We woke up Monday, fed horses, and headed down to the lodge for some pretty tasty breakfast! After chatting and eating we went up and saddled all the horses. We had planned for the six of us (John, Martin, Bob, Pat, Kay, and I) to ride out on a fire trail wich lead up the the peak that day. After starting the ride, we ran into quite a bit of mud and trees. Pat didn't like the super closed pathway and John and Dance weren't real fond of the mud so they went back. This didn't turn out to be an all bad thing because Mom then had someone to hang out with (she can't ride due to recovering from surgery) and they were able to find a more open fire trail that was easier riding later in the day.
The four of us that were left took off on this trail number 7. The map that we had didn't even have this trail on it and was designed for four wheelers or something...so it wasn't exactly the most helpful. We just kept on following our trail and all the forks in the path. The horses were really funny- at first they acted like they had never seen a stupid mud puddle, but within a few minutes they learned fast! It was a super fun time, we went through mud, water, snow, rocks, climed lots of hills, and did all sorts of random things that morning. We ended up taking this path that wound to the top of Custer Peak and led us to the look out tour. This tour was pretty awesome to see- in fact we found out later that it is the only one that is still manned in the Black Hills. When we got to the top after a few hours of riding we tyed the horses to a tree and checked out the view while eating lunch for about and hour. It was pretty awesome, we could see for miles, and even found our campsite. Later on we found out that we were higher than 6900 feet and supposadly you can see the Canadian border from that peak! They said that it is all run by one person and satellites now, but that's still pretty neat! The originial geographical marker in the ground said that it was first built in 1925! Wow...that's a while back. There were a few reminants around of an old outhouses...and one new one, and a couple other outbuildings that were locked up. But, what a cool find! It was a lot of fun to look out on the hills from that spot and eat lunch with our squirrel and chipmunk! But, of courses we had to get back on and climb back down the mountain!
We took a different way back that was a little shorter and looped us around to the other side of camp. We could see that Pat and John had ridden their eariler as well. By the end of the day we figured that we had ridden somewhere around 11 miles- not bad for the first day. I'm not really used to riding just for the sake of riding so that was fun too! When we got back and just hung out for the afternoon then decided to go and eat at the Rochford bar that everyone was told we had to go to by some friends...and what a place it was. I cannot really describe it in words- lets just say it was "quaint"...and packed completely and entirely full of stuff like nobody's business. When we first pulled up to town we thought the bar was named the Sidewinder- so we see this place called the Moonshine Gulch Saloon- John says well, that's not the name of it so let's tour Rochford and see what we can find. I say "Pretty sure we just did...". And yes, after going left and going right everyone soon learned that the Moonshine pretty much was Rochford! It was quite funny. There we met up with Pat and Bob who had gone back to visit their daughter for the afternoon and Kay's friend Bobbi and her fiance to eat at this infamous place! Well..I will post a few pictures for you to get the point, but I have never seen a building with so much stuff in it. There was just one woman who was waiting and cooking- it appreared as if she must own the place and live upstairs or something. There was a dog and a couple cats wandering around as well- lol! All in all, they had good food and it was super entertaining just to look around the place and check out the sites!
After we left and took the windiest road that was ever constructed back to the campground Pat realized that she must have left her cell phone there- I made the joke that she better call that lady quick because it might not ever surface to the top of that place!
When we got back we checked up on the horses again and just sat around and chatted and watched tv. Then, we all headed to bed to get ready for another day of riding.
The four of us that were left took off on this trail number 7. The map that we had didn't even have this trail on it and was designed for four wheelers or something...so it wasn't exactly the most helpful. We just kept on following our trail and all the forks in the path. The horses were really funny- at first they acted like they had never seen a stupid mud puddle, but within a few minutes they learned fast! It was a super fun time, we went through mud, water, snow, rocks, climed lots of hills, and did all sorts of random things that morning. We ended up taking this path that wound to the top of Custer Peak and led us to the look out tour. This tour was pretty awesome to see- in fact we found out later that it is the only one that is still manned in the Black Hills. When we got to the top after a few hours of riding we tyed the horses to a tree and checked out the view while eating lunch for about and hour. It was pretty awesome, we could see for miles, and even found our campsite. Later on we found out that we were higher than 6900 feet and supposadly you can see the Canadian border from that peak! They said that it is all run by one person and satellites now, but that's still pretty neat! The originial geographical marker in the ground said that it was first built in 1925! Wow...that's a while back. There were a few reminants around of an old outhouses...and one new one, and a couple other outbuildings that were locked up. But, what a cool find! It was a lot of fun to look out on the hills from that spot and eat lunch with our squirrel and chipmunk! But, of courses we had to get back on and climb back down the mountain!
We took a different way back that was a little shorter and looped us around to the other side of camp. We could see that Pat and John had ridden their eariler as well. By the end of the day we figured that we had ridden somewhere around 11 miles- not bad for the first day. I'm not really used to riding just for the sake of riding so that was fun too! When we got back and just hung out for the afternoon then decided to go and eat at the Rochford bar that everyone was told we had to go to by some friends...and what a place it was. I cannot really describe it in words- lets just say it was "quaint"...and packed completely and entirely full of stuff like nobody's business. When we first pulled up to town we thought the bar was named the Sidewinder- so we see this place called the Moonshine Gulch Saloon- John says well, that's not the name of it so let's tour Rochford and see what we can find. I say "Pretty sure we just did...". And yes, after going left and going right everyone soon learned that the Moonshine pretty much was Rochford! It was quite funny. There we met up with Pat and Bob who had gone back to visit their daughter for the afternoon and Kay's friend Bobbi and her fiance to eat at this infamous place! Well..I will post a few pictures for you to get the point, but I have never seen a building with so much stuff in it. There was just one woman who was waiting and cooking- it appreared as if she must own the place and live upstairs or something. There was a dog and a couple cats wandering around as well- lol! All in all, they had good food and it was super entertaining just to look around the place and check out the sites!
After we left and took the windiest road that was ever constructed back to the campground Pat realized that she must have left her cell phone there- I made the joke that she better call that lady quick because it might not ever surface to the top of that place!
When we got back we checked up on the horses again and just sat around and chatted and watched tv. Then, we all headed to bed to get ready for another day of riding.
No comments:
Post a Comment