Mounted Orienteering

(The following post is being written by dear daughter E!)

The day started with mom waking me up at 4:30 a.m. - it was horrible. I hate getting up early. We got all our stuff together, went out to the barn and brushed Curly. My friend's mom picked us up at 6:00 and it was supposed to be a long hour and a half truck ride to the trail site. We made a couple of wrong turns but got there by 8:15.

There were a lot less people than I expected - only 5 trailers or so. We got our horses saddled up and started riding off to find plate number 10 first. In orienteering they give you 3 clues (like "320 degrees west from the culvert") and we would have to put our compasses on that and walk a straight line. The lines from the 3 clues would cross and that is where the plate would be. On the plate there were 2 words like "swift antelope" and we would have to put the first word from the plate on our map to prove that we actually found the plate.

Number 10 was in a little valley and was pretty easy to find - mostly because I didn't find it! Curly was kinda antsy and wanted to go faster than I wanted him to. The next few plates were a little harder to find. One was inside a tractor, another was taped on a water tower and one was hidden behind a post. By that time Curly had calmed down mostly. It was really rocky and there were a lot of badger holes we had to look out for. Curly actually stepped in two in a row. It was also very hilly - I'm now sore from having to lean in the saddle as we went up and down them.

It started raining when we were looking for plate number 2. It was a really deep valley and the plate was down at the very bottom of it. The trail started to get muddy. Then on one side, the valley had a sheer drop, covered in rocks, about 50 feet, and the other side was too steep to climb. So we had to do down this trail that wasn't much wider than our horses. Then the trail just stopped suddenly in front of us on a cliff. I was really scared at this point. I kept thinking about how bad it hurt when Curly fell on me.

So then everyone decided we should get to the top of the ridge. I had to lead Curly up it. He was drenched in sweat and tired. All the horses were, actually. We got to the top and decided it was too wet and cold to finish the last 3 plates. We were the last ones back to camp and we had been riding for over 5 hours.

Then we found out that we didn't have to go all over those valleys and ridges and stuff. It would have been easier if we had come back to camp and gone around from the beginning of the trail. Oh well. It was still really fun. I found out later that this was one of the hardest and longest rides of the year.

I really want to do orienteering again. Next ride is in May at Bennington Lake. Should be much easier.

Mom back in: Sure hope we have a second horse by then 'cause I really want to try this sport out. :-)