20 mule
team 100, 1998
A ride
of "Firsts!"
What
image pops into your mind when someone says the word
"desert?"
Usually
it's heat, burning sun, buzzards circling some poor
expired
critter, desolation and perhaps a
grizzled miner or cowboy crawling
across
the parched wastelands on hands and knees in search of
water.
Does
the term hypothermia usually enter your mind? It might have at
this
year's ride. Pacific South
region ride managers Jackie and Jim
Bumgardner have been putting this
classic on now for something like 15
years. Maybe Jackie should have re-named
this years ride the "El
Nino'
Mule Team." The weather
turned out to be a bit of a factor.
The
first of my firsts was I made the eight-hour trip from the bay
area
to
Ridgecrest all by myself due to my wife Judy not being able to
get
away
from work. That's another first for
sure- her Appy Warpaint is
sound
and healthy but she couldn't make
the trip. My second first was this
ride was to be Shatta's first 100.
It has been tough to
condition with all the rain but I
did it anyway since he's ready for the next step in his career. We drove down on Thursday through six
hours of pouring rain, including my horse rest stop at Lost Hills on highway
five. I must have looked like an idiot standing out in the rain while my
blanketed horse ate green grass. He
sure loved it- I was really happy he was eating so well during his trip. We arrived at the fair grounds in
Ridgecrest to a massive camper shaking wind storm which made the
rain
fall
sort of sideways. I used the camper
as a big wind block for
Shatta's corral- I don't think a
single drop hit him all night.
Friday
morning
comes sunny and 60 degrees. Go
figure. Shatta was eating
and
drinking very well all day which is
a great improvement for him after a
long
trailer ride. We went out for a
nice slow five mile ride in the
afternoon to get him limbered up
for his big effort. We returned
to
camp to
a whole lot of rigs that had survived the trip in the nasty weather
all
around
the West. Lots of familiar faces-
Becky Hart and Judith Ogus
brought
Rio and Laine to do the 60, Joyce and Dennis Souza drove
13
hours,
Becky Glaser was there to ride Jackie's big guy Zyante,
Brian
Reeves
and Val Weiser brought Goofy and Copper.
Another first- it was
to be
Brian and Goofy's first 100 as well.
Wendy Lumpert and
Lori
Oleson
were there, Karen Chaton and Dream Weaver from Nevada, Dave Rabe
(also
from Nevada), Melissa and Robert
Ribley, Jack and Diane Enderle-
lots of
Nor Cal folks. Shatta's dad Bob
Edwards brought Shatta's half
sister
(who Shatta really remembered).
Special thanks to Las Vegas
endurance icon Claire Toomey for
braiding Shatta's maine for me since
Judy
wasn't there. ( I HAVE to learn how to do that) Jim Mitchell from
Bakersfield was there with a few
horses. I even saw my superb DVE
crew
Pat Gay
from the Davis area. At the ride
meeting Jackie explained how
the
different distances would cover the four loops. Hmmm- the 100's do
a 60
mile loop, then a 30, then a 10, each starting and ending at
the
base
camp. After some quick mental calculations I realized I would
be
asking
my horse to go back out on the same trail for the third time
in
the
middle of the night after 90 miles on his first 100. A true test of
his
mental faculties to be sure!
The ride started at 6:00 in cold
weather, but at least it wasn't
raining. I rode out on the first
loop
with
Brian and Val at an absolutely splendid pace. Goofy was acting a
little
like his name since he liked to be with Copper at all times. He
had a
lot of energy- Brian was looking forward to a few hours of
saddle
time. He and I both were really wondering how
our horses would handle
their
first 100. Shatta was playing
his
"I'd-sure-like-to-catch-that-horse-up-there-thank-you"
game, so I
planted
him behind Val and Brian for about the first, oh, four hours
or
so? We wound our way through some really
nice desert terrain.
The
recent
rains made for what I still contend is one of the best places
to
ride a
horse: wet desert. What a
treat. Jackie could make this ride
a
killer
death from hell ride if she wanted with all the sand, rocks
and
mountains out there. Lucky for us she picked a perfect mix of
roads,
cross
country, sand, and spectacular scenery. (for us who grew up in
the
dez and
love it) The wind started to pick
up a bit as we made it into
the
first check- a pulse, vet exam, then go without a hold. Off we
went on
a loop around Black Mountain.
Shatta kept on moving along
beautifully as we trotted most of
the loop. He still wanted to
go
faster
but as long as Brian and Val were up there we just cruised
along
behind
them, all the time maintaining this wonderful pace I can't
seem
to say
enough about. We just kept moving
along, trotting mostly at a
rate
where Shatta was barely working.
The rains provided the early
presence of wild flowers for us to
enjoy- I can't imagine how incredible
it will
look out there in a couple of months.
We arrived at the second
check
at 32 or so miles for an hour hold.
It was here I had my only
issue
with Shatta all day; my horse decided it would be a good idea
to
roll in
the nice sand as we walked into the check!
The dope- that's
exactly
what he did at the DVE and crushed my aluminum stirrup flat as
a
pancake! I was on to his game, however, and
intercepted his flop before
he
could get down. We got our P&R,
I stripped his saddle, ( I really
missed
not having a crew), and let him do his thing. He rolled around
in the
sand with Joy in his heart. I
cleaned him up (I brought brushes
in my
crew stuff- I'm not as dumb as I look, either) and took him to
the
vets. He looked great except for hydration- he
was given a C+.
(He
started
drinking around mile 20 or so from the many mud colored
water
puddles
we decided must taste like chocolate milk.) The wind was
blowing
harder now as we waited our chilly hour.
Shatta was eating his
hay
very well, but seemed to refuse his normal mash. Copper and Goofy
were
refusing theirs as well, so Val said let's just swap mashes. Okay,
so now
Shatta pounds down his "new" mash, as does Copper and
Goofy.
That
was another first. Goofy looked a
little off in the rear to the
vet-
Brian was a bit concerned until he found a rock wedged in
the
horses
shoe. We saddled up and headed down
the 6 mile road full of
puddles
when we picked up a rider on the sixty mile ride named
Rebecca.
She's a
vet from Chatsworth who was riding a big Arab Gelding named
Jay.
What a
story he had- he was a rescue horse who lived 10 years in a
box
stall. She took him and turned him into a real
nice looking, well
moving
horse. The wind
was
getting
serious as we headed back across the desert to the highway
crossing. Copper lost a shoe which set Brian and
Val back a few minutes,
but
they rode into vet check 3 just as I was leaving. (Jim B put the
shoe
back on) I rode into the end of the
60 mile loop with Rebecca a
little
after five pm. Shatta hit his
pen and started eating like a
real
endurance horse. Brian and
Val came in about 2o minutes later; I
opted
to wait the extra time to go back out with them, since Shatta
was
STILL
eating and drinking. Barney
the vet looked at my horse and said
he
looked really good- Shatta's hydration was remarkably better than
check
2. We set out after dark on loop 2
wondering how the horses would
react. Shatta trotted away willingly- he really
made me smile.
We
trotted
back out towards the highway when Val noticed Copper was
acting
a
little funny. She stopped to check
him out and found yet another rock
wedged
in his shoe. I hooked up with Jim
Mitchell and his two riders in
the
dark and rode along with them for the next 10 miles or so. The wind
was
starting to really blow as we climbed up a long canyon. I was very
glad I
had put on my extra polarfleece shirt and heavy duty Gore
Tex
jacket. It was cold in that wind- I realized my
lips were really
chapped
from the hours of dry wind. I swore
I would never forget to
bring
clear lens glasses for night rides as we walked up the final
hill
to the
top of the canyon. The wind in our
faces had to be between 50
and 60
miles an hour. It was so bad I had
to tilt my face down to avoid
the
wind ripping the visor off my helmet.
Shatta's braided maine was
whipping my freezing hands as I had
to just close my eyes and hang on.
Thank
goodness the wind was not quite so bad on the other side of
the
canyon
and that it was only spitting rain at that point. Val and
Brian
caught
back up a few miles later- we trotted along in the dark all
the
way
back across the long valley, across the highway and into the
vet
check
at 85 miles. The weather was
terrible- windy, very cold, and now
the
rain was falling. This was
not weather to let your horse stand
around
in for a minute. The Duck (Dave
Nicholson) and Jim Bumgardner
got us
checked in and inspected in a couple of minutes and sent us
back
out
into the freezing dark. (One of my favorite Duck Stories here- I came up to the
trailer they were in and pounded on the door. It’s about 12:30 in the morning,
freezing, cold, raining, sleeting, just plain miserable. I hear Dave inside-
“What do you want?” “A vet check,
please!” I reply. “Are they
breathing?” came the reply after a second. “Yep!” says I. “Then get the hell out of here!” he
shouts. I pondered that for a
second, when he came out smiling.
The
best news for me up to that point was
when
Dave checked Shatta's hydration- it looked better than it had
at
the
start! I think his pulse was 48. My
fingertips and toes seemed to
be the
only things uncomfortable so I did a little walking to warm
me
up. We trotted down past the school
and back into town to the base
camp
vet check and mile 90 at about one am.
The horses just knew they
were
done. Barney checked Shatta -
I was elated! My horse's
vitals
were
better than when we started and his trot out was unreal. I let
him eat
some more in the rain while I tried how to figure out how
to
tell
him we had to go back out for the last 10 miles. Time to go-
I
was
using a halter with reins at this point. I got my riding
partners
and we
walked across the road to the course.
Shatta stopped and turned
his
head to look at me. I asked him to
walk, which he did after blowing
out a
long sigh. I swear he did
that. We mounted up and headed
out
again
at a nice walk. I asked him to
trot- He did! I was singing I
was
so
happy. Copper was not quite so
excited to go back out but he joined
in as
we trotted slowly through the town for the third time. We started
walking
when we hit the desert for three reasons-
the wind was blowing
freezing rain in our faces, it was
uphill, and I told Val and Brian I was not
chancing anything at this
point. No trips or stumbles, no
missing a
turn,
nothing. They happily agreed, since we couldn’t see anything anyway. We were going to finish this thing. Another first was
accomplished when Shatta took his
first ever pee with me on
his
back. Picture this- I'm sitting on
the back of a horse, in the
middle
of the night, in the freezing rain, soaking wet, in the desert, as
happy
as a
lark because my horse is urinating.
It makes you wonder about
endurance riders some time. Up we slogged to the vet check at a
walk.
We woke
up the Duck who checked us through again quickly. No way I'm
standing here in this miserable
weather to let the horse eat, so we
grabbed
hay and fed them a snack as we walked away from the check. 5
miles
to go! I led Shatta for a couple of
miles then got back up on his
back. We had plenty of time so we just walked
all the way back to camp.
I got
off and walked with him just to be walking. We crossed the
finish
line- I
stopped and told him how proud of him I was. We made it! What
an
adventure. About 38 started
the hundred, 18 finishers. Val,
Brian,
and I
got 12th, 13th, and 14th.
Barney told me he looked superb at the
final
check as Shatta trotted with the same bounce he always has. I had
a lot
of horse left. I was a little on
the tired side as I put him
away-
he was eating again as I went into the camper to crash. Three
hours
of sleep and it's breakfast and awards time. Yawn. The drive
home
was very tiring but I broke it up by stopping three times to
let
Shatta
out to eat and stretch his legs.
I was worried I might have
trouble
staying awake while driving being
by myself, but that was never
a
problem. All I had to do was
remember who was back there in the
trailer
behind me.
Nick
Warhol
Hayward, Ca.