Sunday May 4th
We rode the lower 5 miles of the trail today.The trail has a good surface, gravel, but is probably soft enough for non-shod with tough feet. There is a few narrow openings for people and horses to get around locked gates. 2 miles in there is a wooden bridge to cross over a cattle access to the river. A dead beaver (still pretty ripe) and a deer carcass (not ripe), lots of rock chucks, geese, goslings, ducks (no ducklings), lizards, and birds. Only snake we saw was taken directly over us by a hawk. Good thing he didn’t drop it, it would not have been a good deal. We turned around at a gate that was closed but not locked so can go through it.
Think parking will be limited if we park by the dam, maybe 6 or 7 rigs with trailers. We made arrangements with Dillon to park in the field across the road from the dam, the company he works for owns the ground on both sides of the road. There are heifers in the field so will have to be careful about the gate, but there is lots of room.
The directions on the web site say to turn right at Unity lane, but people need to continue going straight on Weiser river road, over a small bridge over the canal to get to Galloway dam.
It was a very enjoyable ride, along the river all the way.
Our May 10th ride was also a great success. We had a large number of members and guest who had a perfect day on the trail. This is a beginner trail, with an excellent foot tread. Your are unlikely to get lost as you are in a canyon, with river on one sides and slopes and fences on the other. We stopped at one of the wagon trip camp sites which had a number of railroad ties planted in the ground to tie your stock to. The highlight of the trip for me was riding through a large flock of nanny goats and kids. Many were just days old. The wild flowers were also making their appearance adding to the beauty of the ride. Mile markers are along the trail so you can gage how far your want to ride. To the lunch spot and back is a bit under ten easy miles.
I am glad we rode yesterday, it is very windy and cold here this morning. How was the rest of the trail? I was disappointed that we had to turn around. It was very nice to have a ride close to us although it is fun to ride in new areas. We have ridden quite a few of the accessible areas around here so I like going to new places.
The goats were interesting, Terry and Gail talked to the herder, he said that the dead and sick ones bloated–they wondered if they were poisoned by eating the hemlock that was there.The goats are actually used to eat leafy spurge, the county found it cheaper to have the goats eat along the river than it was to spray. Every year the goats spend the summer along the river from here to Cambridge.
I thought you might be interested to know that there was an article in our newspaper about the goats this week. They shipped in 700 head of nannies plus kids, on May 8th. Part of the herd was released outside of Midvale, the rest at Galloway. The article said that a vet thought that the sick and dead ones had foundered on bulbous bluegrass. “There is a nutritional value to the plant, however, and this event was a matter of timing in the maturity and protein content which resulted in the animals’ foundering”.
We enjoyed visiting with everybody, see you later.