Ft Lewis Challenge

Sept 30, 2023

Roy, WA

At the start of 2023 I had intentions of attending as many rides as possible. Sometimes life has other ideas. We were thinking we would be ride sharing with Dean, and he had challenges this year that prevented him from going to any rides, although I did get to have some great conditioning rides with him. My truck(s) were not up for hauling long distance for various reasons so I was kind of stuck unless something changed. Heather and I had been focused on getting both of us ready to do a 50 mile ride the next time we made it out to an event, and it was really rough as the ride season was dwindling down to a close, that we had done all that conditioning only to not get out to a ride. So a friend of mine, Dayna, agreed to exchange trucks for the weekend so we could go. This all came together fairly quickly and it was so awesome to get to plan a trip out this year!

Friday morning I had hoped to pick up Heather by 10 am. Well that turned into 11 am and I had not remembered about city traffic, the highways were stop and go after we made it over Snoqualmie Pass, and turned what should have been a 5 hour trip into a 7 hour trip. My mom was excited about camping and trying out her new stuff, and lives near the ride, so she made the trip over and beat us to ride camp, and had her stuff all set up by the time we got there! She had a shade tent with these fun little popsicle lights that made a really nice atmosphere once it got dark. She had already made friends with our camp neighbor who was there to do the 15 mile trail ride option.

Heather and the kids and my mom all made quick work of unloading the truck and trailer and setting up camp, and although we had time to vet in, we just ran out of daylight for any kind of pre-ride. (It had also been announced that the base was closed on Friday for any pre-rides on the trails, Heather C had made a pre-ride trail on her on property). It was already dark by the time the ride meeting was over (about 7:30?) so we took the horses for a short walk in-hand instead.

Heather and I were talking about what time we wanted to get up the next day since the trail opened at 7 am for the 50 mile riders. We decided on 5 am. Then I realized it would not be light out and I had not thought to plan for a headlamp by which to get ready. My mom said “oh I bought you something the last time I was in St Regis.” She had gotten me a nice warm hat with a built in head-lamp! Talk about perfect timing. So I wore that all night to keep my head warm, and used the lamp going to the bathroom at night and also getting ready in the morning to see by.

At ride meeting we discussed the trail loops. First the 50s would be doing the red/white loop of 15 miles, then blue/white 10 miles, then pink/blue 15 miles and to finish it out the purple/white 10 mile loop. All holds in camp would be 30 minutes long. Heather C (the ride manager), and Andrea had mentioned the possibility of “bees.” What they really meant by that were ground hornets. Or wasps? I am not sure of their official title but they lived in the ground and they were nasty and aggressive. The trouble is, the first horse trotting over or near their nest stirs them up, then any following horses get attacked. They stressed not to travel in large groups. They said you could outrun them, or go off trail to avoid them, or just plan to travel solo. The other thing we talked about a bit was the iSportsman account. Because this ride is on a military base, everyone had to have a pass to use the trails. We were supposed to check in and then check out when we were done, online, on their website. I had some anxiety about that all night long.

Before everyone went to bed they also went around and announced that the government shut down had also affected the Sunday ride and the base would be closed. Heather and I had not committed to riding Sunday so it was not a dealbreaker for us but it was frustrating to some. All told it was a little overwhelming with the bees and the pass, I was glad I was a seasoned endurance rider willing to just go with the flow.

First thing I realized at camp was that the only thing I had for my feet was the sneakers I drove over in. I had planned to pack both my muck boots and my Ariats (riding boots). I had not managed to bring either. The shoes I had are totally worn out, they have many holes in them. However, I had ridden in them before and knew it was going to be OK if that was the worst thing I forgot. I had intended to make haystacks for dinner but I never did get around to it. Heather heated up some hot water, I made a cup of noodles, and then chatted with mom for about an hour before heading to bed, probably around 9 pm.

I had taken my couch cushions to sleep on. Heather’s tent was quite large so I bunked with her. Levi had his own little tent, and my mom had her own little tent, and Ellie slept in the backseat of the pickup.

As we headed out on our first 15 mile loop I was full of emotions. I found myself getting teary through parts of the ride off and on. We walked the couple hundred yards down the road to the entrance of the trails and I could see Ellie with her cameras, wishing us well. After a short bit of walking we picked up a trot and followed the red/white ribbons which in many places had faded so much it was sometimes pink and white, or just plain white. We also had a GPS downloaded of the trail and consulted it a couple of times but overall the trails at this ride are very well marked, and mostly well established, the only places you question if there is a trail is through the scotch broom, which at times is as tall as the horses’ heads!

The red/white loop took us down a fair amount of gravel roads, which may bother some people, but for us it is similar to what we train on at home, only flat, so it was easy and we didn’t have to worry about the “bees” on the roads. Turning off the gravel road we went through tall scotch broom. They had mentioned at ride camp “don’t walk through the scotch broom” so we trotted and tried to stay on trail but it was tall and we slalomed a bit. Then through the ferns in the forest and past downed trees, twisting and turning and ending back up on the gravel road again, we rode past a large field that was black from the remnants of fire. I think early on Heather’s horse had been stung once or twice when she was following me. We crossed a bridge on the gravel road, passed a water stop, and then onto double track dirt trails through the woods. We went through more scotch broom, and came out onto another gravel road, eventually encountering a couch that was just left out there, it was sad to see stuff dumped out on the base. A short distance from the couch was a steep downhill, which surprised me since this ride is almost entirely flat! It was not very long and Amira basically slid down on her hindquarters with no issue.

After the hill we had a very long stretch of double track alongside a fence with a railroad track running parallel to us. I hoped that was not an active rail line, but we did not encounter any trains. We crossed a road and then we saw more trash piles – broken glass, metal frames and pots and pans! Some of them still looked quite useable. More double track dirt trails and then we came to a downed tree across the path. I’m guessing it fell recently since otherwise the trails were very clear. We made our way around/over this without issues. After that we had some tight single track through the woods, followed by another section on the gravel roads, more scotch broom, more single track through the woods, then double track and before long we were back at the beginning of the trail, but it ran us to the left on a double track dirt path parallel to the road, so we came out on the other side of the gate to ride camp. Most trails went out the same direction and came in from the other side which was nice to avoid too much head-on activity.

Pulling into the vet check I called out my number “201” but the volunteer said no, she only takes numbers from me, I need your vet card. I pulled out my card and handed it to her and she called it out that we were in at 9:56. I thought we were doing pretty well, we had averaged just slightly better then 5 mph on that loop and were within our parameters to finish. I walked Amira over to the water and she drank well, then I was fussing with her, trying to get her to eat some oats and I realized Heather had moved on to the vet check. I decided to go get in line for that and let her eat back at the trailer. I was surprised when Dr Mike gave us mostly As on her gut sounds, this is an area we have been struggling with but she passed all her other criteria and we headed to camp. The holds were only 30 minutes and I knew that would go by really quickly so I removed her bridle and turned Amira over to Ellie to “coddle” as she puts it, she was offered her mash, apples, carrots, water, grass and alfalfa hay. I don’t think she ate much of it, she would rather nap in the sun as it was starting to warm up. Due to the temps rising a bit, I removed her rump rug for the rest of the ride. I used the restroom, and put a Nuun tab into some Gatorade and chugged that. I also ate a banana and a boiled egg, and packed an energy gel for later. Since Ellie was looking after Amira, I had no reason not to look after myself and I wanted to finish strong.

Heather is great at keeping track of time and we headed out to the timers to start our blue/white loop of 10 miles after our 30 min hold.

The second loop of blue/white was my favorite loop at rides here last year. It has a lot of scotch broom (which last year was more of a novelty and more fun, this time it was more annoying LOL), double track dirt trails and lots of single track that winds around and through the forest, tons of ferns, lots of fall colors on the trees. Unfortunately about half way through this loop in the woods, both horses got attacked by the ground hornets. We were just trotting along about 7 mph and Amira started tossing her head and thrashing her tail and bouncing around a little. I said “uh oh, BEES!” and right about then Heather looked up and saw my horse reacting and was already on top of them before she could even think about going off trail to try and avoid them. By this time I had gotten up the trail far enough to get away from them and looked back and saw Amelia and Heather struggling and I said “Come on Amelia! Get going” and they were able to trot on up to where I was and we continued on but Heather was visibly shaken and asked to take the lead for awhile, I was happy to oblige. That was scary as the horses reaction was pretty intense and we were both hoping no one was going to get seriously injured as a result. The ground hornets were ready for us on this loop because it had already been traversed by the 25 milers and the 50s that were in the lead, it was shared trail on both distances, as well as the trail riders. As we went along I was noticing both blue/white and pink/blue ribbons on sections of the trail and realized it would be shared trail with our upcoming 15 mile loop for the 3rd outing as well.

We pulled back into camp for our 2nd hold of the day at XXX time. Amira was drinking really well at the water stops but still not very interested in the oat float or other roughage around the vet check unless I handed it to her. She pulsed down within about 5 minutes and we headed straight to the vet check. Dr Mike had a chuckle over her exhibiting the flehmen response (upper lip curl) every time he checked her capillary refill. “Haven’t had a horse do that in months” he said. Again she vetted through just fine, but her gut scores were lower as I expected.

Heather W overheard another rider talking to the ride manager Heather C about the possibility of re-riding the red/white loop of 15 miles instead of tackling the pink/blue and going through the ground wasps again if it could be avoided. The AERC rules say in order to ride for a placement you have to do the same trail. However, if you cover the same distance you can ride for a completion only instead. I have seen people do this in the past when they ride the loop the wrong direction, and there may be other reasons too. Heather asked me how I would feel about doing that, since we were riding together, would I mind riding for completion only since we were not riding for top ten? I told her I would much rather complete then deal with wasps again, and I could see the stress melt from her face.

We had another repeat of the first hold time, Ellie took care of Amira, this time putting her mane in sections to help with cooling; and I took care of myself. I found more to eat, and drank more Gatorade. I refilled my hydration pack since I ran out of water around 3 miles from the vet check this time. I was going to eat another hardboiled egg, but my mom had left ride camp for the day and I thought she had the cooler in her car. If only I had looked around better I would have found that she left it behind for me! Oh well. Heather gave me one of her Hammer gel packs to try, I decided to use that about halfway through this 15 mile loop.

As we were heading back out we let the timers know who we were and that we were going to re-ride the red/white loop for a completion only. If you ever change anything about your ride you have to let people know so if you don’t come back when expected, they know where to start looking for you!

This second pass at the red/white loop went smoothly and things were going SO WELL that I had confidence that we were rocking it and would complete our first attempt at 50 miles with zero issues. I should not have jinxed it. There was a section of trail through the trees and the single track dirt path had a little bit of a gulley, Amira was not watching where she was going and when the trail fell away, or rose up unexpectedly, I am not entirely sure which threw her off, she tripped and stumbled and scrambled for what felt like two strides before regaining her upright position going down the trail at a trot the whole time. She kept going along with her ears up and maintaining her speed so I had no reason to think anything was amiss. We had another mile or two to the vet check and she was eager to get back. We walked the last couple hundred yards to camp, I got my card out and dismounted, led her to the water and she drank and then we went to the vet line. The vet had us trot down and back and I heard him murmur something about “not sure about that right fore, and maybe the left hind, hard to tell… will you come watch this horse trot out with me?” So then both vets watched her trot and now that I realized something was wrong, I glanced over and could see her favoring the right fore. Later Ellie told me that the first time we trotted out it was questionable and the second time it was very obvious that she was lame. Just that quickly the adrenaline wore off. The vets conferred and decided the fair thing to do would be to allow us to take the 30 minutes for our hold time, and come back and present to them again before they pulled her from the ride.

What can I say? I was fighting back tears. I knew she was probably not going to recover in 30 minutes and my ride was likely over. I pulled her bridle and Ellie worked on getting her to eat. We let her rest and I ate some more and behaved in a way that would allow me to do another 10 miles, just in case. Well it was not to be, it only took a short trot out for the vet to stop me and say “Sorry, she is lame” and told the scribe to write down “grade 3 lameness” as the reason for the pull.

Heather headed out on the final loop – purple/white 10 miles – without us. I took off Amira’s tack and Ellie sponged her down and scrubbed the sweat off of her. She had about 5-6 lumps on her rump that I guessed were from the hornet stings. About that time my mom and son returned from their adventuring in a nearby town, and I passed the time chatting with mom under the shade tent she had brought and set up. It was hot in the sun, so she moved her car to shade me, and then I got the chills and had to move back into the sun. (eyeroll)

Heather arrived back in camp in 5th place (if she had been riding for placement) and reported that it was a beautiful loop, she had seen Mt Rainer and a lone coyote! Amelia vetted through and she got her completion! I was happy that at least one of us could finish the 50 miles.

That evening they had another ride meeting, which surprised me because the government had closed the trails for Sunday. As it turns out, they got an extension, so the trails were once again open for Sunday. However the ride management made some changes, they were eliminating the 2 shared trails with the most hornets. So if you were doing distance you would be repeating trails. Better to be safe than sorry. They read off the placements for the 25 mile distance and then the 50s. Apparently there were only 14 starters in the 50. Four of us had been pulled or rider optioned out so everyone who finished would have been top ten, if it weren’t for the people who decided to take completions only. Prizes for this ride were: completions got a choice of drink cozy or sponge, top ten got to choose a halter or bucket in addition to the cozy and sponge. Since I had entered the 50 they let me have a completion prize and I chose a sponge. It is really flat in the package so I am curious to see how much it absorbs when I use it.

It started getting chilly as soon as the sun started to go down, so I put a heavy winter blanket on Amira as she was starting to shiver. My mom made some hotdogs for dinner and we sat around and talked for awhile. Heather and I walked the horses around camp to stretch their legs before tucking them in for the night.

Sunday morning we packed up camp and then took Amira back over to Dr Mike Foss to see what he had to say about her lameness. He did a series of flexion tests on her and determined the problem wasn’t in the hoof or leg at all, rather she exhibited pain when he pressed on her neck/shoulder area. He recommended giving her a couple weeks off and if she was still having a problem to look into acupuncture or a chiropractor for horses. I thanked him for his time and we loaded up and hit the road, after offering water 3x to Amira and she declined.

We thankfully did not encounter as much traffic heading home, and we unloaded at Heather’s place around 5 pm. After I unloaded Amira at home, I held her to the front yard for a bit for grazing before taking her back to her pasture. The grass is better there and I wanted to gauge her appetite before getting distracted with putting everything away. She was eager to graze, so after 5-10 minutes I took her back to her pen. She drank water, and after I took off her halter she went cantering away and acted like she wanted to roll by Sinwaan’s grave. She knelt down and as she was scratching her head on the ground, then hopped up and changed her mind, went cantering over to the main water tank, drank more water, then went over to her dirt area and had a nice roll. After that she cantered back over to the other side of the pasture and finally started grazing. She was full of energy and I think tired of being cooped up in the little trailer stall. Once I was sure that she was fine I unloaded the trailer, then unhooked it, and went to get some food.

Afterwards I picked up Heather, and we returned Dean’s portable corral panels. After that I had to return Dayna’s truck and encountered a porcupine in the middle of Detour Road!

Even though I am sad that I did not complete our first 50 mile ride, I am very thankful for the opportunity to make it out to this ride, and trying to stay positive that we did in fact finish 40 miles and we were doing well enough to have finished had we not tripped and turned up lame. It was a really fun weekend with family, my mom made camp so homey and inviting, my kids got to experience camping, Ellie did a fantastic job juggling crewing and photography/videography for me, Heather is the best coach I could ask for and a great friend. I am so blessed to have everyone in my life that makes it possible for me to attempt these goals – Dean, Maureen, Dayna, and so many others, thank you!