On the high ground

Still some snow

Climbing the side hills

Dave climbing out of a river crossing

Entering into the Little Grand Canyon area of the river

Some indian art work

Dave called and said he had the weekend free and wanted to know if I wanted to go with him for a weekend camp out with the horses. The weather forecast was forecasting nice spring weather. He offered to pay the expenses if I brought enough horses for his girl friend, a 16 year old Japanese foreign exchange student and himself. Heck ya, I thought. Folks willing to go for a long ride, bring all the food, pay the gas and get all my horses exercised at the same time. How hard a decision is that?
Not wanting to spend the whole weekend driving to far reaches of the state of Utah, I began searching for a someplace that I had not ridden that was within a reasonable drive. I figured anything within about 3 hours driving was fair game. I got on Back Country Horsemans Utah website and looked through the list of favorite trails. The Price Utah chapter had a list of trails that were within the driving distance I had set, where high desert so most of the snow should be gone, were mostly sand and sandstone for my barefoot horses. I printed out the maps and trail instructions and gave them to Dave for his review a day or two before we were to leave.
I got early Saturday morning, loaded four horses and headed over to pick up the rest of the gang. We drove to Castledale Utah and picked up the BLM gravel road that heads about 15 miles east into the San Rafael Swell area. We parked at Fuller Bottoms. Which is basically the end of the road for any full size truck especially with a trailer. A few folks on ATV’s or Jeeps cross the river to continue on the road. But you would be foolish to try it with a rig like mine.
We got saddled up and I asked Dave for the maps and trail instructions. His face went blank as he told me he forgot to bring them. I figured it couldn’t be too hard to find our way, So we headed out. Since this is a multi use trail head. There are lots of ATV trails leaving the trailhead. So followed some of those and eventually ended up weaving through the tamarisk. These are a non-native invasive small tree that clogs the banks of rivers and streams in the South west. I was cursing that Hollywood starlet that imported this species of trees because she thought they were pretty. After getting scratched up and worrying that I might have all the clothes on my body ripped off, I decided we needed to get out of the river bottoms and get up on the high ground and figure out where we were headed. We crossed the river picked up the jeep road on the far side and climbed up onto the higher ground. Which is what we should have done if we had the instructions to follow. You follow the jeep trail for a mile or so and come to fence line and there is BLM map and sign announcing that you are entering into the Sid Mountain Wilderness Study Area. The trail then proceeded to drop down off the high ground and into the river bottoms where we followed a cow trail along the river. Ranchers run cattle in this area during the winter months on grazing permits. There was evidence that there had been a lot of cattle in the area during the winter, but we only saw 3 cows along the river.
The San Rafael River meanders down the canyon and the cow path criss crosses the river as cliffs and the brush along the river forces you to change sides. This area is known for quicksand or sucking mud, So you need to exercise some caution when you try to cross the river. The cow paths usually dropped off the river banks and crossed the river on rocky shoals. If you didn’t follow the cow paths, you would be dropping off and climbing up steep river banks. So it is not too hard to determine where to cross.
The trail instructions had detailed a loop. So we were watching for place to depart the river bottom and climb back up to higher ground for the return section of the trail. We came to a difficult river crossing that my friends were having a hard time getting their horses across. Since we didn’t have the direction and the horses didn’t like that crossing, we decided to turn back and return the way we had come. We had come about 8 miles downstream at that point. We found some cottonwood trees to tie up to and enjoyed our lunch.
After lunch we explored a side canyon that headed off the other direction thinking it might climb out of the bottoms and return us to the jeep road. Looking at the maps afterwards, this side canyon would have eventually done just that, but would have added 4-5 miles to our ride.
On the return trip, we were scrambling up a steep river bank when I felt my horse kick my right boot. He had smacked me hard right on the spur on the back of the boot and it had punctured his leg just above the cornet line on his leg. A quick look and he appeared OK and he was still willing to move forward. So we continued on.
As we got back to camp I noticed my gelding was keeping his weight off that leg. We loaded up and drive a few miles over to another campsite and trial head in Buckhorn wash. The BLM has a Equestrian camp there and Back Country Horsemen are building some small corrals and hitching rails. I sleep a whole lot better if I can put the horses someplace else vs being tied to the side of the trailer. As I unloaded my gelding, I noticed he was showing lame for that right hind leg. I started to worry that maybe he had pulled a tendon or stress fracture in that leg. The small cut from my spur had not bled and really was not noticeable.
We enjoyed some steaks for dinner, watched some wild turkeys and viewed one of the most amazing star displays when it got dark. This area is a long ways from city lights, so you don’t have the light diffusion that you get in the city.
The next morning, I determine my horse was lame and that I would not be joining my friends on their ride for the day. They got saddled up and headed out. My gelding was pretty upset at being left behind and made a lot of laps around the small corral I had him in. I decided that he probably didn’t have a stress fracture or torn tendons because he could run if he wanted to. He just was sore.
My friends made a short ride knowing I wanted to get my horse home and we headed out. The next morning I stopped by the Vet and he was heading out. Told me to bring my horse by around 2:00 pm and he would look at him. When I returned we determined that spur had punctured his skin and probably left dirt and other contaminates in the area that were causing infection. The vet gave him a large dose of antibiotic, some bute and dex and sent me home. 24 hours later and the gelding was moving much better and within 36 hours was back to normal.