Do that! If I can, I’d be willing to head up there again (though October is practically booked already, and I’m not sure if gun hunting will interfere with trail riding at that time…I guess gun season doesn’t start til around Thanksgiving?).
Advance warning…
Don’t try for October 20th through 22nd. The 2006 AERC National Endurance Championship is going to be held in the Massanutten with ridecamp at Fort Valley stables (already booked solid that weekend). Those trails will be FULL of 50 and 100 mile endurance riders cruising along at a pace that will knock your socks off. I would simply cross that whole week off the list.
My suggestion is to go the week after – the trails will be VERY defined then (if you know what I mean) since 100-150+ horses the weekend before will have hit every mile of the 72 miles of trail in the Fort Valley area on the Massanutten. If you attempt the weekend/week before you may run into trail clearing teams or others working on getting the trails ready for the Nat’l Champ’ship.
yup, i had meant that I am booked almost all of October with trail riding and foxhunting “must do” dates! Ain’t it fun!
GTD, you ARE a writer, yes?? If not, then you are missing your calling, m’dear. Your style speaks to the soul. (No kidding, you took me there). You are a very treasurable writer!
MULE, well now, that sure didn’t take you long, sounds like you’re lusting to get back there. So come on, what’d you do, get home, unpack, take a shower, sleep a night or two grateful you weren’t dead, and then start itching to get back there again? (GTD hints at that tendency.) LOL!
MULE, now I am totally intrigued about mules! Could you tell us more about them? From the photos, I must say, I did kind of fall in love with yours. Tell us what they’re like. Their good points, their not-so-good traits, health issues, whatever. It may be just me, but I really don’t know beans about mules.
JJ
JoJo: I didn’t even unpack the trailer all the way, LOL! And I’m not gonna…less to put back in…only the perishables and need-it-everyday stuff came out. Yes I DO want to go back to FV already…heck, I wanted to stay for a few more days but couldn’t. I LOVE this whole riding/camping thing…more than foxhunting, really. I plan to go somewhere at least once a month during good riding weather.
I know I started this thread oh so many bajillion pages ago, but don’t want to hijack it by carrying on about mules here…I’ll start another thread shortly in Off Course that quotes your question about mules and I"ll respond there…then other folks with mule opinions can notice our discussion and join in!
Edited to add: Here’s the mule thread for JoJo.
I want to go horse camping again, too. Unfortunately, Mr. Fancy has vacation time coming. :sadsmile: I’ll just have to cope with it. We’ve got another one set up for September–how late in the year do y’all go out?
Around here, you could comfortably camp in your horse trailer pretty much through October if the weather is agreeable…which it often is that late, though the nights might tend to be a bit cool. But hey, for those of us dealing with hot flashes, that ain’t such a bad thing, :lol: :lol:
Those are POWER SURGES, my dear! Repeat after me, “Power Surges!” I truly wish I had no idea what you’re talking about.:lol:
And when those surges finally go away to bother some other poor soul you will be SOOOOO happy and SOOOO relieved. 
Ask me how I know.
Back to the topic at hand – two endurance friends and I will be camping out this weekend so I can take trail photos. (They are going to be my “models”.) Even tho I set this up a week ago, I didn’t anticipate the projected mid 90 “hazy, hot and humid” forecast for the weekend – a repeat of the hideous conditions during the 2005 Old Dominion Endurance ride. Luckily, we’ll be staying at Fort Valley Stables campground and will have ample, unlimited electricity for me running my big fan which I fully intend to use, and may put my mattress on the floor of the trailer next to the open door with my hanging bug screen to be closest to the coolest area (heat rises, cold falls). I’m not comtemplating sleeping outside due to the probability of thunderstorms.
We’ll be in woods the whole time but if I get too hot during the rides, I’ll merely throw myself in any available mountain creek. :lol:
Menu for Saturday night will include grilled (over the campfire) salmon with dill sauce, garden fresh tomatoes and cucumber spears, couscous, and angel food cake with crushed fresh peaches and fresh whipped cream. I’ll actually be bringing my hand mixer for whipping the cream. One friend will be doing the Sat and Sun “luncheons” (not “lunch” mind you – but “luncheon” – there is a difference), and the other will be doing breakfast with home made sourdough pancakes.
I’m hoping the forecast changes to something reasonable… and clearer, since my goal is to capture the scenery – not a heavy haze obscuring everything, and my own sweat dripping on the camera. Ugh! I hate heat and humidity!
Power Surges, LOL! No kidding. They can be useful in winter for serving a impetus to get out of the once cozy, now blazingly hot bed into the now refreshingly cool, former friggin freezing house (downfall of heating soley with a wood stove is a cold house in the a.m.).:lol: :lol: :lol:
GTD: I hope you go on the “suicide ledge” trail and get some pics of that ledge so I can compare reality to my memory! I would not want to be at Fort Valley right now…it is sweltering here…went on a Bull Run trail ride out in Culpeper and it was just gagging humid. Had fun though! VERRRRY thankful for that water tank, pump, and hose in my trailer.
Will do.
An I hope that you put said pictures somewhere that we can all see them an drool over them, thankyouverymuchinadvance.
Oh, to be sure I will. They will be on the AERC website as a virtual ride on the 2006 Nat’l Endurance Championship Trail. I will also post them on my website as well.
Thus far the Weather Gods are smiling on us for this weekend – the projected temps are continuing to plummet (I love that word 
) from the forcasted high 90’s to (now) the low 80’s by Saturday, and the nights are supposed to be a chilly low 60’s. Perfect for riding and photographing the trail, and for deep comfortable sleep.
We chatted about doing an evening ride with glowsticks – that was planned while we thought the days would be scorching in the 90’s. We may rethink that and just hang around the fire instead, drinking wine and reminiscing the day.
Have to start packing the trailer tomorrow. Right now it is stripped bare – hubby and son used it two weeks ago to bring back a classic antique sports car from Ohio. This trailer get employed A LOT for tons of different uses. Nothing like having an open floor plan to be highly versitile for all sorts of hauling. It wll take only 1/2 day to recreate my fabulous “apartment” for myself and my pony. Food shopping scheduled for Thursday.
GTD, I am jealous! I want SO badly to get away from this deadline-driven grind I’m in right now, wahhhhhhhhh. VERY tempting to just load up and run to the hills with my mulie, haha. Hope you have a fabbo time…glad you are catching a weather break. I am going on a hunt trail ride Saturday, so that’ll be something. I’m sure I’ll be thinking of what fun y’all are having up there And looking forward to your photos.
Speaking of trailer outfitting…hmmm, I got a $50 gift certificate for Outfitters Supply. What to buy…hmmmmmm…decisions, decisions. Probably going to put it toward one of those little battery driven shockers for my temporary corral.
The horse does all the work - all you do is sit there
If I hear this one more time, I will scream! :mad: Right now I only do trail riding, but I do push and test myself (and the horse) and aspire to be a real endurance rider some day. I do long rides by myself, mostly at the trot and canter, monitor my hose’s vitals, and train just like we were in an endurance competition. At the end of a ride I am hot, sore, and tired.
Yesterday a guy at work was talking about losing weight and exercising. I was mentioning that I want to lose 5-10 pounds or so. He said “You need to exercise then!” I told him that I DO exercise. I ride horses several times a week in addition to the daily dog walking, lawn work, etc. He snickered and gave me the old - Yeah right, the horse does all the work - thing.
I invited him to come out and do an hour or two of posting trot 
Just how do you respond to these kind of jeers? I never know what to say and I get so mad!
Wow, this topic just keeps on going. I got by the hot Virginia temperatures last weekend by going to the eastern shore and swimming with my horse in the Chesapeake Bay. Wow was it refreshing! My horse loved swimming after she got used to the little waves. Can’t think of anything better when it is hot! In two weeks, I am going to a night time trail ride at Beaverdam(near Gloucester-sp?)They are going to have an ice cream social after the ride. Will be hooking up with someone I have chatted with online but have never met in person. A group of my friends want to try to do James River State Park in September for a camp out. It’s so interesting to see the different things people do with their horses and mules.
What ledge?? Where? Oh, you mean this? HAHAHAHAH!
Our 2-day camping weekend of photographing the Fort Valley and Massanutten Mountain (VA) trail was a fabulous set of days – the weather was perfect – clear, pleasant high 70’s days for the weekend only!!! - prior days were all high 90’s with choking humidity. The only glitch was the one short 1/2 hour when the skies opened in a torrential downpour, but… we’d already finished our ride and had tucked our guys into their corrals for the night so we got to watch the rain from under the comfort of our canopy. The trails were inviting (except for the Blue Trail but…we’ll talk about that later) and the food was 4 star. We even had people passing our campsite at dinnertime, sniffing hungrily into the delectible breeze as the salmon with dill sizzled on the portable grill. :yes: (Everyone MUST add the portable tabletop grill to their camping equipment list. It was VERY handy, even when it rained , and cooks beautifully!) After dinner and dessert we announced a movie showing at 8PM (Pirates of the Carribean - The Black Pearl). We actually had several other campers join us. However, I must look into getting a projection screen for my portable TV. While the picture was excellent, the screen is perhaps a bit too small for a large group.
Surprisingly, the campground was full of horses and trailers and campers for the weekend – most were there for the Maryland Search and Rescue that was just certified for Virginia. We saw lots of accquaintances, and had lots of folks dropping by to say hello. We added three to the mix – myself, RidesAPaso, and another endurance friend, Barb. What a busy place – it was great!
I did. We did your 14 mile loop on the 1st day, in reverse. I was passing right over your “I’m going to die!” suicide ledge… and I didn’t know it. :rolleyes: It passed by so quick. RidesAPaso had to tell me “this is the spot!” so I could get my camera out. Sorry, ML – I looked down that fall and merely thought it was picturesque. As a matter of fact, I laughed (yes, I’m sorry) because if you blinked twice… you’d be past the spot. But…I did take a photo just as we passed over the rock ledge. Sadly, the camera can’t do the drop-off justice because it doesn’t do a depth-of-field as well as the human eye can.
You should have just blinked.
However…I got paid back BIG time the next day (Sunday) when we took the 13.7 mile loop incorporting the Duncan Hollow Trail below Catback Mountain, rather than the Edinburg Gap Trail that I was supposed to photograph. The Duncan Hollow Trail had been closed by order of the Park Service this spring when 1,200 acres burned on Catback Mountain. This area is so difficult and so remote that the fire crews couldn’t get to it except by air, so…they pretty much just did perimeter control work and let the fire burn itself out. (On the George Washington Nat’l Forest website it is categorized as the “Cardinal fire”.
As we rode along we examined the fire burn which had come to the edge of the trail…and stopped. It opened the whole lower canopy of the woods and was quite interesting. The new growth already coming up was fascinating, too, but the most intreguing was a million, billion mushrooms of all colors and sizes – all sprung up overnight from the torrientail rain the prior evening. A run (50 mile foot race) had recently been held on that trail so it was sitll marked with ribbons. Lots of water, but mostly a walking trail due to the rocks. Several miles later we came up on a blue trail that led up the mountain. We started to climb and suddenly the trail just reared straight up … and turned into the ride from he!!. Our ponies scrabbled up that vertical climb…and I mean scrabbled!! It was the only time in my life that that I remember emitting – out loud!!–a whole stretch of really bad 4 letter words at every scrambling, slipping, grabbing footfall of my very sure-footed pony over this… this… “trail” (prounced like a really foul 5 letter word) … that lead straight up the steep rock-fall gradient — for over a 1/2 mile – over an extremely narrow non-trail full of leg breaking, hoof catching, shoe wrenching, slip sliding surface of nothing but huge rocks piled on other rocks. RidesAPaso (who forgot her breastplate) had her saddle actually slide back all the way to sit over her pony’s butt, with the girth right at his loins!!! We had to stop mid-climb, tight nose-to-tail with NO FOOTING on a sheer fall, while she took off the saddle and moved it back into place. Our horses were happy for the break, and were very good, waiting patiently. When we finally got to the top of the mountain we all looked at one another and said… “NEVER AGAIN!” Keep in mind, these are three ENDURANCE RIDERS who are saying this! :eek: RidesAPaso said she was going to get a red pen and “X” out that trail on her map. I agreed (and have already done so on my map once I got home).
In retrospect, it was pretty exciting…and pretty heart stopping.
I’m busy loading the photos of the trail on my website, along with the story.
Newest add to my equipment list:
Portable charcoal grill and quick light charcoal.
Multi-outlet surge protector for accomodating multiple electrical plugs
Red pen
What a story! Remind me never to ride with you two, haha! I’ve marked that trail off with big red X’s on my map, :lol: I checked out your (very adorable) web site…no story yet, or did I miss it?
I have one of those little tabletop grills, too and LOVE it.
Cant wait to see the pictures!
You make it sound like I will have a lot of when I go down in Oct:D . Thanks for all the great tips on this thread.
Hey GTD, didja ever post story/pics? I couldn’t find them…would love to see them.
