Horse Packing Trip to Palasades!

I went on my first horse packing camping trip! It ended up being awesome but started out a little crazy...

 

Thursday morning we left. I was riding Lia, Jake was riding Diego, Dad C. was riding Lightning, Jed was on Spur, Memrie was on Fury, and Tyson was on Buck. We drove up and loaded up the horses.

 

While we were packing the horses up Jed and I saw this pretty dude

 

Then we started riding!

 

It was so good at first! Here's Jake, Tyson and Jed all standing on their horses...

 

Lia was doing really good. She crossed bridges with no problem. She was keeping up and fast walking without ever trying to trot. Her one quirk was water. She did not want to walk across water! We got to a point in the trail where a tiny spring ran down the hill and across our trail and on down the hill further to a pond. It was a thin trail and was on a super steep hill. We were playing a game (that I didn't like) where you pass a stick from the back horse to the front horse. Jake was leading and Lia and I were right behind him. I had just thrown the stick to Jake and was ready to catch it back when Lia tried to step around the water in the trail and she stepped off the trail and started to fall down the hill. I tried to yank her reins and get her back up and when I realized that she couldn't I bailed and fell back towards the trail. Luckily that was uphill so I didn't fall as far or hard. Lia kept going down and we were so lucky because she was able to get back up to us and she was not hurt at all! I was so freaked out. The pictures don't show how steep or far the fall was but here is the pond she almost fell in and the part of the trail where she slid off. I took these pictures two days later on the way home.

I bruised my left hip, ankle, forearm, and elbow and my right calf, thigh, forearm, and elbow but I am okay. I was super shaken up though. I rode Diego for a little while right after that. That freaked me out even more because I had never ridden him and he has a bad rep. I also couldn't reach the stirrups. Then I got back on Lia and we came to the first river. She dogged it and went up a steep hill through tall prickly bushes. At this point I had still not had a chance to calm down and make sure I was okay and my body started going numb. I got her in the water and within 30 seconds my muscles had locked up and I was totally frozen! I was in shock. My hands were clenched so tight around the reins that I couldn't let go! It was so bizarre and scary. It was SO painful. Jake had to pull me off my horse. My muscles were so tight that he couldn't open my fist. It was freaky. He gave me a blessing and like half an hour later we got back on the horses and kept going. 

Not ten minutes later we ran into mules that were all tied together and were packing big heavy packs. Lia freaked out and I was not ready for it and she back right into the mules and almost got caught in the rope that was connecting two of them. We should have been kicked at and hurt really bad but miraculously the mules did not do anything and I was able to get Lia out. Jed held her rope so she couldn't move again until the mules were gone. It was so scary because that could have been much worse than it was. 

About an hour later we were crossing another river and Jake was pulling Lia behind him with her lead rope. Diego, being a spirited young horse who loves the mountains, wanted to go fast. Lia, being a young, small, and scared horse, wanted to go slow through the creek. Diego ended up stepping on a big sharp rock the wrong way and it flipped up and cut his leg really bad. It hit an artery that goes straight to his heart. It is literally a miracle that he did not bleed to death. Jake and Tyson wrapped it up really tight and stopped the bleeding. We were 30 minutes away from the camp site but we turned around and rode the 3 hours back to the trailer to rush Diego to a vet. We were blessed because he did fine the whole ride back and was able to carry Jake safely back the whole time. 

When we got to the vet he told us that it severed the artery that goes to his heart. It was a good thing we left immediately and we were lucky because he did not have swelling. His leg was squirting out blood when the vet took off the bandage. It was crazy. Here are the bloody pictures of all of that. The pictures REALLY make it look like a lot less blood than it really was.

After that we went home, showered, got a good nights sleep and started all over Friday morning! This time Jake rode Sierra and I rode Tana. We stopped at a gas station and Jake washed the windshield. We were all laughing at him....

He also was wearing Jed's hat and he had no idea.

Jake helped me load up Tana and then we were off!

It was so nice being able to cross creeks with no worries. I even took pictures I was so relaxed on Tana! I missed Lia (like, a lot) but it was a much nicer ride on Tana because she is old and experienced in the mountains. Here're the pictures of the ride to the campsite.

So we got to the campsite. Hallelujah! We set up camp and then the boys started building the dam they always build.

 Morning and night the boys watered the horses bareback!

Half of the horses were tied up and half of them wore hobbles. They were sooo funny with these on. It just connects their front feet. Here's how Spur hopped around.... Goof.

Here is where we hung our saddles

Here's the table

Where we ate

The tents

At night we tied the horses to this rope

It was so so SO hot during the day but SO cold at night

On Saturday Jake and I got up with the sun and he went fishing! I stayed back at the camp at first but later (when I went looking for him because he had been gone so long that I had myself convinced he was dead...) I joined him!

Saturday was Jake's 24th birthday so I made a birthday banner with help from my mom and this blog.

Saturday at like 2 pm we headed back! On the ride back we stopped by the upper lake. The Cromwell's (years and years ago) tied a huge rope to a huge tree to make a rope swing! This year the water was super low but they swung out and back and decided if it was safe or not and then Jake was brave enough to go first and then they all did it and loved it! I have hilarious videos of it but blogger won't upload them! I'll have to try it on a separate post. It was about a 40 foot fall, (I think it was a 30 ft fall and the Cromwell boys think it was about a 50 ft. fall) you can't tell in the pictures but it was waaaaaay high! Here're the few pictures I have

Pictures of some of the bridges we crossed on the way back

We were all so tired/sore/worn out. The poor horses! This kid was SO cute. His family was parked next to ours and they were loading up too. He was trying to get the horse to trot behind him and he said, "Come on Trey! I'm gon' beatcha!" in the cutest voice ever like he was playing with his best friend and not with a huge horse than could trample him.

It was so much fun. I feel like it knocked down the huge wall that I've been pushing against with horseback riding. I have been so scared every time I get on a horse and scared of what could happen if the horse decided to rebel. But pretty much my biggest fear happened when I fell off the trail and... I LIVED! Haha so now I'm not afraid! I'm so glad I decided to go! It was the best thing for me. I hope that I will be able to go every summer!


P.S. So after this camping trip Jake and I went on a ride with Lia and Sierra and not two minutes into the ride Lia BUCKED me off. Jake called it a galloping buck. Like, full blown trying to get the rider off of you bucking. It was so sad! And painful. Super painful. Scared of horses again, darn it!