Hog Wild is an odd name to have for a ride but it turns out to be the one Tammy Robinson of Trail-rite Products has
chosen for her April ride.  It's held on an old hog farm with the buildings and pens still there but no pigs to be seen - even wild ones.  It's held near Saugus about 40 miles north of LA off of I-5 on the weekend of April 20th.

Friday starts off getting there with huge blocks of towering white clouds in the sky looking like big snow mountains to match the low mountains around the canyon where basecamp is.  It's actually a beautiful day with low temperatures with 34 50 mile riders and 75 LDs showing up to compete in the ride.

The horizon is dominated by huge columns of  powerline towers marching over the mountains and disappearing into the distance - flowing along the tops of the ridges as well as dipping into the canyons. They mark this ride for me more than the cluster of buildings for which the ride is named.

The ride begins with a controlled start for the 50s at 6:30 - now well after dawn with Daylight Savings Time in effect. The 25s get to start at 7:30 to do the easier part of the trail for the 50s.  There's lots of ups and downs in the ride - not as many as in the previous years but enough make it moderate to difficult.  You get to ride the ridges - sometime with steep drop-offs on each side - as well as narrow canyons where truly a fat pony with stirrups would not get through.

Two of the three vet checks are back in camp - something that I personally like because your gear is close and I can take better care of my horse.  The first is after a loop of 15 miles - the second after another 18 miles, with the third out check just 3 miles before the finish.  Water is provided everywhere on this well organized ride.

The distances are a little deceiving - the first 15 miles take just 1:45 to complete even with lots of climbs and descents.  The 14 miles from vetcheck 2 to 3 take almost 3 hours for a middle of the pack rider to complete.  The winning time is around 5:50 by Suzy Kelly, followed by Larry Bowers, then Earnie Lohman, and Elfta Hilzman.

You learn quickly that there are only two ways to go in a canyon - up the canyon and down the canyon.  The three times we go out of basecamp - the trails are parallel but different and often only 15 feet apart. With the bushes and low trees - they seem like different trails.

The ride has everything from beautiful views from the ridges of the canyons and surrounding mountains to the remains of cars, trucks, washing machines, and all the debris of modern civilization.  You ride thru a huge burned off area that looks desolate with the blackened skeletons of bushes and small trees but with new life growing at the base of each bush.  There's animal life - the coyotes provide a noisy background during the night at times and you can see large birds floating in the thermals below us from the ridges during the ride.  Some of the animal life is different - we ride by a place where animals for movies are kept - apes, camels, and others that make noises that some of the horses spook at.

The ride is a family affair - all of Tammy's family are here cooking, signing people in - and there's a lot of great volunteers.  For the P&Rs, every highway crossing has someone to stop traffic, water in containers everywhere, excellent markings in  most places on the trail with one exception where a local child removed the markings. It's a very well organized ride with an excellent awards dinner at the end.  Tammy gives some very nice embroidered blankets with the "Hog Wild" logo for awards that Jan Jeffers had done for her.  Jan came down to do the ride and see the blankets given out.

For the first time - Tammy has decided to award a BC in the LD ride following the AERC model so that the riders can get credit for it.  The first 10 horses that reach criteria are judged for the LD BC with all the cautions by the head Vet Fred Beasom at the ride meeting concerning not racing, meeting criteria rather than first across the finish line, and making sure they separate out the riders from the "motorcycle" racers in the group.

The two QSER members attending -Jan Jeffers(Astro) and Mike Maul(Roc) - place 22nd and 23 in the field of thirty-four 50 mile riders.

A few observations on this ride:

It's pretty close to LA - one of the largest metropolitan areas in the US.  And yet - you see canyons, mountains, and views that sometimes don't contain any evidence of civilization.  And yet at other times - the debris of civilization is all too obvious. Twenty minutes from the ride site - you can be back in the outskirts of LA.

You see old places where people live that almost look abandoned and others where a new home you might find in Almaden Valley is placed out in the middle of nowhere.  One in particular has huge columns several stories high in front like a southern plantation.  The architect must have drawn the sketches up with trees, grass, and other things that made it look like it belongs where it was built.  Here in this dry arid area - you just wonder at what was going thru the builders mind.

You get a chance to see endurance as a family affair - the 13th place LD rider is 80 with four generations down to a junior at 8 riding.

In another spot on the ride - you are going on one direction along a high ridge and see riders going the opposite direction along the next high ridge.  You first thought is - I know I'm on trail so they must have missed a turn.  But you end up going all the way up this narrow canyon to climb back up on the next ridge so you can see the following riders back on that ridge you just left.

And sometimes your mind wanders on a ride like this and your imagination takes over.  You occasionally see the remains of animals with just the bones left.  With the huge powerline towers with the singing buzzing wires overhead - you see the remains below them - old cars, washings machines, brake drums, tires - in the same way.  These remains are the bones of the mechanical "animals" of the civilization that the towers support.

It's a nice - very well run ride by Tammy, her family, and the great group of volunteers that support it.

Mike