Addison Township Watershed Preserve

I had a doctors appointment Thursday so I left early. The appointment was quick and I got home SO EARLY OMG.

I had already kind of planned this and wore leggings and my ariats to work, lol. Then I called Eric and asked if I ran the dishwasher and a load of clothes if he would mind single parenting it for a bit so I could take Gwyn out for a trail ride.

He readily agreed. Muahahah.

So with the sky dark and sporadically rainy, I loaded Gwyn up quickly and we headed south to the Watershed Preserve. It's the second closest trail location for me, the first being the local trailhead for Polly Ann but I didn't want to subject Gwyn's feet to the rocks until I can get her other Megasus up and ready for her. It's measured out, I just have to trim it and get the clips in place.

This is the trail map. It's a tiny park but available for riding.

Thankfully, there were no big horse flies but there were plenty of deer flies. They were not that bad all told.

Starting out from the bathroom and trail map message board.

 There's a lot of varied terrain over a very short course. There's edge of marsh riding, through pine tree groves, meadows, fishing ponds and deciduos forest. You pass through a couple biomes, it's part of why I love it.

Coming up to the fishing pond

Dude wasn't having much luck

Coming down into the marsh

Beaver dam

Slating Lake. There is a dock and you can portage boats in from the parking lot.

Trail was blocked so we rerouted through the woods and made our own path.

Saw another guy coming to fish.

Wide, grassy spaces for cantering

Trail splits. I went right the first time, and left the second. They meet up again.

Other side of the fishing pond.

The large treefall that Gwyn was very smart about navigating. I was so proud and happy.

I would try and jump it if we go again. It's maybe 2'6" ish? With decent footing and a slight uphill coming up this way.

There's a little historic school house at the parking lot

With a giant fucking wasp nest

And then we met a little boy and his grandfather. Gwyn was very gentle.

As you can see, there was a lot of overlap but I pretty much covered every trail available to me with a few exceptions that needed to be cleared.

LOL, weather is "dreary"  Accurate

Day 2: BlogHop for NaNoWriMo

Day 02- The last time you rode a horse and what you did

Storm Clouds on the horizon

This was just a few days ago, probably more like a week now (Oct 24), and I wrote about it then! It was a bit of a toodle, with the intent of becoming something more but never really got there due to external factors. Gwyn and I did work on things and I feel like we were pretty efficient, especially given that I was limited on time.

I still want to know whose trail camera I found. I hope it was the neighbors who gave me permission to use their property as access to the farm fields. I still need to ask them for permission to cut back some weeds so I can get to the farm fields.

Oooh, I should text them now (done!). I also need to call the dealership and get the Big Blue Truck an oil change (also now scheduled! woot). And schedule a trailer maintenance.

Sorry, went a bit stream of consciousness there.

There's lots on my mind though. Maybe since I already wrote about this ride I'll just word vomit. That's mostly what NaNo is about anyway :D

I'm planning to ride this weekend. It's supposed to warm up, which is exciting. And be dry, which is even more exciting. If I can get up to weed whack I'll stay on property, but I might ask Eric if he's good with me going to a trail. In which case I'll stick close to home and do the Polly Ann or Watershed Preserve. Watershed preserve would likely be pretty in the fall, but so would Polly Ann. Polly Ann would be flat, so good for moving out, Watershed is a bit more technical but has WAY less trail, so it could become repetitive. They are about equidistant from home so drive time is negligible.

What I'd LOVE to do is start at the Leonard trailhead and go north and have Eric drive the truck up to the General Squier trailhead. It would be a one way ride and some decent training miles! (a little over 5 miles)

8/2 Adventure to a trail!!

This weekend I was itching to get out and go trail riding. I had thought we were going to have plans with family but they never solidified, so I had ended up missing out on riding with someone else from the Distance Derby. Instead, I went alone!

I tried to convince Eric to come and hike while I rode so I could have some safety cushion as I had no idea what Gwyn would do. But it was high 80s and he didn't want to hike. Instead, I went solo! I got the truck and trailer hooked up, loaded with my stuff and got changed. Then it was just a matter of rounding up Gwyn and loading her, which happened pretty quickly, considering where she's been with trailer loading. The donkeys looked confused, and maybe a bit worried as they watched from the barn.

But we headed down the road to the Addison Township Watershed Preserve, a mere 10 minutes away on the same road I live on (so convenient!)  There were people hanging out at their trucks in the parking lot and they watched rather curiously as I turned the truck and trailer around and got out to unload. Their dog came over to say high and decided against it when he saw Gwyn.  The parking lot is HUGE gravel, not ideal or preferred for me, but I'm in no position to be picky or make demands. I groomed and tacked up. Gwyn got a little concerned when the people left to go walk the trails but settled back down. I stationed her on the far side of the trailer from the road, and the occasional traffic noise wasn't an issue.

She was great and I found a picnic table to use as a mounting block. She stood politely and when I pointed her at the trails her ears pricked forward and BOY OH BOY I had a happy mare from that point on. The only time her ears weren't pricked forward was when she was shaking the flies off. I need to finish her fly bonnet so she has some ear protection. Or modify the one she's wearing to have some ears. The flies were nasty and I popped some full of blood. Ick. I tried to smush as many as I could, but it was obvious she was bothered. Next time, Goober, I learn, I promise!

She never hesitated on the trail today. She offered the trot and canter in places. She did not spook. We just motored down the trails and explored. I did mini loops and did cover most of the trails twice because of the network of them. There aren't that many, or at least total length is not that great, but we got over 3 miles and I would have enjoyed going for longer if the bugs weren't terribad.

I had previously brought Kaylee here on a hike and I made sure to take all the paths so I was familiar. I started on the north loop that I had skipped on foot due to incoming storms. It offered a nice view of a marsh and had decently groomed trail.

We found the beaver dam and then I encountered the people from the parking lot. They were having a joint subcommittee at a bench with a nice view of Slating Lake. I got a mini contact high from riding by.

Beautiful forest by the lake. 

We rode up to the edge of Slating Lake but I didn't trust the water and footing to try and get in with Gwyn.

The view you get up on a 16h horse is better than on foot!

Selfie! I actually didn't get bit by any bugs. I did put on fly spray and not even the crazy pyrethrin, just the natural oils kind.

A man made fishing lake. You can camp by this spot if you get a permit from the fire department.

Camp spot.

Back in the forest

And here's the comparison between bike mode on the fitbit and endomondo. A .06 mile difference. That's pretty good! I'm going to continue to double track it, but I'm feeling better about using the fitbit now. Now all they need is a horseback riding exercise option so I can keep my bike rides separate from horse riding. 

Places to Ride an hour or less away

I'm starting to try and figure out where I can trailer to for some trail access. There's a decent amount of stuff in the area that's horse friendly, it's just me needing to know where I can go and where parking is that's holding me up.

This all was inspired by me looking for a place for Kaylee and I to go swimming that wasn't over 30 minutes away (Stony Creek). We ended up going to Metamora-Hadley Recreation area that's 10 miles away and was perfect, but that's another story.

Check it, any place that is listed as a recreation area is under the umbrella of the DNR and is a state park. It costs $11 annually for access to these parks. FUCK YES.

Anyway, places so far that I've found are:

Polly-Ann Trail
Technically if I trusted Gwyn on the road AND our road wasn't super speedy, I could ride to this trail from our house. We're less than 2 miles from an access point where it crosses a road. Polly-Ann is open to riders, but you're restricted to walking (though I can't find this verbage now on their websites...). From what I've seen of the points of access near me, no one uses the damn thing to even know if I might go faster than a walk. After my last debacle of trying to walk her along a road that had a high speed limit I'm not really interested in trying again until her brain gets rooted a bit more deeply. Especially with minimal shoulder.
What I really want is to make friends with the people who live right by the trail and ask if I can park at their place to ride on the trail. That would be ideal.

I did more research. There is trailer friendly parking down Rochester Rd in Leonard. Just nothing directly off Rochester Rd where it crosses, which is where I've been looking. Doh. Leonard is 10 minutes away. I'll explore tomorrow.

http://www.destinationoakland.com/parksandtrails/trailsoakroutes/Documents/PATMap2013FINAL.pdf
http://pollyanntraillapeer.org/
http://www.pollyanntrailway.org/

The Lapeer PAT group is doing a fall colors tour the day after my birthday in October! I'm SO ATTENDING!!!! Tentative info about the ride leads me to believe I might be able to park at General Squier Park, which is in Dryden itself. Dude. DUDE.  4 miles away. FUCK YEAH.

Pontiac Lake Recreation Area
About an hour away, this place has the most trail mileage available nearby topping out at 17 miles. It also looks as though they have a good loop for big mileage from looking at their map. There's a campground for horse camping and they have a rental stable which might be bad since I've heard some things about avoiding riding when the renters are out and about.

http://www.michigandnr.com/Publications/PDFS/RecreationCamping/pontiac_lake_map.pdf

Addison Oaks County Park
This thing is just down the road. Not riding down the road, but...  20 minutes away. I had no idea it was there until today. (I'm serious).   There's not a lot of mileage, but there's a few separate loops of equestrian trail that I could do. And it's SO CLOSE!! Just under 10 miles of trail, which is pretty good, all things considered!

I might take Kaylee here tomorrow and go biking just so I can scout it all out and figure out parking and get a pass. Since this is a county park it has a different pass system. I wish there was an annual all parks pass for all the counties.
http://www.destinationoakland.com/parksandtrails/mapspublications/Documents/May%202013%20addison%20trail%20map.pdf
http://www.destinationoakland.com/parksandtrails/mapspublications/PublishingImages/AO%20East%20Trail%20map_2012.pdf
http://www.destinationoakland.com/parksandtrails/mapspublications/Documents/addison-connector-trail.pdf

Ortonville Recreation Area
At 25 minutes away (about 20 miles) is this lovely place with just less than 9 miles of trails, but from the look of the map, we'd be able to ride for a LOT longer just by doing mini loops. They also have an equestrian campground. I like that the equestrian trails are very much separate from the main part of the park so there's not really a multi-use conflict.

http://www.michigandnr.com/Publications/PDFS/RecreationCamping/ortonville_map.pdf

Addison Township Watershed Preserve
At 6 minutes away this is the next closest after Polly-Ann. I found it when Kaylee wanted to go hiking but 7 Ponds Nature Center was closed. I had remembered seeing this just down Rochester Rd, barely over the county line into Oakland County. The board at the front had no information about use but upon hitting the trail I saw a sign that said "Clean up your manure!"   Ah HAH!  Horses are allowed!

There's not a lot of trail here, but at 6 minutes away it's hard to beat, especially since there's no fee for use. Maybe 2 miles of trail but some nice hills and all woody with some lake views. And decent parking to turn a horse trailer around.

An article on riding in the park in the winter!
http://www.theoaklandpress.com/lifestyle/20140126/riding-with-a-mounted-trail-patrol-at-addison-watershed-preserve
http://www.twp.addison.mi.us/Portals/3/PDF/Township%20Parks.pdf

Elba Equestrian Complex
Free to day use riders, also has camping available. It's also 25 minutes away. I can't get details on length of trails, but it's got over 1000 acres of trails available. I'll need to investigate further before bringing Gwyn.

http://www.geneseecountyparks.org/images/contentImages/file/2015%20Elba%20Map%20and%20Rules.pdf