Steep Trails, Grizzly Rubs, Rowdy Neighbors, and The Ever-Gorgeous Priest Lake Area of the Idaho Panhandle National Forest.
One of my favorite ways to enjoy the woods is from the back of a horse. There's nothing quite like traversing twenty miles of mountainous ridges astride a trusty steed, the only noise is the clomping of your mount's hooves and the snorts of air as your trail-trudging partner carries you through the forest. Okay, there also might be lots of jokes and guffaws as I do something odd or have something ridiculous happen to me on the trail. I think my friends like me with them for the entertainment value. One incident comes to mind: I was galloping The Man From Snowy River style across this open ridge, when my husband's Savage Arms hat that I had borrowed from him came flying off of my head and sailed off of the 3,000 foot drop to my left. I had a momentary vision of Little Sonny and I flying down the mountain side, Jim Craig style, but decided the grizzly that had destroyed the cedar tree in the bottom of that draw could sport the hat instead. Sigh.
Peewee Trail is an interconnected system of trails, rated "difficult" by the USFS. I really don't know where that rating comes from, for the trail is ATV width in size. Some of the interconnected trails are more my style, goat path and exciting in construction, but the only difficulty that we experienced was with some people camped out through the woods from us from the neighboring state of Washington. Remember kids: booze and firearms don't mix. There is no developed camping at this trail head. Instead you have a big open area, a high line for tying up your horses (we built our own pen for the weekend out of t-posts and baling twine!), and a pit toilet rounds out the amenities. There is also a water faucet, but we usually pack water in for our horses, it's safer that way. Through the trees were our partying neighbors, and one of them was really channeling Ricky Bobby, he must have yelled, "WOOOO" forty-five times an hour that first night as he fired off magazine after magazine of rounds through his AK-47. It was a little disconcerting that drunk folk were firing lots of ammunition in the dark, but it being Idaho, we were all armed and just slept it out. My favorite moment of the weekend was when, the following night, a rather high strung Grandma marched over and dressed down the party animals with no small amount of spunk. They were pretty hung over and mostly out of ammo at that point, so our weekend was pretty peaceful after that.
However, we weren't even in camp that much, we were out riding! We did a short ten mile loop the first day with the kids, and for the initial climb up from the valley floor both you and Trigger better be in pretty good trail shape. The views though, were super gorgeous!
The second day we branched off onto some of the interconnected trails, and before the day was over we had spent more than twenty miles on horseback wandering the mountainsides. We also were stalked by some unseen predator as we came back down to camp. It's always fun when your horse is truly unhappy and spooked by something that would like to make you and it dinner!
A four-wheeler was also in attendance on our Memorial Day camp out, as the trail is rated for both horseflesh and mounts of the gasoline eating variety. My friend and I made the ten mile loop circuit in under an hour. I swear we weren't going that fast. Really. Those bruises on my legs weren't from jumping anything...Nope.
Boxers need pillows
Each night was spent hanging around the campfire in a post-horse ride exhaustion. Okay, there might have been some impromptu baseball games, card playing, and a bit of bareback horse riding around the camp by the never-exhausted kiddos.
We also were useful to the local wildlife, as I was packing up one of the tents on Monday morning, I discovered that a mama field mouse had built a nest in my tent bag over the weekend and spawned some offspring. So glad to be useful!
There is nothing quite like spending three days in the woods, especially when most of that time is astride my favorite animal. I'll take smelling like horse sweat, wood smoke, and fir pitch any day of the week! Okay, I also really like yelling, "WOOOOO" like an obnoxious drunk townie when I go camping too! New traditions rock!
And as always, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's horse hair and mouse nest debris covered iPhone.