Climbing a mountain with horses

by Edwin

This morning I went back to the stables where I was yesterday. I asked if it was possible to do a four hours ride and the owner of the stables replied by asking me if I maybe had more time today. Of course I had and then she told me I could do a day-trip without having to pay extra for it. That was a nice surprise! My guide of today was a girl that was a few years older than me and was just as excited about the ride of today as I was.

About half an hour later when the horses were ready and the stable owner had given us a lunch package we departed for a long, beautiful ride. No galloping today, because we climbed one of the big mountains in this area. First we followed the creek for a while that turned into a big river which we crossed with the horses. That was a nice new experience for me. The river became bigger and turned into a waterfall while we were still climbing the mountain via small trails. In total we climbed more then 3000 feet (that’s about a kilometer) vertically. I was happy that I didn’t hike this route. It was a long and heavy trail, but the horses did a good job climbing the mountain.

After about three hours of climbing we reached a big lake, called Ice Lake, at the top of the mountain. It was really beautiful and quiet up there. As you can understand the water was way to cold to go swimming, because it was melted ice water. Although it’s summer, there still was some snow left on the top of the mountain. I was happy that we took our hoodies with us, because it was much colder than downtown at the stables.

When we finished our lunches next to the Ice Lake we went on our way back, which went a little faster than the way up. This ride was absolutely the best way to get a good view of this beautiful area. Although the horses did the most work today, I was quite tired when we were back at the stables at the end of the afternoon. It was absolutely a great day, I really enjoyed it! 🙂