Hiawatha National Forest
Upper Peninsula, Michigan
Pine Marten Run
Theresa lives about three hours from me, yet she was willing
to go out of her way to pick me up so that we could drive across the Upper
Peninsula of Michigan together to attend the Pine Marten Run endurance
ride. Many, many thanks to Theresa
for driving the extra miles (through some seemingly endless construction on the way home, no
less) to pick me up! I had a great
time and was thrilled to ride new trails and check another state off my list.
Speaking of my list, one of my career goals for endurance is
to ride an endurance ride in every state that has one (there are none in
Hawaii, for example). So far I
have only ridden in the Midwest; my state list is now Minnesota, Wisconsin,
North Dakota, and Michigan.
It was a goal-fulfilling weekend, as I’d set a few goals for
Rhio for this ride, including riding alone (which we did not accomplish) and
doing a 3-hour 25 miler. Well, my
actual trail time (not counting the time to pulse down, so this won’t concur with
my official AERC time, but I have always kept track of my trail time) was 2
hours 40 minutes (!) and we took 4th, only 10 minutes behind the
leaders. Not bad for not having
gone to a ride since May, and only having done about 6 conditioning rides in
the past 2 months. I was really,
really happy with his performance, and the only thing I regret is not doing a
50! I was hesitant to ask him to
go 50 miles with the two long trailer rides (7 hours) sandwiching competition
day, and so little competition this season. He was full of himself the entire ride and trotted out at
the final check looking like he hadn’t done a thing.
Theresa & her mare Queen arrived in Duluth Thursday
evening, and got settled in at Gesa’s for the overnight. Friday morning we loaded up and were on
the road before 9 am. Rhio loaded
willingly, actually surprising me by just following me onto the trailer without
the slightest hesitation. He sure
makes it clear that he has a strong preference for big trailers! Friday was a cold, windy, on-and-off
rainy day as we drove east along Lake Superior to Nahma Junction, MI. The only problem with the drive was the
unending vistas of blazing hillsides covered in maples in all their fall
splendors, and of the impressive waves crashing into the shore; we wanted to
stop and enjoy the beautiful fall vistas around every bend, but we knew we had
to keep marching on for ride camp.
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| Pine Marten Run ridecamp |
We found ride camp in the Hiawatha National Forest easily,
and drove in gingerly, having been warned that it is “just a big field.” Well, it’s more like an area that
formerly had trees and no longer does, but their remnants (stumps and holes)
are still very much present. The
major groundcovers are lichen and a woody-stemmed plant called “sweet grass”
which was about 12” – 14” high.
There were also small trees and shrubs scattered about, and we tromped
around looking for an acceptable place to park without doing major damage to
truck or trailer in the process.
Thinking we’d found a spot, we unloaded Queen and Rhio and Theresa
proceeded to back through the humps into a “spot” of sorts. Unfortunately, something under the hood
of the truck didn’t much like this, and she was smoking pretty good by the time
we were situated. Oops. (Just so you don’t worry, the truck
seemed to be functioning normally on Sunday and the smell of scorched whatever
was mostly dissipated, and we made it home just fine. I’m sure Theresa will be having the truck looked at,
though.)
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| Rhio's side of the trailer |
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| Queen's side of the trailer |
Although Rhio and Queen had had the entire day in the
trailer to bond, we gave them each their own side of the trailer and got set up
for the night. I had brought a few
step-in posts and a rope (borrowed from Gesa) to make a “fake” electric pen for
Rhio, as I know he is much happier in a pen than being tied. Obviously this is not a secure
containment method and I only allowed him to be loose in his pen when I was
there to supervise. Overnight, he
was tied to the trailer.
We vetted in and marked the first differences from the
routine at MN rides – the vets didn’t have scribes and had to do their own
writing on our cards! Speaking as
a ride vet…that sucks! They didn’t
seem to have the line-up of horses waiting to vet in that we are accustomed to,
either, so the extra time it took for them to fill out the cards didn’t seem to
be an issue. Also, though, we
riders weren’t immediately aware of how they’d scored our ponies, as we are at
MN rides because the vets are verbalizing their scores as they go. Our horses remained unmarked, as they
felt the rump rugs (it was going to be pretty cold at the start) would just rub
the grease paint numbers right off their rumps. That would have been too true, I’m afraid! I actually rode Rhio the entire ride
with his rump rug covering his hindquarters, as he is pretty easily chilled and
I have learned from experience that it is much better to err on the side of a
little too warm with him. It would
be nice, however, to finally get around to finishing the wool rump rug I’m
making for him, as Red’s polarfleece one is really too big for Rhio and hangs
way off of him.
Theresa set up the camp stove and cooked us hot &
satisfying tortellini for dinner (I contributed salad), then we were off to the
ride meeting. We were not given
maps, as everyone does the same trail – pink out to the out check, and blue
back to camp. The pink trail is 13
miles, and the blue trail 12 miles, so the 25’s do it once and the 50’s do it
twice. We packed up our hay, water
buckets, and various sundries for the out check, put our stuff in the trailer
hauling everyone’s junk out there, and walked our ponies before bed. Here we noted another big difference
from ride camp in MN – no one besides us was walking their horses. Walking your horse before bed, and
periodically at all times while camped, is practically religion at MN rides
(and, also a major social event.)
There was no horse walking and no socializing that we were aware of,
although to be fair we were camped way out on the fringe of the rigs, and we
discovered Saturday morning that more rigs had parked in the open area on the
other side of the road.
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| Kelso was happy to come along to ridecamp |
The weather forecast was for lows in the 30s, so I layered
Rhio up with 2 polarfleece coolers beneath his rain sheet (why didn’t I just
bring his winter blanket? That was
dumb.) and slept in 2 layers myself.
I stayed warm enough, and because I was wearing my riding clothes to
sleep in, I didn’t have to dress in the frigid pre-dawn. Theresa & Queen were doing the 50
mile competitive ride, and they left at 8 am (sunrise occurs sometime after 7
am). My start time was 8:30, and
trying to get Rhio saddled turned out to be an exercise in frustration. He was spinning around, completely
unsettled watching all the other horses warming up and leaving camp. My saddle fell off him no less than six
times before I was able to get it all situated correctly and his girth
attached. You can imagine I wasn’t
too thrilled with him – and, frankly, I wasn’t too sure I wanted to get
on! I hand walked him briefly, let
him “lunge” himself in frantic circles around me for a few minutes, then
finally mounted (he stood still!) and we were off warming up. He settled down immediately under
saddle to a controllable trot (walking was not an option) but had a fit every
time I asked him to turn in the direction he thought was away from the
trail. He didn’t actually have any
idea where the trail was, however, so this was kind of comical as he thought
the trail was the other direction.
Anyway, we got going and quickly overtook the few horses in front of us
at the start. He was demonstrating
a pretty solid case of race brain, and we had to catch and pass the
front-runner before I could ride on a loose rein. That woman stayed with us, and we were joined by another,
and the three of us cantered (mostly) and trotted (a bit) our way through the
first ¾ of the loop before being joined by a fourth rider. Once Rhio decided these horses were in
“his group,” we were able to follow as well as lead without any fuss. I didn’t catch these gals names, but really
enjoyed the loop with them and chatted back and forth a bit about our home
trails for conditioning, rides we’d done, etc.
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| Rhio in an extreme state of alertness as he watched all those other horses get ahead of him on trail (or so he thought) |
About a mile from the out check, we passed Theresa and
Queen, and sailed into the check cantering. Oops. I don’t
normally do that, but it was more stressful to fight him than to just let him
stay with the group. He normally
pulses right down, so I wasn’t too worried about that – although I’d left my
only stethoscope at the finish and would have to guess when he was down at the
check. I found the whole out-check
to be pretty chaotic. There was a
method to the madness, I am sure – and it seemed to center around a guy named
Bruce. Unbeknownst to me, he was
keeping track of EVERYTHING! It’s
impressive, really, but I didn’t quite get the flow of things and didn’t get
much rest myself as I was a little stressed trying to figure out the
system. The vets took our pulses
for our hold time (40 minutes) to start but then immediately had us do a trot
out for our CRI and did the rest of the exam. I was happy that Rhio’s CRI was 16/15, but thought it was an
odd way of doing it, as we are used to doing the vet exam at the end of our
hold, when the horse is rested, fed, watered, and no longer in the
adrenaline-fed “up” state that they are when they first came in off trail. When that adrenaline is high, they will
look great even if they aren’t.
The exam after they’ve rested is much more indicative of their true
metabolic and mechanical fitness to head back out on trail. At the end of the hold, we have to do a
trot-by for the vets and then are released to head out. Theresa and I were out within a minute
of each other, so we decided to ride together. It was great to be out there just the two of us, and Rhio
was no longer trying to win but was happy to move out relaxed and enjoy the trail. I still didn’t get many photos, as we weren’t
dallying around, but believe me when I say these trails were GORGEOUS!
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| Rhio enjoying some of his beet pulp at the out check |
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| Theresa and Queen getting ready to trot out at the out check |
About 2/3 of the way back to camp, three other LDers passed
us, and Rhio was prancing, dancing, and kicking up quite the ruckus – he does
NOT like to be passed! I decided
to let him go, as fighting him was no fun for either of us. We stayed with that group of three,
finally passing two of them in the final half mile and coming in to vet check
with TJ and his lovely mare Tara, a Wisconsin rider we frequently see at MN
rides. Tara pulsed down just
before Rhio, and we finished the ride by standing for Best Condition. No surprise given the weight difference
between TJ and me, but we did not win BC.
I was proud of my pony, though, and he looked great at his
trot-out. Again, the exam was done
immediately after finishing, unlike what I’m used to, and his gut sounds were a
little down for him (but, he hadn’t had anything to eat since the check, as
there wasn’t a whole lot of grass on the loop).
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| the one trail picture I took |
Settling him into the trailer, I had the afternoon to relax
while Theresa & Queen finished their ride around 5:15 pm. I pulled my chair up in the sun outside
his pen and settled in with lunch and my book for an hour or so, then Kelso,
Rhio, and I took a long wandering walk around the sandy roads in the area. Rhio found a great place to roll, drank
deeply out of several puddles (he does have a fondness for puddle water), and
Kelso ran back and forth chasing squirrels until his tongue hung halfway out of
his mouth.
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| Rhio relaxing in his jammies |
It was a beautiful sunny afternoon but the wind was pretty
chilly; I was layering and unlayering constantly. After our walk, I left Rhio’s cooler off as he seemed to be
basking in the sun. Shortly
thereafter, I noticed a tiny bit of either shivering or muscle twitching in his
quadriceps. He was either cold
(common with him) or low in electrolytes (possible, as with all the commotion
at the out check he did not eat his entire beet pulp mash and his normal dose
of electrolytes were mixed into the mash – so he got less electrolytes than
normal), so I treated both possibilities and covered him with his warm cooler
and gave him a dose of e-lytes. He
loved standing facing out of his pen watching all the activity in camp, and
Kelso & I crawled into bed for a little nap (ah, the luxury!).
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| The view out the trailer door after my nap |
Theresa & Queen finished looking good, although she’d
had some muscle cramping at the second out-check, and we worked to get her
settled in before potluck. Being a
U.P. ride, lovely pasties were served as the main course and as always our
plates were bulging with good food.
Theresa & Queen took first, and got a lovely handpainted mug. I chose a roll of vet wrap as my
placing award, and a tote stenciled “Pine Marten Run” as my completion
prize. I love to have stuff that
is personalized to the ride.
It was getting very chilly as the sun set, and we were again
one of the only groups out walking our horses. We were both pretty happy to be crawling into our sleeping
bags, although those first few minutes before the slippery cold nylon lining
warms up with body heat are never enjoyable. We knew we wanted to get a pretty early start on the 7 hour
trip back to Duluth, as Theresa would be continuing on back to her home
directly. But, we also didn’t feel like setting our alarms and getting up
pre-dawn again – so we didn’t! We
were in for a surprise when we did get up Sunday morning, though, as there was
frost on the inside of the trailer!
There was ice on the water buckets, a heavy frost on every surface and
leaf, and it was in the low-middle 20’s!
Brrr!
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| Theresa & Queen walking in the morning frost |
Luckily, the switch from Eastern to Central time was in our
favor this direction, and we pulled out of camp just after the riders all
headed out on trail. It was an
uneventful and again extremely scenic trip back west across the U.P. The horses traveled well, although Rhio
did not eat much hay at all on either journey. On the way across, I dropped Rhio’s hay onto the floor (we
left the horses untied in the trailer) instead of leaving it in his hay bag and
that seemed to appeal to him.
Queen was able to snake her neck beneath the divider and steal much of
his hay, but with a big enough pile of hay this wasn’t too much of a
problem. Rhio did refuse to drink
on the trailer, and I fed him a wet beet pulp mash at our rest stop. We had hoped to find a safe spot to
unload on the trip, but we did not and were only able to stop and let the
horses rest on the trailer.
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| Kelso zonked in the backseat |
Rhio does internalize his stress, but even so he seemed to
handle the trip well. I will be
trying a few things in the future to get him to eat and drink better on the
trailer. Neither one is a problem
as soon as he’s unloaded, though!
I had started him on his probiotic product about 10 days before the trip
and continued through the weekend.
He also received an acid-reducing supplement, which I have not used
previously. He exhibited nice
formed manure the whole weekend instead of his typical loose manure in stress
situations, and I was quite happy with that. I will continue to use both, and in fact have continued him
on his probiotic daily through the end of the ride season.
Overall, it was a most excellent weekend and I would go back
to Pine Marten Run for the beautiful 95% single track trails and the friendly
riders, vets, and management. Two
thumbs up!
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| Rhio at home in the pasture, getting directly to the business of eating! |
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