Death Valley Encounter, 2005

 

It just wouldn’t seem like Christmas without going to the DVE.  This year would be a little different for me, since it would be the first time since 1998, I think, that I have not ridden Zayante down there.  He and I have covered a lot of ground in that desert, and now that he’s retired, I will miss riding him a lot.  It was especially tough this year, since I had him in the trailer with me for the trip down from the Bay Area to Jackie’s house in Ridgecrest.  He has been spending some time with us during his recuperation, and I’m really happy to report that he finally got his internal systems operating correctly after his horrible colic episode in August.  It took almost three months for his metabolic situation to get back to normal, but since it has, he’s an eating and pooping machine once more, and has gained back the weight he lost.  He looks just great now, and we could not be happier.  He’s back home now with his pasture buddies, happy and content to be retired.  Be sure to stop by and visit him if you are ever in Ridgecrest in the winter, or Bridgeport in the summer.  He’s the snow white wonder horse who has done more than most horses will ever dream about.

 

The good news for me was I would be riding my new horse Don in his first attempt in the desert, as well as his first real multi-day event.  He did 2 back-to-back days at the Desert Gold ride in November, but this would be the real thing.  This ride is the real thing, let me tell you.  Since I have ridden it so many times, and written several stories about the trail, this time I’m just going to hit the highlights of the ride.   The first and most important thing was the weather.  It was not raining!  After the monsoon disaster of last year, no one wanted anything to do with the rain and floods, with the exception of Scott Sansom, who apparently being kind of strange, seems to like riding in that kind of weather.  The rest of us mortals were pretty happy with the perfect conditions, (almost) although the rain does make those deep sand washes pretty nice.  I think maybe Jackie should hire a fleet of water trucks to sit out there in the desert to moisten down the sand for us.  And while we’re at it, how about some bulldozers to scrape away those rocks?  And perhaps some shade tents over the trail to keep that blinding sun away?  And of course some huge screens could be installed next to the trail to block out the wind?   Nahh- if you did all that you would not have the ride that’s so special.  

 

My first day started off with nice weather and a calm start. Since Judy was not riding Color, she rode Laurie Olsen’s mare on day one due to poor Laurie being sick as the proverbial dog.  I hooked up with my buddy Gretchen Montgomery and her cool horse Rafique- we walked out of camp and started trotting.  I only had one real episode of note in the morning while we were trotting through the junkyards of Trona.  Don saw something and did a pretty big spook that turned into a couple of little bucks, but I just told him to cut it out and we continued on.  The first loop went quickly, and after lunch we got to climb up over the Slate mountain range.  This is the first of my three special places on this ride.  After grinding your way up a moderate climb, you end up on a rocky dirt road that crests the summit.  You can’t see anything in front of you until you ride up this one little hill on top, and then you get the incredible view of the entire Paniment Valley stretching out for 50 miles in front of you.  It’s quite a view, and it’s worth sitting there for a moment to just look at it.  I always think of Julie Suhr when I’m here, as it’s one of her favorite places in the world to be.  We finished the first day at about 4:00 pm with Don looking very nice and barely ridden.  He was just superb for me trotting along as happy as can be along the miles and miles of dry lakes and roads.   And what a completion rate- 55 starters, 55 finishers.  Not too shabby!  AERC Director at Large Laura Hayes was in town (?) and brought her husband along from New York or wherever they live, way back there, to vet the ride.  She rode Jackie’s mare Star on Day one, but pulled her on day 2 after the mare wasn’t that happy about eating or drinking.  Laura spent the remainder of the ride helping out and smiling all the time.  We had a little Director Quorum out there and should have had some votes on stuff- myself, Laura, John Parke, and Robert Ribley.

 

Day two is one of those days where you always look forward to doing it, but when you are on it, some people ask themselves  “What in the world am I doing here?”  Well, a lot of people do, and I can see why, but if you don’t start it, you can’t see special place number two.  It’s a tough day- you do a nice 7 mile flat trot, then turn left and climb up to the top of the world on one of the rockiest roads in existence.  It’s just all rocks, and it goes way, way up, to almost 8,000 feet in 12 miles.  Although a lot of people do some trotting up it in places, my goal was to just walk up and down the whole thing.  Yuck.  I wanted to see how Don would handle this massive effort.  He did very well at the bottom where we go through all the water and streams and up the first third or so of the climb.  It’s still weird to see all that water out on this mountain where there is just none anywhere else for many miles.  My horse just kept walking up and up and a nice pace, although not in any frantic hurry.  It’s still fun to look at all the old mines and stuff out there in that canyon.  Fred Emigh came by on his horse at a fast walk, and Don thought it would be cool to join him, so he stepped up his walk and really moved out up the rest of the climb.  That was nice!  There’s a little break almost at the top where we can trot a little, but then it’s another grind to the tip top.  Here’s special place number two- it really does look like the top of the world.  The view is best described by a woman who came up behind us while Don was drinking.  (They actually haul water up here if you can believe that!)  She crested the summit, took a look out in front of her and said: ”Holy mother of God!”  That sort of expresses what it’s like.  You can’t believe the view.  Especially that day.  It was so clear!  I have been up here a bunch of times in all types of weather, mostly cloudy, foggy, or snowing.  It’s great when you can see it like this.  All of Death Valley is spread out in front of you as far as you can see in two directions.  It’s pretty neat to be in a place not a lot of humans get to visit.  The walk down the mountain isn’t much fun, though, due to the billions of rocks you have to deal with.  I don’t think that’s an exaggeration either.  I led my boy all the way down that thing on foot at the howling protest of my poor ankles. (Ever hear your ankles scream at your brain?  It’s not pretty!)  Those guys did their best to keep me on my feet, but they are not perfect, either.  Don walks quite a bit faster than Rafique downhill, so I would keep ending up out in front a little.  I stepped on a rock and it squibbed out- down I went in a heap on the rocks.  Ouch!  I glanced back to be sure Gretchen had not seen that- I razzed her for tripping over some rocks at the top and falling over backwards.  Can’t have her see me bite the dust!  Just as I looked back for her, whammo, down I went again!  Twice in thirty seconds!  I picked myself up again- Don just looked at me like I was an idiot.  But at least Gretchen had not seen me fall!  Come on, ankles, don’t let me down!  It’s about a three hour walk down that monster all the way to the vet check in the valley below.  It feels as good as anything to walk on level ground after that.  Rafique had tripped once on the decent and was a little off at the check, so we took it real easy on the flat road back to camp.  At the finish Rafique still looked a little off, but not too bad, and got his completion, so Gretchen would take care of him and look at it later and in the morning.  Don looked great- I was quite thrilled at how well he had been doing so far.  Lots of energy, sound, and looking really good at the trot.  Nice!  Melissa Ribley took a pretty bad fall on the way down the mountain.  Her horse tripped and went down on top of her, cracking her helmet in the process.  She was whacked pretty badly, and all kinds of ugly rumors were floating around, but she got to the vet check okay and rested a while. Although she did not remember the accident after hitting her head, she did continue on, and of course knowing Melissa, finished the last two days as well.  Thanks goodness she was wearing that helmet.

 

Day three is a weird day- not many people really like it, but I always kind of enjoy it.  It’s another point to point day that just wanders across the desert and valleys, with lots of deep, deep sand, a 5 mile road of solid rocks, a 7 mile trot across a dry lake, and a 6 mile trot on the shoulder of a highway.  Sounds like fun, eh?  Rafique was still a little iffy, so Gretchen wisely gave him the day off so she might be able to ride the much nicer day four.  I rode out of camp with Kristen Flynn, Jamie Kerr’s girl friend, until she sped up a bit after an hour or so.  We did get to see three wild burro’s out along the trail- Robert Ribley said they were “taking numbers.”  That’s so neat to see those guys out there in the middle of nowhere.   I always lead my horse down that darn 4 mile rock road; I walked along with Steph Teeter for a couple of hours- that was fun.   After the water stop I rode with one of my regular DVE riding buddies, Becky Hackworth, on her daughter Heather’s outstanding horse Mark.  I tried to follow Becky and Sue Benson up the long sandy uphill washes to the foothills, but Don would not walk as fast as Mark in the deep sand, so he trotted along to Marks’ ridiculously fast walk.  Judy, Gretchen, and her hubby Mike met me at the vet check for a nice lunch break.  I keep babbling about how much I love my horse; my crew keeps telling me to shut up.  The F-18 jets that were buzzing the vet check the day before were mercifully staying away today.  After the seven or so miles of trotting along the edge of the dry lake we got to the 6 miles of trotting alongside the highway to the finish.  Don was so good- he has never been here before, and had no idea camp was up there, yet he just trotted along, all by ourselves, uphill at a brisk pace, just as forward as can be.  So nice.  He did a little leaping spook when a giant motor home came blasting up behind me on the highway and honked their horn- scared me as well. (What do people think?  I guess they were just being friendly.)  Three days down, he’s looking just great and is getting stronger as we go.  And he’s doing the Jamie Kerr mantra- Eating, Drinking, Peeing, and Pooping.  Those words may not mean much to non-endurance riders, but they are oh so important!

 

Day four began with the weather looking kind of threatening, so Jackie made a contingency plan that would avoid the high elevation of the absolutely beautiful Centennial Flats section of the ride, up above Darwin.   I hoped not, since that’s the third of my favorite spots in the ride.   The good news was Rafique looked good, so Gretchen joined us for the long trot and walk up the climb towards Darwin.  We stopped at the secret spring in the big wash for a drink- both horses did so.  This incredible wash used to be one of the best places on the ride to really boogie- this year it was mostly just deep, deep sand.  We saw a little disaster unfold in front of us as we walked up the last climb towards the strange little town- a woman came off her horse and got dragged a bit before getting separated from her horse.  Yuck!  She was fine and continued on behind us.  The wind was starting to pick up as we crested the top of the hill- it was really blowing as we entered Darwin.  Don Bowen was there crewing for his wife and gave me a rice crispy treat. Thanks Don!  Jackie had indeed routed the 50’s around the mountain, back to base camp on the LD trail.  I was disappointed, but relieved after looking out across the valley at the nasty weather up there that started right where the trail goes.  It was black with rain, and it gets horribly windy up there in the pass.  I had not ever done the LD trail that wound its way back to meet up with the return trail in the big wash- it was a nice, soft road with fantastic footing that we really jammed down at a big trot for a half hour or more.  Big fun!  The weather was wild- it was storming like mad just a few miles away, but we seemed to just be staying on the fringe of the front.  We got some rain, but nothing bad at all.  I was playing musical jacket- on, off, on, off when the temperature kept swinging all over the place.   Another big drink in the secret spring, then all the long way back to camp for a lunch hold.  It started getting really windy in camp- chairs and all matter of camping stuff was blowing all over the place.  All we had to do now was go down 7 miles or so along the highway, turn around, and come back.  Piece of cake.  We started trotting along down the highway in the wind, but every rider we came across was warning us about the wind on the dry lake.  We saw what they meant!  It was windy down there, I mean big wind.  I was almost blown off the horse at one point, and when the giant creosote bushes started getting blown over sideways and out of the ground it got a little dicey.  Don got a little scared at that point, so I hopped off him in self preservation mode, just to be safe.  It was so windy you could not talk to your riding partner.  I tucked in right behind Rafique’s butt and followed them closely for a bit- Don liked that much better, so I got back up and we followed him for the duration of the incredible wind.  It was only blowing like that for 15-20 minutes at worst, but it was intense.  Thanks Gretchen!  We had dust in our eyes for a while after that mess.  We trotted very briskly back up the road to the finish, where Don once again looked splendid. 

 

I believe there were only 12 or 13 horses that made it all four days, and my little Princess was one of them.  If you think I sound pretty happy with my horse you’d be right.  My theory of the DVE is that if you can do all four days of this ride, you can do just about anything.   It’s tough in places, yet so beautiful in others you feel bad for all the people who can’t experience it.   Sure, some people have problems on this ride- it’s not for snivelers.  Bad luck rears its ugly head way too often.  But let me tell you- it’s a pretty good feeling finishing this ride with your horse looking great and happy to continue going.  I’m so proud of him. 

 

See you next year-

Nick Warhol

Hayward, Ca.