Easier Than Fighting Rocky

What Did We Get Ourselves Into, Again A few days later our legs sore, Mom and I ride along the back of the stable past the long row of horse stalls on our way out of the stable to the wash for a short ride with Dad walking beside us to see us off glad we are not going to venture far. "Looks like someone else is going for a ride," Mom observes two horses tied to a horse trailer up ahead. A man steps out from behind the horse trailer. "Jackson, is that you?" "Hello, Patty. My friend was going to ride Bartender while I ride my Lady, but he canceled a little bit ago. I was really looking forward to our ride, but if you want to go riding together, your husband can ride Bartender. He's a great horse. "Yeah! I'm getting envious of these two having their own horses and leaving me behind." From Bartender's back, "This is great! I haven't done this in years. Bartender stood still right there making it easy for me to get on. Let's go." Forming a line walking down the row of horses trailers, we approach another trailer with two men saddling two mules with their large donkey ears atop their horse shaped bodies. "Hi, Dr. Todd," Jackson speaks to the older man saddling one of the mules. "We have an impromptu trail ride group forming. Do you want to join?" "Yeah, I know Dr. Cole. With a veterinarian and a doctor, we are prepared for anything." "There's not much I can do out of the operating room without my equipment so people better not get hurt on this ride." Watching the mules get saddled, I notice that there are additional straps wrapping around their thighs and tail. Noticing the same, Mom asks Jackson,"Why the additional straps?" "The mules are shaped like a barrel so unless you put them in bondage the saddles will rotate right over and off their backs." The herd takes form, four horses and two mules, and at the front Dr. Todd, "You guys will like the Shannon. You will get to see Bob Hope's house, but first we need to get onto the Henderson that takes us up to the start of the Shannon." "That sounds cool," Dad riding Bartender behind Jackson on Lady with Mom and Apollo following. Riding out of the stable, a wrangler riding a stable horse rides up and introduces himself. "I'm Julio! I see you guys have your own herd. This guy I'm riding is new to going out and before he gets a renter on his back he needs to go out and get some experience with this place. Do you mind if I take up the rear?" "Come along," several voices speak. The fifth horse makes up the last of the line behind me and Rocky. Rocky follows Apollo carrying me along both of us not knowing where we are going as we climb up an embankment onto a trail that follows the base of the low mountain behind the stable. North, we turn away from the direction of our ride a few days ago. This trail, flanked on one side by the rocky mountain rising hundreds of feet above and the drop into the wash on the other, is not intimidating after our eight-hour adventure. Multiple horses walking the trail before him, Rocky is relaxed and a source of support for me as I sit silently on his back listening to the conversation up front. The lead mule becomes visible riding into view above the procession as the trail ascends. The mule and his rider then disappear around a rock face. Rocky steadily follows Apollo, but from atop his back, I see the sharp narrow turn. Rocky climbs, the trail so narrow that I pull my boot from the right stirrup as the face of the mountain touches the trail and the stirrup scrapes the rock face. On our left, a vertical drop into the wash below grows higher and higher as Rocky climbs. The trail as narrow as before is flanked on the side by the mountain, and to our left the drop eases into a slope rolling down to the wash floor and the stable below on the far side of the wash. The lead mule and Dr. Todd move onto the trail turning to the right instead of the trail that continues forward back down to the wash, and a second climb begins hugging the side of the mountain. Feeling Rocky's confidence in his own climbing ability, I begin to enjoy the ride. The view of the wash grows with each step. That is until abruptly I find myself facing the direction from which we came. Rocky had just spun completely around on the trail not more than three feet wide. Feeling the surge of stress, a moment too late to matter, I calm myself, "It's okay, it's already over." In front of me is the last horse and Julio, "Wow, uhh, I didn't know a horse could do that." To my left is a vertical rock wall ascending out of view, and on my right is most surely a fatal fall. Looking down at Rocky who just demonstrated that a course of reversal on such a trail is feasible, I pull Rocky's nose to the left away from the edge and press my boot into his right side. Rocky smoothly spins back around falling back in line. Climbing around a bend, Rocky halts, raising his head over Apollo's hindquarters. "Why are we stopping here?" unable to see past Mom on Apollo. "I don't know. I can't see around the turn." My eyes turn down to Rocky afraid that he will try to turn around again. Looking back, I see Julio is thinking the same keeping a large distance behind Rocky. After a minute, the horses begin moving again. The lead mule from time to time comes into view and disappears again around the edge of the mountain ending sharply as the trail winds upward around it. The trail narrows, the ground obscured by Rocky's girth, passes between two boulders. Squeezing my legs against Rocky, my boots scrape against rock. The trail reaches its crest and the view peaks. I look across to the southeast and see a procession of rolling hills one rising into a peak far above the others in the distance some miles away. To the north, Palm Springs is laid out with Palm Springs International Airport plain to see with the desert resuming beyond the far side of the city to the mountains on the other side of the Coachella Valley. The trail widens onto a small plateau, and the horses and mules group together. "Hey, Patty, Duke," Dad rides over. "Did you see Bob Hope's house? It was such a great view. I always wondered how it is laid out up there." "No, I was too busy making sure Apollo didn't step off the trail!" Jackson, Dr. Todd, and his friend talk to one another passing a camera around among themselves, until they resume riding, and the herd continues on the less treacherous trail until I see the winding path that will take us back to the wash floor a thousand feet below. Looking south, I realize that this is the trail Mom and I would have had to climb down had we found our way along Wild Horse. My eyes following it back into the hills seeing a long ridge-line even higher than our current position, telling myself, "It's good we turned around. This is wild riding!" This descent is not as treacherous as the climb before, but Apollo still has trouble staying on the winding trail. His instinct tells him to follow the horse in front of him in a straight line. Mom constantly uses the reins to point Apollo to stay on the trail and not go straight down the mountainside towards Bartender. At one point as the trail turns away from a sheer drop and Apollo seeing the edge believing that she wants him to walk off spins around trembling in fear. "Oh no, Apollo, look at the trail," turning his nose around and gently squeezing him onto the correct path. Rocky's hooves sink into the sand as Dad enthusiastically,"You guys got to get me my own horse. I want one as good as Bartender."