Sis and I brought em back alive --MaahDaahHey ride

Got dad through 4/5s of the MaahDaah Hey trail. We skipped one leg because the old ford where one could drive a vehicle across was washed out in their early summer flooding so it would have been major effort to shuffle a vehicle around the long way to have waiting after riding that leg and we also heard the horses could make it but the water was stirrup high (with not knowing what the banks were like and 2 short horses that seemed a bit iffy)

Mom rode one leg of the trail. Lady stepped in a soft spot crossing a creek and mom fell off when Lady was surging out of it I guess. She got checked out by a chiro tuesday and did have 2 dislocated ribs.

Lady thought she was a goner, later that same day with mom riding her. (mom expected the horse to watch out for the sink hole -- well DUH horses --especially ones that haven't ridden in that kind of country -- don't think about the fact that there could just be a thin crust on the edge of a hole.) Lady just stepped across one and it gave way under her hind legs. Mom got off and we got the saddle off but Lady had tried to get up and couldn't and she was just lying there, I was worried she had seriously injured a leg at that point, she seemed to have a hopeless look in her eye.

She got one leg out with us tugging on her tail but the other one was in all the way up to her stifle. Lucky she is a small horse and my dad is fairly big and stout. I got a lead rope around her leg, she did not even twitch the leg she had out of the hole while I did it, I couldn't have done it with a horse that was putting my head in danger by not holding still. With dad on the rope and sis and I pulling on the tail we got her lifted a bit and then sis manuevered Ladys leg out of the hole; we pulled Lady backwards so her hind feet would not be right at the hole if she scrambled to her feet and Lady managed to get herself upright and walk forward to a better spot on the trail.

Lady was then standing there looking like OMG I almost died! What have you gotten me into with these BADlands?! My relief humor was to give her a pat and say "sorry kiddo but hey still better than if you had ended up on a slaughter truck" We just led Lady the rest of that day. Mom was going to ride sis' horse Ramsey but the stirrups wouldn't go short enough so Shade ended up carrying her. I rode Doc, sis's spare horse, with stirrups that I could just reach on one side if I went tippy toe. I felt like a total dude, just having to use the saddle horn and let him pick his way in the fading light.

Much more adventerous riding than I remembered from six years ago, mostly due to damage from flooding and little mudslides but we got through it and I got the 3 colo. horses home on tuesday.

Mom was harping and harping that we should have listened to the camp host that the leg from CCC to Bennett was rough. Well it was; but the first half of the Bennett to Magpie leg was pretty rough too and we were riding the last bit in in the dark again. If we'd had mom slowing us down on that one we might have ended up waiting out for daylight there, might have made it to Bennett w/o mom. Who knows.

I do know it was easier riding without her along. I cannot stand riding with people who spew negative statements; either mom or endurance riders who whine that trail is boring, or its hard to follow the way it was markedk or they chose too many rocky technical sections and made the day take too long. If you don't like the ride don't do it again but whining on the trail doesn't help anything dammit. I never ever want to take mom on a trail again, she needs to stick to flat roads and arena work.