One weekend, two trail rides.

Last weekend was a busy one with the Hunt Ball to attend on Saturday evening, but I managed to fit in two trail rides.  We still don't have any snow to speak of and with the warm temps and rain followed by a freeze, there is more ice out there than ever!

Saturday, I took Daatje out alone on our ice-modified route.

We found a new trail.  Well, it wasn't really *new* per se.  I'd been ignoring it because it looked so small and windy.  More of a foot path than a bridle trail.  You can see in the image above where we went down along the contour of the Rookery Swamp.  That was the new trail.  I got pretty far along before ice turned us around, but I'm very excited to go further as this is supposed to skirt around the swamp and if so, would give us access to the Plaistow Trails!  It's a trail rider's heaven out there. :)  Here's a close up of the new area:

I took some pics of the swamp as viewed from the tiny trail.

If you look closely, you can see the Heron's nests in the tops of the dead trees on the upper right of the last photo.

Along this new trail there was a huge glacial boulder with mossy ferns growing on top of it and a split right down the middle.



I wanted to see what it looked like from above, so we bush-whacked off the trail and climbed the hill.  Here's the view from behind the boulder.

We turned back after this.  I'd be thrilled if the new trail actually does make a way around the swamp.  This is the reason I currently don't have direct access to the Plaistow trails:

That is not quite passable, even when it's not frozen.  Used to be a beaver dam, dam let go and the water there is really, really deep.  The remains of the dam are bogged in the mud under the water and the footing is really trappy.  Yuck.

Which brings us to our Sunday trail ride.  Mom came on foot with her little mini Rainbow. :)  We went basically the same place as I did on Saturday, but did not venture as far down the little new trail.

It was snowing lightly.

Mom and the adoreable Rainbow!

Daatje in front of the glacial boulder

Mom and Rainbow on top of the boulder hill.



Our GPS track from Sunday, 2/3/13.