all the greens

I think I may have seen most of the greens in the world yesterday. There were neon jade little leaflets of the budding oaks, verdant grass green meadows, dark emerald pine trees, and every color in between. Mix that up with some orange poppies, yellow buttercups and purple brodiaea, the world was alive!

ears, cliff, poppies, river, doesn't get much better

Ho hum, just another good ride....away from home (and not in a competition setting) Major is very consistently good. You've seen it before: Auburn, No Hands, Cool. But the green! Wow! Every year I forget, and then nature reminds me. Months of brown help us appreciate. And we've gotten some late rain (as evidenced by quite a bit of muddy trail), but are still at 50% of normal rainfall. I will try not to imagine the dry summer, and focus on the green.

oak meadow

I wanted to do some big hills and elevation. We did 3200 feet of climbing (and back down too!) over the course of almost 20 miles. It was supposed to be shorter, but I wanted to explore. It was too pretty not to!

the trails are red clay, they really show up with the green grass

yellow vernal pools

C and Friday joined our adventure. We went down, we went up the other side. Which was totally dry in January and now we got to cross many little streams and creeks. Unfortunately the recent downpours also ate away the trail, and there is some nasty footing. The exploring ended up with pretty scenery but rocky trail. Still worth it.

green, yellow, blue, gorgeous!

lunch stop horse butts

Major got to play snorkeling in a pond, though there are no photos, and I was nervous about him trying to drop and roll (as he has done before). He also snorkeled in the water trough. What he did not do is drink from any of the lovely streams. Or the trough 14 miles in. Or any of the nice streams as we went back up the Auburn side. Finally he stopped to drink out of a trickle crossing the trail (about mile 17.5!). Friday was smarter and drank from the little pool above the trickle, then shared with Major.

There were a million people out, with big dogs and little dogs, rampant children, baby backpacks (no cats this trip!) and more. Major didn't bat an eye at anything, and was pet by a little scared girl by the waterfall (she was scared of crossing the water) and a small horde of kids again at the staging area, when he was disgusting and sweaty. The difficult life of a trail horse in a popular area!

canyon view

poppies along the trail

well deserved trailer rest

A fun adventure, made even better by my new accessory: dinosaur phone holder! Because honestly, a dinosaur phone holder is awesome. I like keeping my phone on my leg, easily accessible for photos and emergencies. If I could actually sew and it didn't take me 3 days to make this, I'd seriously open up an etsy store and make custom ones for people.

awesome dinosaur phone holder

With this ride and a good recovery I think I can tentatively make a plan for a 50 at the end of this month. I think we're physically in shape for it, mentally we just have to go and deal with it. It's local, I know the trails, so that part is easier to manage. I'm hoping for no big heat waves so everything stays nice and green, a nice calming grass green...