Beware the Pay Box

It was a lovely late afternoon! 

Saturday afternoon, and I can have a couple hours to myself to ride.  I head over to pick up my friend C. and her mare Phoenix, and we decide to try out a local county park that is only about 20 minutes from her house.  We've heard that it's a pretty popular place to ride locally.  We pull in to see the camping area pretty full, including with some horse folks.  I take this as a good sign, that the trails must be pretty decent.

Rocks are good for mounting!  The vehicles you can see are the camping area, and at least 3 rigs were there with horses. 

We get ready to ride, and I head over to drop some cash in the pay box for our "suggested donation" to the park.  It's one of those metal posts with a skinny slot at the top for sliding money in.  I crouch down just enough to see the slot (it has a little overhang, presumably to protect it from rain getting in the hole) and fold up the bills to push them in.  Just as the bills begin to slide through, out fly angry wasps (or something related).  Luckily they actually weren't too aggressive, as I took a couple quick steps back and they didn't really swarm me.  I am stung on my left wrist, but it is only a single sting.  And I'm not allergic.  But getting stung always makes me mad!  Especially when I wasn't trying to aggravate them, and in fact didn't even know they were there.  I get that they were defending their nest, but I was not happy.  And I didn't get the cash in there, it fluttered to the ground. I retrieved it about 10 minutes later, after they were all safely back inside the box, waiting for the next unsuspecting human.  Sorry, Sibley County Parks, no donation for you today!

The stung wrist.  Red mark with white around is the actual sting.  It swelled from the base of my hand about 1/3 of the way up my inner forearm. 

We didn't have any ice, but I did have a bucket of cold water I'd brought for the horses, and I stood with my entire arm submerged for at least 5 minutes.  It felt good, but didn't really seem to help the rapidly spreading swelling and redness.  I didn't have any Benadryl with me (note #1 for the day: put some human meds in the horse first aid box!) but I figured I'd survive.

This park (High Island Creek County Park) is situated on top of some bluffs, with the park area straddling the creek on both sides.  Basically, what was too steep or flooded too much to farm, was designated as park. This creek drains into the Minnesota River, and descends from the former prairie (now cropland) to the west into the river valley.  The trail went directly down from the camping/parking area to the creek.

Trail down through a 2nd picnic area and to the creek. 

We last had rain 4 days ago, but the water was still completely opaque with silt and had a decent current.  We could see hoof prints across, so we knew horses had been crossing there today.  I urged Rhio in, and after a good drink, he started somewhat reluctantly across.  He veered downstream, and suddenly we were in water up to my knees (while mounted).  He didn't care for that too much, but handled it calmly and just turned toward the bank and got out of the river.  Now he was convinced it was not safe to cross, and refused to reenter the river.  I figured as I was soaked through up the knees already, I might as well just get off and lead him across.  That way I could check the footing and the depth as I went.  So I did, at one point getting crotch deep, and he followed me willingly, with C. and Phoenix right behind.  Now I'm wet-wet, and have a swollen throbbing wrist.  This is starting to sound like endurance riding!

We follow the "trail," which at this point is just a narrow path barely wide enough for horses with jungly, creeping, and often thorny/pokey vegetation nearly obscuring it.  It turns out, after talking to a pair of riders who are very familiar with it, that this is the "main trail" (the stem of a flower is how it was described to us.)  We reached what seemed to be its terminus in a more open grassy area with a sand-filled wash ahead of us.  I could see hoofprints ahead, so we kept going.  We had previously passed one or two turnings to the right which also had hoofprints, but were even less of a trail than the one we were on.  This was no exception, dwindling into a deer path rather quickly.  We continued on until encountering a Private Property sign, and a fence.  We then turned along the fence to our right, as the creek was to the left.  We continued to follow the barest hint of a path, bushwhacking around numerous deadfall and the like.  Eventually we were faced with a huge, steep climb to get back out of the creek bottom land and up onto the bluff.  We did the first half, and the horses were working hard, huffing and puffing pretty good.  After a little leveling off, we turned into what was clearly another washed out gully packed with sand and debris.  (Have I mentioned that our area has been flooded and/or inundated with excess and heavy rainfall pretty much since the temperatures got above freezing?)

I scouted up this barely-even-a-path on foot and decided after looking around at the top, that there was no better way to get up.  But there was another sorta-obvious path up top, heading back in the general direction of the truck and trailer.  We opted to hike up on foot due to the incredible steepness (I used hands AND feet a couple times on my first foray up it) and the questionable footing (mud, sticks, etc). I tried to tail Rhio, where he leads and I follow, grabbing his tail for extra power to get up the hill.  He wasn't at all sure that UP was where we should go, so I had to mostly lead him.  C. had great luck tailing her mare up, though!

We set off attempting to follow this "trail," and encountered the western park boundary and more deadfall obscuring the trail.  After bushwhacking around, we again found something that looked much more trail-like and followed it back down nearly to where we'd started up the steepest part.  Geesh!  I guess that was an exercise in futility...or just good hill work for the horses? We also found a slightly rusty horseshoe in the trail, so I guess we weren't the only ones who'd made it up here, and I guess that it was actually a "trail."

The steep hill.  I'm only about 2 horse lengths in front of C., further up the hill.  See how tiny she looks!  Very steep indeed!

With much backtracking, fumbling around, stepping over logs, and ducking under branches, we made it back down the entire hill to the sandy wash we'd originally started in.  I suppose we'd just completed a "loop."  There was a nearly impenetrable wall of super thorny shrubbery between us and the main path, so we kind of just bulled our way through until we were back into the grassy area.  Rhio for sure knew the way back to the trailer, as he was eager to move out down the path back to the water crossing.  We retraced our steps from there, despite running into the riders who explained the "trail system" to us and told us that another portion was particularly good.

This is the "good" path.  Note the jungle-like vegetation. 

I would term these paths "social trails," as they're clearly just paths worn into the landscape with use. There was absolutely no trail planning, construction, maintenance, or maps.  It was quite the adventure.  I am very glad I had Rhio, who is so incredibly steady and willing when I point him into the woods and say, "go there, no wait, go this way, oh, hold on, turn around here!"

Bushwhacking

The biggest bummer - my phone app didn't function to capture our route, speed, time, or distance.  I know we rode for about 90 minutes.  We climbed up and descended the bluff twice.  We crossed the river both going and coming.  We rode through spider webs too numerous to count.  And my little and ring fingers were only mildly tingling from the swelling in my wrist impinging on the nerves!  It's a win in my book.  And, nope, we won't be back!  But soaking wet leather boots are a very good excuse to clean and condition them, which they've desperately needed.

High Island Creek