Hot Hills!

Despite a forecast of 105+ today, my hoof care expert and friend, D, and I met to ride at one of the local Wildlife Areas. For whatever reason we had actually never been riding together before so it was neat to get out there on the trail with her and Da Moose--Launi--our big red corral buddy from Gold Country. 

Heading down the hill, look at the wall of smoke hanging in the valley from the Shasta County fire :(  

Luckily where we rode we were still up out of the valley high enough that it wasn't smoky, but it was certainly hot! No dawdling in the sun, horses, save that for the shade!

D on Launi

More of my love affair with WA trees

This particular WA has The Big Hill as I was calling it, though turns out it has a proper name, Daugherty Hill. The trail winds along for quite a while up that hill, we don't actually ride straight up it under the power lines. It's quite the climb, especially on a hot day!

Launi is still green and getting his true endurance conditioning base going, so Desire and I trotted ahead and climbed the hill alone for the most part, except when she did a power/slip move that popped off a hind boot. Just as I remounted from circling back and jamming it back on,Launi and D appeared for a few minutes but Desire still wanted to trot trot trot up that hill at a steady jog, so away we went.

up up up

At the top I dismounted, loosened the girth, and let her catch her breath, thinking D might be along but when I didn't hear her coming after a few minutes I figured Launi might have had enough hill lower down, so we headed back down to find them.

Catching our breath at the top 

We found them a little lower down and headed on down the hill together. Launi is about 16 hands and 1100 lbs so he has a lot more mass to cool down than Desire, aside from the conditioning.

I hand walked Desire to the bottom and remounted and in another 1/2 mile or so we were back to the wonderfully deep, cold, creek crossing. I re-wet my bandanna, helmet, and Cool Medic vest, ahhh, heavenly.

Good endurance "pony"   ;-)

Hot and tired, headed back to the trailer: Smiles like this are why we do this!

Both horses handled the hot, steep climb quite well and it was a good workout for both, no doubt. Desire seemed to be fine with Launi, there was no squealing and very little ear-eyeballing when they were side by side. She even let Launi lead sometimes! :-P

Showered and stuffing her face: