The Cayuse endurance ride (Road to Tevis # 60)

Last weekend Fantazia and I earned our third AERC 50 mile ride completion (on top of four 50 mile WDRA completions last spring) at the new Cayuse endurance ride (see website here). It was a beautiful–if very cold–ride! Fantazia did GREAT, especially considering I went hopelessly off course on the second “loop.” (We did an extra 4.2 miles per my Garmin!) More on my monumental ability to lose the trail below…

One of the funnest things about the Cayuse ride was that it was composed of a series of out-and-back trails. This meant I could take pictures of a lot of people as they rode towards me. Especially in the morning! In the afternoon, I rode the second out-and-back while everyone else did (correctly) the first one, so I didn’t see many people and by the time I did, my phone was almost out of battery.

Anyway, scroll down for a short ride narrative and many pictures. Feel free to download any you like, or ask me to send you a larger file.

Jump to:

The location
Loop 1
Loop 2

Professional photos:

Lynne Glazer was the REAL photographer at the ride! Her pictures will be available here, hopefully by the time I share this post.

The location

All proceeds from the Cayuse endurance ride will benefit the Central Coast Heritage Tree Foundation. Cayuse Ranch, the location of ride camp and our starting point for the rides, is full of Valley Oaks and Blue Oaks, many in distress due to drought. The morning loop (LDs and first loop for the 50s) started on Cayuse and proceeded along Santa Margarita Lake (county park). The second loop for the 50s started in Cayuse ranch and had two out-and-backs into the Parson ranch and the Shae ranch.

The area is gorgeous, with amazing rock formations and native plants. Besides oaks, the area has at least two different species of dudleya, a plant with which I am obsessed. Between the mist rising off the lake, the rocks, and the plants, I spent a lot of time taking photographs and videos!

Above: Pictures from my pre-ride on Friday afternoon.

The bad part was that it was cold. REALLY cold. And we couldn’t make fires. I was very lucky in my ride camp neighbors though– Vicky Torres invited me to have chili with them within a few minutes of meeting me. I got to have a nice warm dinner and fun conversation with Vicky, her husband Tom, Rebecca, and Danny. (The best part of endurance rides: meeting new people! Which soon turns into reuniting with old friend….)

Still, it was cold!

Thank goodness for the bonfire at the ride meeting, and my very warm sleeping bag. I put my winter riding tights on the night before and slept in them. (I should add to the old post about Performa tights–I love the heavier winter ones!) Not for the first time, I forgot to put the trailer ramp up, which was a mistake–It gets covered in frost and is slippery. That happened last March at the snowy Coso Junction ride.

The 50 started at 6am, so I had to get up at five… Freezing! I really do need to get a small space heater for when I get up on cold mornings. As usual, I had bioled water the night before and poured it into my old but excellent Thermos. It was barely warm enough to make pour-over oatmeal! It proved useful when we got back to camp after the first 25 miles though. Fantazia’s beet pulp and alfalfa pellet mash had frozen in less than four hours–while INSIDE the trailer!

Above: Fantazia had frosted whiskers! And this was after it had warmed up enough for me to want to get off and get a good photo!

Loop 1 (Cayuse endurance ride LD and first loop of 50s)

Yes, loop 1 was very cold. We started in the dark, and as usual, Fantazia and I went in front. At first we went with someone, but after abotu a mile pulled ahead for quite a while, following faint, dying glow sticks. Fortunately, there were volunteers with headlamps (or flashlights) standing at strategic places. When I could see no glow sticks, I’d wait for a flash of light and then ride towards it.

Riding in the dark was occasionally scary, always cold, but also exciting and beautiful, and soon enough the blackness turned to grey. Other riders started passing me. (I have found that Fantazia does best if we allow people to pass rather than follow. She goes nuts when she can see another mounted horse in front of her, especially if we are gaining on them.) After a while fog came up. The views of Santa Margarita Lake were amazing.

Above: Pictures of the lake. Below, a short video taken while riding along it.

The first loop followed the lake for a first long out-and-back, then, when we were nearly back to camp, we went out and back once more. See the image below for the recording my Garmin made of our trail. (I forgot to turn it on at first….)

The nice thing about the out-and-back design was that I could take a lot of pictures of other riders.

Fantazia did great on the first loop. She got a bit excited when we started gaining on people who ahd already passed us (typical), but she was easily ratable the entire way. I stopped many times to take pictures, and she put up with it. Unwillingly, maybe, but she did stand still! The pictures I took of other riders were often on the go….

Coming up on Lynne….

More pictures of riders…

Some dudleya:

You can hear my happiness at finding dudleya in th video below 😉 Other riders stopped to take pictures in front of that amazing rock wall (shared on Facebook). I wonder if they too noticed the dudleya?

The out-vet-check on Loop 1

Fantazia was at 60 when we rode in (I had dismounted to lead her, and we’d been going relatively slowly). She got all A’s on her vet card, with CRI of 60/56. Excellent!

Below: The turn-around point for the second out-and-back on Loop 1:

And the rest of the pictures of other riders from the morning loop (and my shadow!)

The second loop (for the 50s) at the Cayuse Endurance Ride

Fantazia and I completed the first loop at 9:25. She was below 60 when I rode in. It was still very cold! I used the hot water lef tin my thermos to unfreeze her mash–not that she ate it! She did eat alfalfa the entire time. I had a peanut butter and raspberry jam sandwich. We were both strong for the second loop, and not long behind the leaders. Close enough, I thought, that it would be worth it to stand for BC, despite being a featherweight.

That was until I went completely off-course.

The second half of the Cayuse endurance ride 50 started on Cayuse Ranch. Then it did an out-and-back onto Parsons Ranch. After that, it did an out-and-back onto Shay (Shae?) ranch, before finally returing to Cayuse and looping around to ride camp. Fantazia and I had ridden the last little loop, with all the prepared glow-sticks, Friday afternoon. I was sure I’d be able to find my way back to camp, and that was, indeed, always true.

Above: the recording from my Garmin of loop two. You can see how I flounder around, riding back and forth, infuriating my horse and adding over four miles to our ride!

My alternative route

I was riding alone, as usual on the second loop. I like to ride alone, but I do get lost more frequently. Although I had ridden out only about five minutes after the person before me, she went quite a bit faster. And no one was close behind me, so when I got confused and completely missed the turn off to Parson’s, no one could save me. I did suspect I was wrong, and rode back and forth in the general area, but I couldn’t see any ribbons along the correct path. (Sadly and foolishly, I had not brought my map, though to be honest, I don’t think it would have helped much.)

Instead, I continued towards Shay. I found what was obviously destined to be the vet check, but it was deserted. Water, tables…. At that moment I knew I must be wrong, but I thought the best thing would be to continue the clear path to Shay.

I saw several vehicles heading to the vet hold while I was on the Shay loop. At the turnaround one of the vets (wish I knew his name! I am terrible at remembering names!) and his scribe drove up. They were lost too; I pointed them towards the vet hold area and said I’d see them soon.

Above: The turn-around and card bag at the end of the Shay out-and-back.

In the end, Fantazia vetted through when we got back. All As, again, and a CRI of 56/52. That would be more impressive if we hadn’t been going slowly and stopping a lot! The vet told me to just find the Parsons loop and ride it next. I’d have done the same distance, just in a different order.

Above: I didn’t take many pictures on loop 2, and only this one video, taken before I realized just how off-track I had gone!

Of course, I was incapable of that simple feat, despite talking to several people coming down the trail who had already successfully completed the Parsons section of the trail! Instread, I passed the turn-off and rode over two mailes back towards camp, when I found Megan coming out from ride camp. She was certain she hadn’t passed the turn-off to Parsons, so I turned around and headed back out with her. Thank goodness, I might have given up if I had gotten all the way back to camp…

To make a long story short, Fantazia and I got our completion! Fantazia was again at 60 when we walked into camp at 3pm, though her CRI ten minutes later was 56/60. Other than that, and a maybe a B on upper gut on one side (typical of her), she was great.

I was going to stay the night, but the thought of getting up to another frozen morning changed my mind. Before leaving, I spoke with Dana Tryde, the ride manager, about native plants, thanked her for a wonderful ride, and agreed to email suggestions re trail markings (hahaha).

After packing up, I loaded Fantazia and headed home around 4:20. Plan to be back next year!

Below: A video prepared by saddlemaker Samantha Huston. Not sure if it will show up if you aren’t a Facebook person, but it’s really cool. She caught Fantazia waiting for me ground-tied outside a portapotty!