Absolutely stunnin scenery!!! Wow, I am jealous of you! :eek: 
Great photos!
Yep, the angling down the ditch thing really worked for me. I hated that sick feeling in the bottom of my gutt when you just know the horse is about to launch 3 feet in the air over 6 inches of water. Mine too will go right in the chest deep river, no problem. But those little puddles are the devil.
Our hills come with warning signs! :lol: :lol:
Yup. Or time already has taken a toll.
Very first thing I was ever told by an old girlfriend (she wasn’t old then:lol:) about riding upon getting one of her youngish horses, was to try not to canter the horse downhill.
It seemed odd to me – the horse seemed happy enough to go anywhere I sort of pointed it – but I figured it was a balance thing. [What business I had cantering a horse at all my first time on is a total mystery, but when you’re very young who thinks of hazards? Especially when your companion who knows what they are doing seems okay with it…]
Twenty years later I had surgery to repair a torn meniscus on my left knee. My house then had one floor and so it wasn’t until I went back to work a couple days later that I encountered stairs. Going up, a little sore, no problem. Going down, thought I was going to die until I shifted all my weight between the left handrail and my right leg. Even then just the weight of the leg pulling on the knee was painful and the thing would swell in a heartbeat.
I ride a 20 y.o. Arab who was, I am told, hell on wheels in his youth, but for the past few years has some arthritis in his hocks and gets regular bute and joint supplements/treatments.
He will go up anything at any gait – on a hot day he’s not quite so zippy, but then neither am I – and is game to go downhill at any gait as well if the grade is mild.
If the grade is steep going downhill, however, he becomes very wary even at a walk, despite my being well balanced to distribute the weight, or even with me on the ground leading him. There is a fairly steep grade leading from the barn and ring down into the fields where I ride, but it a large expanse and so I zig-zag him three or four times to gentle the slope and distribute it more side-to-side. We cover about four times as much ground but this works fine.
This may sometimes be inconvenient but helps to remind me no matter which horse I ride that it is a living creature under me who can’t be ridden the way I might drive a car near the hairy edge of its stability capabilities and specs.
And my experience from my knee surgery reminds me that it isn’t just that he doesn’t feel like pushing his limits, but that it can bloody hurt if I try.:eek: Gave me some empathy for the ambulation difficulties of old people, too.:yes:
[QUOTE=Auventera Two;2720298]
Our hills come with warning signs! :lol: :lol:[/QUOTE]
:lol: :lol: That is a “hill”? :lol: :lol: :lol: Now my morning tea is on my keyboard :lol: :lol:
LOL! No, the hill is down the trail just a bit. The part shown is the very top of the hill. There are some pretty steep ones on that trail. Nothing like riding in the mountains, but for us they’re decent sized hills.
OMG, those are your riding trails?? Absolutely gorgeous!!!
Is there room at the inn? 
I don’t eat a lot, I swear and my pony is an easy keeper… pleezzz?
Gorgeous countryside! I can see why you’d be concerned about hills, since they all look relatively steep (depending on your location–GTD probably think’s their mere bumps in the road). It looks like you could switchback them.
I still think your horse will tell you when the grade is too steep for comfort. Your best bet is to let your horse tell you how to handle the hill. You’ve gotta be the brains, but the brain has to listen to the input from all the parts of the body.
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