After I hitched and loaded the horse trailer, Cinnamon climbed in with only slight hesitation. The drive up the mountain went smoothly and we arrived at the Los Burros campground about 2:30 p.m. where Cinnamon unloaded nicely. I was surprised to see only four or five campers there but we were under fire restrictions and in extreme drought conditions. As I was removing Cinnamon’s shipping boots, a man at the closest camp site inquired if I was camping. I said, “No, I live in Lakeside so I just came up for a day ride.” The man stayed near his van but continued the conversation by telling me that somebody else had been camping with horses and that was kind of nice and his mother had had horses. He then asked if Cinnamon was a Quarter Horse. I agreed that she looks like one but she’s actually a Heritage Tennessee Walking Horse. He wanted to know if she did that side to side movement, using his arms to indicate pace. I explained that she does several gaits. He went back to whatever he was doing.

I finished saddling Cinnamon and mounted. We strolled over to the ruins of the Los Burros Ranger Station and barn. Cinnamon took advantage of my being distracted with taking photos to do her own wandering and gawking while I sat on her. We then strolled across the parking lot to the trailhead to begin our ride.

Los Burros was the driest I had ever seen it. The marshy meadow was dry; the grass was dead and the iris looked like they had not bloomed. It was cooler than Lakeside though and the thunderheads provided a nice cloud cover and breeze which made it perfect riding weather. We took the south loop of the trail. After a mile or so, the trail crossed a forest road into a section that I hadn’t been on before. There were tire tracks from several bicycles and multiple sets of tracks from shod horses that had used the trail earlier in the day but Cinnamon and I had the trail to ourselves. Cinnamon likes that just fine and happily strolled along as the trail wound through the forest.

After a while, we came to a man-made pond that still had some water in it. The trail wiggled its way through the forest a while, then skirted the edge of several meadows before crossing one of them beside the Fort Apache Reservation fence. As we crossed the meadow, I admired the view of a mountain on the far side. The trail followed the Reservation fence line for a half mile or so before ducking into the trees again and then gradually climbing a hill. When the trail went along beside a larger man-made pond that was accessible from the trail, I rode Cinnamon over to the edge of the pond. She sniffed at it and then ate some grass near the edge but wasn’t interested in drinking. The trail had been single track but then merged into a single lane roadway for a short distance before turning off into a single track again.

We’d been riding for about one and a half hours of what I estimated would be a three hour ride when I heard thunder in the clouds overhead. There were small pock marks in the dirt on the trail -- indicating it had sprinkled earlier -- but not enough to settle the dust. There were a few more rumbles of thunder but no rain. The thunder confirmed that my plan to take the 7.5-mile short-cut route was the wisest course of action so that’s what we did.

We had just finished descending the steepest portion of the short-cut trail -- about a mile from the trailhead -- when Cinnamon suddenly stopped and alerted at some elk on the slope opposite us. We watched the elk for several seconds. I asked her to continue. She went a hundred feet, then abruptly stopped again because several elk were crossing the trail in front of us! We moved another few feet -- just far enough to get another glimpse of the elk as they climbed the slope beside us. I tried to take a photo, but my camera chirped that its battery was exhausted and shut itself off. I asked Cinnamon to continue. This time -- when she stopped just a few feet further along the trail -- I could see at least four elk, two of them small enough to be that season’s calves. Up to that point, we’d seen very little wildlife, just a few birds, squirrels and lizards. I had seen a few wild roses and one yellow columbine flower.

After admiring the elk, we continued down the trail. Cinnamon was getting tired but picked her way carefully over logs that were down across the trail. Some of the logs were too big to step over so we went around them, as other trail users had done before us. When the short cut trail brought us to the junction with the trail we’d come out on, Cinnamon instantly recognized where we were. We followed the trail back to the campground and we were back at my truck and trailer about 5:30.p.m.

I removed Cinnamon’s bridle, tied her to the trailer and offered her water from the bucket I’d brought. She sniffed at it but didn’t drink any. I unsaddled her, put her tack in the trailer and carefully groomed her to be sure she was cool and dry. I checked her hooves, then wrapped her legs and tail. I put some hay into the trailer manger. Cinnamon half-heartedly resisted for a few minutes before climbing into the trailer. We had a safe, easy, uneventful trip home.