Tahoe Rim Trail / Watson's Loop / Tevis trail

Failure to Write

So I failed dismally to write about the amazing trip Renee and I took to Moab in September 2013 with Uno, Roo and Bite, where I spent much of my time with mouth agog.

pft and I returned to Moab in June 2014, ostensibly to pick up a tiny Spike, but mostly because we wanted a trip to Moab. We got a new tent (wonderful), took Finn and two bicycles and camped at Barlett Wash for a week of blissed out exploring, bike riding on slickrock, reading books in the heat of the afternoon. And I failed to write about it.

I failed to finish my Tevis with Fergus story (although, like the Moab trip write up, I did start it) - that ride will go down as probably the best I'll ever have - it was, without a doubt, the ride of a lifetime.

I failed to write about Roo and I doing Tahoe Rim Ride as a last minute spur of the moment option - and that ended up being one of Roo and my best rides together. He evidently loves that trail and does well on it - this was our second time doing the ride.

And finally, I failed to write about Roo and my attempt to finish Virginia City 100. Maybe one day it'll get written, but it's a daunting task.

(As an aside, I have also failed to continue running. I had to slow down a bit for Tevis, so's I didn't overdo it. And then I had to slow (i.e. stop entirely) for VC100 since I was definitely starting to teeter on overdoing it. And then when I tried to start again while doing lots of other things, my body said "Enough" and rebelled. So I agreed and haven't run since. I'm doing my best to pace myself. Not quite there, but balance is slowly being restored. I'm more or less over the post-100 bleahs ("My life isn't worth living unless I have a 100 to aim for") and starting to return to normal.)

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One of these horses is not like the other.

What I will tell you about is the excellent ride we had this past Saturday on the Tahoe Rim Trail / Watson's Loop / Tevis trail.

Crysta and I had vaguely discussed the idea of horse camping at Faith Valley, but it didn't really pan out. I suggested Castle Peak loop, Crysta was leery (after I took her and Renee there when the snow wasn't quite melted and we had an "Adventure" (i.e. we squeaked by)). Crysta suggested Skillman, but I couldn't get excited about going there. Crysta suggested "the trails around Robie" and I really wasn't excited at the idea of the long dirt road to get in to Robie either, until it dawned on us that we could park at the hw-89 (Tevis) crossing and ride from there.

Huh. A 'splorin ride. My favorite.

It takes a little over 2 hours to haul up the mountain (including a civilised Starbucks visit on the way) and really is a no-brainer - up the freeway, over the top of Donner Summit, turn right and park in the turnout just past Squaw Valley by the side of hw-89.

There was slight excitement at the very beginning when Crysta slipped under Uno's feet while stopping mid-mount to untangle Uno from Digs' lead rope (she would be ponying him). Both got loose and trotted cheerfully back along the bike path through the underpass and up to the trailers where we retrieved them 30 seconds later.

But otherwise the ride went without incident. I'd downloaded maps to the GPS app on my phone, so knew that even if we didn't know where we were, I'd at least be able to tell where we should be going from that. And Crysta had a paper map which gave us the general idea about what we were supposed to be doing.

We followed the Tevis trail backwards up to where it opens up onto a dirt road. Tevis trail comes up from the left, while the connector road to the TRT continued up the hill to the right (there are several other smaller turns along the way which we eyeballed, but this one is the BIG dirt road).

Clambered up the hill, admiring Digs' NV drumsticks and Uno's developing ones. I fretted slightly that this was Roo's first ride back after being pulled at 92 miles at VC100 for rear end lameness - was he healed or would his back legs fall off during this climb?

Arriving at the top, all limbs still attached, it leveled off onto perfect footing and some ambiguous trail marking. The TRT crosses this dirt road, but we only noticed the trail markers headed south. It wasn't until I looked at the GPS to ascertain that, no, we didn't want to stay on this trail, and then pft backtracked about 100' we found the TRT headed north - marked, but a little surreptitiously. We shall call him Eagle Eyes Pft.

The turn for TRT headed north isn't very well marked -
you have to look carefully to see the trail and spot the markers

The TRT was REALLY fun. Lots of twisty turny singletrack that you could have a blast on. It wound up to the overlook at Painted Rock, and then dropped down the other side on a smooth switchbacked trail.

At the top of Painted Rock

Looking towards Robie Park. The Tevis trail is directly below us
(although I didn't know that until afterwards, looking at the map)

At some point, the trail changes to the Watson's Loop, but I'm not clear where. The trail follows the south flank of Mt Watson with views of Lake Tahoe, passing boulder piles and winding its way up over the shoulder of the mountain.

Watson's Trail

Looking down on Lake Tahoe

Eventually, it drops down to Watson Lake (pft and I had been here once before many years ago on mtn bikes when we spent the weekend with a summer ski lift pass at Northstar). We were a little leery of sinking in the mud at the lake, trying to get the horses a drink, but the lake level was low enough that it revealed a gravelled shore, so everyone got a drink.

Watson Lake

Roo and Fergus 

Being that it was mid-October, and being that we were up past 7,000', we'd carefully put on our extra clothes, strapped jackets to the back of the saddle, I'd put Roo in Small Thing's breast collar* which still had glowsticks attached from VC100, and I'd brought a headlight along. We were ready.

(* Small Thing's zilco breast collar is actually exactly the same size as Roo's - just with the straps buckled onto their smallest settings. Funder and I cunningly adjusted it the night before VC so that Roo could wear his yellow BC during the day and we'd switch to the glow-stick encrusted one for the night-time portion - thereby eliminating about 15 minutes of faffing around at the 50 mile hold. Girl Scouts R Us and we get points for cleverness).  

As it turned out, it was t-shirt weather and not even remotely chilly by the time we got back to the trailers at the end of the ride. In fact, it could be said that it was perfect weather. < Beam >

Leaving the lake, we had to check the GPS and map again - there's a sneaky left turn thrown in there (actually marked with lil' silver tree-tags with "W" punched into them) which puts you on another fun singletrack which spits you out on the paved road that leads to Robie.

Trying to figure out where we are, and where we're supposed to be going.

More singletrack and you drop onto the dirt road that leads to Robie.

Dirt road on the way to Robie Park

You follow the dirt road to the hairpin at the end then take the left-most trail. Again, was glad to have the GPS to consult, since Roo wanted to take the most direct route back to the trailer (over the top of a 7,762' mountain top - yes, there is a dirt road that leads up to it. Yes, he would have taken it). I even ended up walking along with the GPS turned on, watching the blue dot that was us, to make sure we really were on the correct trail (we weren't).

The final trail took us into the back of the meadow and, voila, Barsaleau Pavilion before us.

They have spigots at Robie Park, but since we'd crossed enough creeks and stopped at the lake, we didn't bother to try and find out if the water was still turned on. Probably would have been good to know. We did partake of the bunch grass in the Mansfield Arena - strangely empty with no vendors, no vets, no horses.

On the way to the Tevis start line

And then we blitzed home again on the Tevis trail all the way back to hw-89. Both Roo and Fergus assumed their "everyone out of the way, we know where we're going" modes (both having at least started Tevis), while Uno and Digs ambled along happily behind.

My favorite pea-head who has done good this year.

And because Crysta made us get up at 6:30 a.m., we were home before it was dark.

Pre-Tevis "I haven't done enough" Jitters

Since I had the audacity to leave the state for a week (we went to Utah, ostensibly to pick up our new small dog puppy, but really just to spend a week going "oooooh" in Moab)(this will be the subject of a post hopefully this week before I forget it all), thereby missing two weekends of potential riding, I'm now suffering from the obligatory "I haven't done enough" and therefore Fergus can't possibly finish Tevis without becoming exhausted.

The fact that Fergus did 32 miles the previous week and will do CA Loop this weekend is neither here nor there. He needs more hill work. I need more time on him. We will never finish. Etc. Etc. I'm going to have to carefully balance this type of panic attack with putting some saddle time on him without overdoing it. We're out of town the weekend before Tevis, so that'll ensure that I can't ride him that last weekend - instead I'll just fret about not having ridden him.

Unfortunately, this last week we were gone it would appear that the other piglet horses ate most of the hay. I put everyone in together to make it easier for neighbours (aka "Feeding Angels") Bil and Wendi to feed, and Roo and, particularly, Fergus were noticeably ribby when we got home.

Small Thing, Hopi, and Uno, not so much.

So now the Worker Bees are getting fed five times their usual ration (much to their contentment).

Ducks in a Row

To try and quell the panic slightly, I started putting the ducks in a row.

• Made an appointment for Fergus to have his feet glued by the excellent EasyCare Crew the Wednesday before the ride. Unfortunately, I've no idea what size glue-ons to get him, since his feet were such odd sizes in May for NASTR 75. Will hopefully work on this (and what sparsies he needs that I'll carry on the saddle) this coming weekend so I can get them ordered in a timely fashion to avoid back-of-mind-fretting.
• Called Skito to figure out where the new saddle pad foams had gotten to. Turns out they'd delivered them about 30 minutes before I called, so Cinderella Roo now has new pad fixings to protect his poor bald-spotted back. And Fergus will have a spare pad if he needs it.
• Started thinking about what tights to wear - keeping in mind my legs were rubbed to crap at 20MT 100 from my tights being too baggy. This might have been from trying to keep Fergus to an artificially slow pace to match our riding partner's slow-but-steady get-the-job-done tempo. This is, admittedly, less likely to happen at Tevis, but all the same it was an alarming thing to have happen. I have two pairs of identical green tights. I wore one pair at Tevis and I wore one pair at 20 MT. Must try them on back-to-back and make sure they really are identical. 
• Figured out a cunning bra + sports bra arrangement to wear that will negate the need for a modest cami top (which makes my tummy hot) under my sunshirt. I will try it this weekend and see if it works or if wearing a double bra makes me chafe and feel like I can't breathe. 

Other things that need doing:

• Figure out a driver for the rig from (ideally) Robie to Foresthill, then (icing on the cake) from Foresthill to Auburn Fairgrounds (and once there, set up a horse area by unhinging the Spring Tie, throwing down some shavings, hanging a hay bag, and filling a bucket).
  
  pft says he will do the Robie-FH section if absolutely necessary, but it makes him so anxious and uptight that I hate to do it to him. And it means he has to be up at Robie all day Friday, which he may not want to be, so I'd love to find a way around this.
  
  Ash is happy to drive it from FH to Auburn, but she's also on a time-crunch to get to Lower Quarry to volunteer there, so it would be better if she didn't have to go via Auburn Fairgrounds.
  
  I'm thinking hard about who would be willing to do this, but everyone I think of has other jobs that will require them to be other places during the necessary hours. If anyone reading this would be interested in the task, please let me know and I would be grovellingly grateful. My rig is a 3-H gooseneck with small front housie, and an automatic extended cab chevy. If you can pull a gooseneck, it's pretty much a no-brainer.
• Order glue-on shells, adhere, and sikaflex.
• Check for sparesie boots and make sure I have what I need.
• Check the horse feed situation and make sure I have what I need (how can Tevis only be five weeks away???)
• Figure out some sunglasses. My prescription ones aren't close to my current prescription and are so scratched they are worthless anyway. Either I get a pair of normal ones and go with fuzzy vision, or buy a pair of clip-on ones to go on my glasses. Or I go without (which I do most of the time when riding anyway) and just wear my glasses at night when my vision really deteriorates to the point that I can't recognise if that's one glow-stick or three.
• Make sure I have enough people elytes (many of my capsules have been carried around in a ziploc on the saddle for two years... and are now elyte powder with empty capsules mixed in. Make sure there are really enough for what I need to consume).
• Stop chewing the skin on the ends of my fingers so that they are raw. This doesn't help anything.

Zodi Extreme

Once upon a time I got a Zodi propane shower. It was a wondrous object: all you needed was a bucket of water, a small propane canister, and 4 D batteries and in ten minutes you have a piping hot shower no matter where you were (memories of 2007 - Roo and I were at DVE on our own, trying to do all four days and I have NEVER been so tired in my life. But taking that hot shower in the back of the dark trailer on a 20° night was sheer bliss).

Admittedly, the propane shower didn't get used much. Most of the time you'd be too exhausted after an endurance ride to do more than poke half-heartedly at yourself with a babywipe [or "Babies Wiped", as one iPhone post translated it to] - afterall, you'd be home in 24 hours and could surely remain grubby for that long. It's not like the horse cares.

It also transpired that many times you'd fiddle around and set it up, only to find that the battery pack had stopped working, or the pump was stuck.

Finally during this last trip to Moab, the pump seized up solid and despite prodding and dismantling, it refused to play.

pft and I spent some time at the weekend looking at various pumps online to try and cobble together a bodge and finally concluded, after reading numerous bad reviews, that yes, battery water pumps aren't all they're cracked up to be.

But, by the Magnificence of Amazon, we did find a perfect work around - arm-power. We ordered ourselves a "Zodi Extreme" for Christmas. This may not have the technological advancements of batteries and pumps, but it's so basic it's almost impossible for it to break. You fill it with water, you light the propane underneath it (or you can balance it on your normal stove). When the water is hot, you poke the pump in the top and pump 10-20 times - and voila - a hot shower. No batteries. No pumps. No mechanical thingies to fail.

It's here! Ordered Saturday morning, arrived Monday morning. Not bad.

From Zodi video, it looks like you can build up quite the pressure on it. All that remains is for us to get a trigger-controlled squirter (as seen in the video) and we'll be set.

It's coming with us on our Christmas camping trip and I will report back how successful a device it is. 

Moab - A Most Excellent Road Trip - Part 1: Getting There

This was one of the more successful trips I've ever done - not quite sure why, but it seemed to go seamlessly with no real difficulties - and the problems we did have were pretty much non-events*. The driving was zen-like, travelling with Renee was fun, the pones seemed to thrive in each others' company despite long hours in the trailer, and the scenery was spectacular.

(* she said, clutching her iPhone, after shredding the trailer tyre on the way home) 

Friday 18th:
Having spent the previous weekend and all week putting things in the trailer, predictably still not everything was packed when I was finished with work on Friday afternoon. I'd managed to work at home that day and ran out around midday and to give both pones a bath - large amounts of scummy pink water came off so I was glad I was able to get that done. Afterwards they got put in sheets to try and stay clean. Uno looked quite smart in a large purple number that I'd acquired for Fergus, while Roo looked ridiculous stuffed into a tiny red sheet that was supposed to be for Small Thing. Lots of bucking ensued as soon as I put them away again (wondered if maybe those leg straps were just a little too tight for Roo) and both predictably rolled excessively but only managed to re-coat the bits that stuck out (more bits on Roo than Uno), not the all important saddle area.

Finally got done and loaded them up around 9 p.m. We arrived at Renee's in Reno at 11:30 p.m. to below freezing temperatures - erk - but the pones seemed pretty smug in their new temporary digs (plenty of food to eat, sand to run around on) and Uno had an admirer in Renee's new pone Jiffilube.

Uno and Jiffilube compare notes. Why does Uno look so butt-high? I swear he isn't.

Saturday 19th:

Being dynamic, Renee and I finally got going around 9:00 a.m. after installing her stuff, loading up the three horses, and filling up with diesel and Starbucks. We took nearly seven bales of hay with us... and came home with two and half. Apparently you don't need as much hay when Fergus isn't joining us.

We then proceeded to drive and drive and drive and...

I-80 headed east isn't exactly stressful driving - there's very little traffic and very little steering involved.

We got to watch the scenery go by - such as the interestingly-named "Pumpernickel Valley" which sounded like it should be full of dwarfs but in reality looked fairly barren (plenty windy on the way home, though):

and Death Star Valley (this I read while not wearing my glasses and thought "really?!?"):

A little east of Battle Mountain, after 260 miles, we stopped briefly at a rest stop to let them out to graze and walk. Unlike those in CA, NV rest stops don't have a manicured lawn on which to parade the horses and let them roll, so this was the best we could do, dodging the trash:

Although lacking in running water (trying to stuff a small bucket under the tap in the bathroom kind of worked, but in any case only Bite sipped from it), we did come across this interesting marker which made the stop worthwhile:

We stopped in Wendover, on the edge of the Great Salt Lake, for diesel and the pones got a drink and some carrots. The ag station was just after Wendover and we were duly weighed (I think 9600 lb ish for the trailer) and went inside to fill out the form for our Coggins information.

The Great Salt Lake is a strange source of fascination - something so big and alien. Whenever I've crossed it, I always think of the con-man Landsford Hastings telling the Donner Party "It's just a day's wagon ride to get to the other side"... yeah, right (it's 80 miles, give or take). 

By 7:30 p.m. the pones were safely ensconced in the free corrals at Cabelas in Lehi - perfect (we had a contingency plan to continue on to the fairgrounds in Spanish Fork if necessary, although the guy told us we needed to pre-book since they keep their corrals locked. We figured at worse we could pull in and hang the pones off their spring-ties). Staying at Cabelas was totally stress-free and they have running water right there. It was well-lit and there were maybe a dozen or so RVs also camping out, so we weren't isolated. In the morning we took the pones on a tour of the deserted parking lot before re-loading them.

Renee surprised me that evening by whipping up a supper of tortellini and I thought "I could get used to this" - and - amazement of amazements (and one of the best parts of the trip) - she did the cooking the whole trip. It was wonderful. I don't think she has any idea how grateful I was that she did this. Thanks Renee!!

Sunday 20th:
After a detour to "the last Starbucks in civilisation", off we went to find hwy-6, the road that cuts through the mountains towards Green River. I'd never gone that way before and it was absolutely beautiful - definitely the best time of year to take in the good colours.

Interesting sights along the way included:

Gorgeous tapestry of colours (somewhat muted by the grubby windscreen. We stopped at the first available opportunity to clean it, but those bugs were stuck on there pretty good.)

Wind turbines just outside Spanish Fork. We are pretty sure Siri on iPhone gave us bum information regarding the turn onto hwy-6 - telling us one exit number, then quickly changing it the moment we got to the inauspicious exit, but not soon enough to prevent us having to make a 3 mile detour south to turn around.

This was near the curiously-name Starvation Road

We saw a livestock guardian dog by the side of the road. Initially, Renee, who was driving, thought it was an abandoned dog and wanted to stop... but as we got closer we saw it was enjoying a hearty meal of road-kill deer entrails, totally oblivious to its at-risk flock on the opposite side of the road,  milling about by a steep creek bed and getting closer and closer to being obliterated on the highway. 

After Price, the road opens out onto a huge plain surrounded by high mesas.

Nearly to Moab - what a most excellent place!

Finally at Christoph and Dian's place in Moab

Stats (Mileage/Diesel/Driving Hours):

Garden Valley - Reno
130 miles
11.1 mpg (up over the Sierra)
12 gallons diesel

Reno - Lehi
565 miles
13.4 mpg
42 gallons diesel

Lehi - Moab
231 miles
13.2 mpg
17 gallons diesel

Garden Valley - Moab = Total 16 hours driving

Packing for Moab

Currently in the midst of packing for the upcoming ten day trip to Moab. This is harder than usual—not just because we'll be gone for ten days—but also because there will be three horses in the trailer, so no front stall to dump "everything else" into. And the entire truck bed will be full of bales of hay (how much hay can three horses eat?).

Renee and I decided we needed to morph our trucks and trailers - I need her trailer hay rack, she needs my three Spring-Ties; I need the whizzy-doohickies* on her truck for better fuel-mileage, she needs my longbed for extra hay haulage. Anyway, it turns out my truck and trailer are the ones that fit everything we need, so that's what we're taking.

pft has been busy this week rigging up a cigarette lighter socket-thingy* in the trailer so that we can charge our phones in the comfort of the housie instead of having to leave them in the truck, and replacing the hinges on the housie door. We already did the tack-room ones a year or so ago when they disintegrated. Now the housie door ones are starting to "feel funny*" when you open and close the door. Anyway, as usual, the trailer gets its upgrade mere days before its due to do the latest long trip and I thank pft kindly for his time.

(* technical terms)

Yesterday Uno and Roo got their health certificates at the vet in Auburn - $53 each - ca-ching. Today the freshly-blued portapotty got packed, along with boots, blankies (one has gone AWOL... no idea where), and bags of shavings (and I also found—score—a new set of Skito pad foams in a defunct Woolback pad while looking for the AWOL blankie, which is good given the state of my current foam inserts - can you say "past their sell-by"?). Tomorrow I visit the library for a big pile of books-on-CD, and fetch suitable food items from the supermarket. And pack clothes. And...

We've got plenty of contingency plans about where to overnight and when, depending on how far we want to drive each day. I know Uno doesn't eat great in the trailer, so we'll need to stop periodically for him (although the other times I've hauled him long distances he was on his own, so maybe having a couple of buddies will help that). Roo, I'm not concerned about. He just seems to do well regardless.

It is 900 miles from my house to Moab, via Renee's house.

Our current plan (assuming we stay awake long enough) is for me to drive up to Reno after work on Friday evening (130 miles) to pick up Renee and Bite, then on Saturday we drive to a-bit-south-of-Salt-Lake-City (550 miles). Then on Sunday, we'll have a mere 220 miles to drive (through gorgeous Utah scenery, hopefully) - which sounds like a cinch.

Once we get there, it'll remain to be seen which days I actually ride. Ideally all three—endurance gods willing, Roo gets do Day 1 and Day 3, with Uno getting his turn on Day 2. But I still worry about Uno and whether I messed up his feet getting too ambitious over bar removal and that's why he's feeling a bit sluggish... Or is he just unfit... Or is he just not motivated... Or does he have some dread underlying disease... etc, etc... In reality, he was always sluggy when first being brought back to fitness and it miraculously disappears at rides (to be replaced with an "oh my" horse), so I should probably just ride him to get over that hump. This will be his first ride back since being pulled from NASTR 75 in 2011. Given the fact that Roo only just did his first 50 after a three and half year layoff, this probably makes me the slowest person ever to get around to bringing horses back from injuries (I get distracted).

* * *

In other news, my Yarn Bag Thingy™ is crawling along at a rate of about a row a week. It has about 250 stitches per round and will need to be about a foot tall. Once felted, it will shrink to the size of a Barbie shoulder bag.

But I'm sure I'll love it.

Assuming it ever gets finished.