Photos and article 

by Allanna Jackson

The last week of January, it finally snowed in the White Mountains, just barely enough to settle the dust. February 1st was over 50 degrees and sunny, with a light breeze. A perfect day to trailer the horses somewhere for an outing. It has been several years since I’ve ridden a horse on the Country Club trail, though I’ve hiked it many times.

Velvet watched as I hitched up the horse trailer. Cinnamon stood at the back of her corral, looking at the meadow behind us, pointedly ignoring my preparations. When I called Cinnamon, she just stood and looked at me until I told her, “I’m planning a shorter ride than yesterday.” Then she came to get her cookie.

Velvet was already standing in the corner of her corral as close to us as she could get from inside her fence while I groomed Cinnamon. This is Velvet’s way of saying she wants to go with us. I got Velvet’s halter and went to her gate. She looked at me and then at Cinnamon. I asked Velvet, “Do you want to go along or stay home?” Velvet stood in the corner facing away from me with her ears turned back for a minute or so, thinking about this. Then she circled around and came to me. I haltered her, gave her a treat, and led her out to groom her.

When I led both horses toward the trailer, Velvet circled in front of us and turned toward her corral. I put her back inside. When I loaded Cinnamon in the trailer, Velvet dashed up and down her fence, whinnying loudly. I asked her, “Do you want to go, or not?” She promptly greeted me at the gate. I haltered Velvet and led her to the trailer where she eagerly climbed in.

There were three vehicles at the Country Club trailhead parking lot, which doesn’t have enough space for a horse trailer anyway, so I went down FR 185 to the wide spot beside the cattle loading chute. There were two vehicles there, too. After getting out of the trailer, the horses watched a person walking toward us through the Forest and the two dogs that came trotting over to investigate. The dogs were quiet and kept their distance. When their person got close enough to his car to use his remote, he opened the rear hatch and the dogs immediately jumped into their car. The man and I exchanged brief greetings just before he drove away.

I saddled Cinnamon, untied Velvet, then mounted Cinnamon. We set off up the Chipmunk Connector to marker CM-0 and its connection with the Country Club Trail at marker C-7. Cinnamon eyed the new rollover gate for bicycles. I told her, “That’s not safe for horses.” I reined her to the horse gate, which she helped me open. Velvet followed Cinnamon through the gate, almost tripping on the crossbar. We closed the gate and continued up the trail. I got one photo of the meadow when my camera announced the battery was empty and turned itself off. Although the meadow is often marshy, its grass was dried out and brown. There was some water in the stock tank.

At C-6, I discovered we were going counterclockwise around the trail down the numbers toward the trailhead. Cinnamon helped me with the next gate, and Velvet followed her through nicely.

Cinnamon huffed and puffed her way up the hill to the junction with the Mullen mountain overlook trail near C-5. We stayed on the main trail. The horses picked their way carefully through the rocks on the descent toward C-4.

Two markers after C-4 have been slightly melted and curled by heat from a prescribed fire. The third marker had an orange paint splotch on one corner where the tree marking paint had splashed.

Near C-3, Cinnamon stopped to snack on some grass, but I hadn’t told her she could, so I nudged her into motion again. A few strides later, we found enough grass for both horses. We paused long enough to let them get their taste of the trail.

We wended our way through the trees down to the gate at C-2, which is in the same fence line as the gate near C-6. Cinnamon again helped me open the gate, and Velvet followed us through. I gave them the last of their horse cookies but dropped Velvet’s, so I had to dismount to get it for her. I dropped her lead rope while mounting, but she stayed close to us so I could reach her halter and rope.

We strolled down to the trailhead, where there were still three vehicles parked, crossed FR185 and continued down the numbers to C-14. Between markers C-12 and C-9, the trail meanders through patches of young Ponderosa pines and around a couple of small man-made clearings in the Forest. We crossed FR185 again, following the trail back to C-7 and the junction with Chipmunk Connector. We backtracked along the Chipmunk Connector to where I’d parked. There was another vehicle parked on the other side of the road.

We had a déjà vu moment as a man and one dog emerged from the forest where we’d seen the man with two dogs earlier. They got into their vehicle and departed while I unsaddled Cinnamon. The horses watched a lady running up the road just before I loaded them into the trailer. There were still three vehicles parked at the trailhead as we drove out, yet we had the trail to ourselves for the entire ride.

As I drove into my yard, two neighbor boys came running up. After I’d stopped the truck, one of them asked, “Do you have a horse in there? I have two horses in there.”

I told the boys to stand back out of the way in case the horses backed out fast. They obeyed and watched as Velvet backed out nicely. One of them ran a lap around the inside of Cinnamon’s corral as I led Velvet to her own corral. When I opened the door for Cinnamon, she moved over just far enough to eat Velvet’s left-over hay before backing out of the trailer.

As soon as I put Cinnamon in her corral, the boys started jumping in and out of the trailer. They pretended to lock each other inside. When inside the trailer they yelled just to hear the echo. The horses merely watched this commotion while eating supper. Several minutes later, the boys ran off as fast as they’d appeared. Who knew a horse trailer could be so entertaining?



The horses and I had a lovely outing on an unseasonably warm, dry day.