I love to take my pony to the mountains. We escape the heat, wind and the monotonous road driving. Both Zorro and I LOVE being in the mountains and seeing new things. It's beautiful up there.
Sometimes we find great old, unused logging trails. Sometimes we only find simple deer trails. Sometimes we find wonderful 4-wheeler trials but they can be technical! This trail was steep and very technical. What goes up must come down so even though we came down a different way, it was still a steep decline. I ended up walking half of this drive. (**Disclaimer. I know that walking with a hitched pony is a big no no. I've been doing this with Zorro since the beginning, getting him ready for drives and hikes like this. We go places where it's just not possible for me to stay in the cart. I am not saying this is a safe thing for you to do with your pony! In nearly all cases, if you ask me I will say, get your butt in that cart and keep it there while you are driving. And definitely DO NOT walk behind the cart with a green and just-starting-to-drive-pony. You are asking for trouble by doing that!!)
In the above photos we were just starting out. I was able to stay in the bike for a minute before the trail narrowed a bit and then started to climb. The lighting up there on the mountain is so beautiful.
I had to open two wire gates on this drive and Zorro was a perfect gentleman, waiting patiently for me to wrestle them open - if you have never opened a wire gate let me tell you, if they are a nice tight gate it is a chore to get them open and the closed again - then standing quietly while I wrestled it closed again. We came up on some cows "hiding" in the trees. This was cause for some anxiety on Zorro's part. I believe both Zorro and Samson thought they were bears! I don't blame them one bit. They do look big and black and scary. I let Zorro stand and get a good look and then asked him to move on. He did so quietly and listened to me so well. Two of the cows thought about charging so I had to pick up a big stick and wave it at them. When they stopped, spun and took off through the trees, Zorro didn't bat an eyelash!
Samson went down to the creek to wallow and get a drink and Zorro was quite eager to go down there as well. The trail was narrow and had large boulders and pieces of downed tree along side it but I figured if any vehicle could manage it would be the bike! And I was right.
I'll share a video at the bottom of this post!
I had to help him turn the bike around because the trail was too narrow for him to do it alone. So I asked him to climb up the steep side a bit while I drug the bike around. Then I had him back up into the creek and I drug it around a bit more, then he was able to drag it back up onto the road!
We were surrounded by clouds of big fat black biting flies, but none landed on us! I swear the Alzoo Herbal shoo fly collar is working so well!
This view was so pretty once we climbed up out of the trees!
This part of the road was so amazing. The trees were gigantic and everything was so green. It was perfectly cool in the shade. This reminded me of Jurassic Park!
This pony is just so handsome and amazing. He is truly my unicorn!!
The video!