You Shall Not Pass

Impassable trail

I thought about putting sunscreen on this morning before we loaded up to check out our favorite portion of the North Shore Trail... but didn't do it.  My "farmer's tan" is well-started now, unfortunately, though with the added marks of a wrist GPS and riding gloves it should probably be called "riding tan," which is my perpetual state in the warm months, I'm afraid.  I'm thinking self-tanner may be my ticket to looking halfway normal in dress-up attire for my cousin's wedding in June!

Pre-ride, before we knew what we were getting into!

This particular section of snowmobile trail is only a few miles from Gesa's place, and is all rolling hills and high ground.  We hoped it would be dry enough by now to ride.  We were wrong.  The low spots which looked mucky & muddy were exactly what they looked like, but they were not the problem.  The problem was the unexpected sucking mud pits hidden beneath what appeared to be solid grassy ground.  Paco could pass through a section in the lead and not have a problem, while Rhio stepped just a few inches to the left or right of Paco's hoof prints and we found ourselves sucked in hock-deep.  We realized in short order that we wouldn't be able to do anything but walk, at least then when we hit the horrible bits the horses were able to scramble out.  At a gait faster than a walk, those sudden squelching, clinging, seemingly bottomless mud holes would have been disastrous.

A pretty pond we didn't know was there!

Spring in the Northland - see that faint tinge of green in the trees? Yup, if you've got dirty sunglasses you can't see it - but that's spring, for sure! 

Given the circumstances, we took the opportunity to thoroughly enjoy the weather - blue skies, a light breeze, flooding sunshine everywhere - and the slowly greening spring.  We spotted pretty little ponds and trail off-shoots that are all but invisible when the forest is in full-leafed glory.  We followed a well-travelled ATV path and found ourselves in the back lot (culvert storage, apparently) of the county road maintenance depot.  This was the best, firmest footing the entire ride and we got about 2 miles of trotting & cantering.  The boys enjoyed gorging themselves on the newly green grass, and Kelso had a ball sniffing, snuffling, and snorting his way through last fall's dead leaves and the new spring sprouts.

Oh I know where we are! (and the horses weren't at all fazed by the huge shiny metal tubes)

Our muddy souvenirs of the day

The boys enjoying their hay while we soaked up some excess sunshine in our lawn chairs before heading home

This ride wasn't particularly fast, or long, or difficult, but it was glorious to be out there on a mini-adventure on such a day as this.