We had both layered up as riders and put rump rugs on the horses, preparing for the cold and dark to come. Both horses left camp willingly, no balking, no trying to turn, just right on out. Good ponies. I knew where the turn off for
the start of the 35-mile loop was and we trotted most of the first 8 miles or so out of camp. Soon we started heading up a gradual climb, mostly trotting but walking every now and then. Suddenly I saw these weird lights in front of me, green and then flickers of red flashing on and off and kind of moving. A UFO? A 100-mile hallucination? Nope, just another rider heading back towards camp. He was entered in the 100 as well but his horse was out of gas so he was calling it a night. We offered for him to come along with us, nice and slow and he thanked us but declined. We continued on and made it to the top of the climb
and I spotted the water troughs lurking in the dark, concealing their precious fluids from those not quite so wary. Both horses drank well and we had a really nice ride along the hillside running kind of parallel to the town of We eventually turned left and started heading through the hills (mostly down) to the highway crossing below. We could see the occasional car passing by in the night, helping to guide us how much further we had to go to reach our first destination on this loop, the highway crossing and radio checkpoint at 17 miles. We got off and walked the long downhill towards the checkpoint, Sinatra would occasionally go off trail and walk over the top of some of the brush on the side of the trail in an attempt to scratch his belly and between his legs, which were getting quite itchy. Again, normal behavior for him and something that is both funny and exasperating when he does it. When things started to level out I encouraged Sarah to get back on, her mare was getting more tired, and we trotted into the check. We chatted with the radio operator while the horses drank and ate some hay, thanked him for being out there and confirmed we were the last two riders. Seems one was unaccounted for but they got everything worked out while we were there, I think it was maybe the guy that had returned to camp or maybe one of the RO pulls. Sinatra was getting quite hungry at this point, it was about 10:30 pm, we made very good time on that section.
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