Dusty's Grand Canyon Ride July 17th

Dusty Mundy took us on his Grand Canyon ride, which is in the mountains above Fillmore. We invited Jolene to come along and Dallas came, after I did a little coaxing. Dusty's cousin Steve Roberts, Kelly, Melanie, Ron and Mark also came. Steve and Ron have diabetes pretty bad and Ron also has M.S. It was a pretty long ride for Ron mainly because of the terrible pain he is constantly in. One of the guys said you can imagine your worst pain like after working out and lifting weights and your really sore and that is what he always feels like so anything out of the ordinary like this is probably 10 times worse. He never said a word but his friends knew he was hurting. It made me really appreciate my health. I am so lucky to not have to struggle or be in agonizing pain to enjoy the things I love.
The ride started out pretty good. I was riding Oscar because Badger had thrown a shoe. Matt usually leads Oscar for a pack horse so we realized pretty quick that Oscar does better when he is behind Dan, Matt's horse. He also doesn't know a whole lot. As we headed up the trail Oscar was prancing right along the edge of the trail. One side of the trail was a hill side and the other was a pretty steep drop off in some places. On the switch backs, when he saw Dan headed back, he would lunge up the steep hill side instead of following the trail around the turn. We stopped at one point and Matt went with Dusty to look at something and Oscar started to get worked up. He started to rear up but settled down when Matt came back and we headed up the trail again.....or so I thought he had settled down. Oscar started to lunge and rear up again. Oscar is about 17 hands tall, which is pretty tall so when he rears up it is pretty high in the air. I slowly got off and held on to his reins. He bailed off the embankment into some dead fall and lunged up until he got back on the trail. I led him for a little ways until he settled down and got back on. I could tell he was mellowed out a little after that and he did pretty well the rest of the way, as long as I stayed right by Matt. The first stop was Mossy Falls. It was beautiful from the trail and we tied up the horses and hiked to the falls. The water was fresh right out of the mountain and it was so good!

Me, Matt, Dusty, Brandon Day, Kelly, Melanie, and Dallas. Jolene was taking the picture. The rest of the crew stayed up with the horses.

Matt and Dusty

Dallas Matty on Wakara. Dusty is so good to let Dallas ride his horse. He is such a good horse and you can trust him for kids.

This is the look off at the Grand Canyon trail head. It was quite a ways down and kind of scary getting to close. Matt was holding on to Dallas. Dusty looks a little to close.

Me and Jolene. Jolene loves riding as much as I do and I am so glad she came.

The next part of the ride was the steepest trail I have probably ever been on. I am so glad Oscar decided to behave because it is not a place for a horse to lunge or bail off the trail. Matt and I thought Dallas will be up for anything after this ride and she did really good. She said she was scared but didn't say anything.

Probably about half way down the mountain there was an old gold mine. I will have to get the exact story but I guess there is some legends around Fillmore that the golden plates were buried there. Whoever worked on this mine was told to go straight back into the mountain and they would find them. I was excited for the adventure but when I saw the little hole that you had to climb in I thought they were kidding us.

They weren't kidding and Matt went first. I was sure to bring the camera.

If you can get over claustrophobia just at the beginning it opens up so you can stand up. Kelly was prepared and had flashlights. My flash worked really well for the pictures but the mine was pitch black.

There was water at the bottom of the mine. The walls were red which rubbed off on our clothes. Dusty said he wanted to see me come out with red streaks in my hair, but I was a step ahead of him and put my bandanna on my head.

Kelly, Melanie, and Jolene trying to keep their feet dry.

Jolene, Mark (Dusty's brother), me, Dallas, Melanie and Kelly at the end of the mine.

Climbing out of the mine.

Dusty worked really hard making this trail and stayed up here for the summer. They had a little kitchen and living area set up. Dusty is quite the trail blazer and taught us how he marked his trails with the double x.

Dallas checking out the rock room. There is also a place that Dusty calls the Sacred Grove. There were all kinds of adventures and sites on this ride and we had a great time. We lost Buster along the way and Melanie said she saw him get kicked by a horse. I was hoping he would be back at the trucks when we got there and he wasn't. I was kind of worried about him and didn't want to leave him. As we were loading up Kelly went down ahead and ended up coming back and he had Buster in the truck. He had found some people that were feeding him fried chicken. I was glad we didn't have to go home without him. Porter was missing too but there were a lot of people on the trail that Dusty and Kelly knew and they thought they would bring him home to them.

After the ride we went over to Dusty's house where Diane had made a huge home cooked, home grown meal! It was so good and it was so kind of her to have cooked all day so we could enjoy dinner when we got home. We went out and sat on the porch and ate and talked and then had some really good cobbler. Dallas had really bad leg cramps so I rubbed her legs and Diane gave her an aspirin. Dusty has a beautiful garden and shared with us some cucumbers and squash and zucchini. What great friends!!!