Nancy and I finally got up to Whitefish Horse Camp for a day of riding. It's a nice little campground, 19 spaces, at the south end of Crescent Lake. The day parking has been eliminated, so you have to take a camp spot, which means you have to check the reservation web site before heading up there in order to make sure you can get a spot. The host was great, didn't charge us even though we offered.
There are several trails out of camp leading into various wilderness areas. Some of the trails are drop dead beautiful and some, well, nice, but . . .
We have both talked to people that have ridden out of Whitefish but neither of us had, so we didn't know which were the "good" rides. Last year we rode a loop that included Fawn and Stag Lakes. It was a really pretty ride that we both said we would do again.
This time we did the Metolius Windigo trail out of White fish as far as Oldenberg Lake. The trail continues on to Windigo Pass where it runs into the PCT and ends. It is a ride we both said was way more work than it was worth. Don't get me wrong, it was pretty enough, just, well, not beautiful. Living in the Cascades you do in fact run across drop dead beautiful. Trails that run through old growth timber, lots of wildlife, beautiful lakes. This trail however went through what we call a "match stick" forest. Tall thin Jack Pines, some living and just as many dead and laying on the ground looking like some one tossed out a bunch of match sticks. We went past several small lakes and they were pretty enough, just that the match stick forest kind of detracted from them.
We had considered continuing on to Nip and Tuck lakes. I liked the names and thought it would be cool to say we had been there. By the time we got to Oldenberg though, we really didn't care much, you could see it was more of the same. So, we ate lunch at Oldenberg. We sat and talked for an hour. As we were getting up to go, Nancy said, "well, I suppose we should take a picture of the lake so we can prove we were here." LOL. We both did take pictures as you can see.
I rode Taro, my white Arabian gelding and ponied April, my little MFT/Arab mare. I had planned on riding April back. I spent all of my time the last two years working with her brother. She has hardly been touched in those two years. I took her recently to a trail course with lots of obstacles and horses. I hand walked her through and she did great and I though I needed to get her back out and working. She was a good girl, but clearly not ready for me to ride down the mountain. Nancy asked me as we were getting up to go if I was going to ride her and I asked her if I look like I was crazy. She just laughed. These 60 + year old bones just aren't fast and agile enough to deal with the kids any more. Really though, she did great, next year I'll have her going as soon as the snow melts. She is the last though, NO MORE BABIES!! Wish we had a covered arena here that we could use winters.
On the way down we took the horses into one of the little lakes to get a drink.
Well, Nancy and I said we would go back up to Whitefish next year and try another trail. Some riders told us the ride to Summit Lake was gorgeous. They also said it was a 9 hour ride. That would mean we would need to actually camp over night, so, we'll see.
