Palisades

 1 Upper & 2 Lower Rainey Creek

When I think of this ride, I think of my dad, Keith, and I riding this loop in the Fall.  The leaves were in full fall colors.  There was a chill in the air.  Dad was riding Little Khasi.  It is a nice ride in the Fall because most of the ride is at lower elevations instead of high in the mountains.  I remember riding this same trail with Mark and his children.

3 Palisades creek and return.

This is a very popular trail with hikers.  It is 4 miles to the Lower Lake and another 3 miles to the Upper Lake.  It is another mile to get to the upper end of the Upper Lake.  The trail is well maintained.  I did this ride dozens of times.  It is beautiful.  There is a place on the north side of the creek where the trail goes behind a bluff overlooking the creek.   Every time I pass it; I think that there should be an altar built there to thank God for all the beauty He created.

I seldom ride past the Lower Lake that I do not see a few moose feeding in the shallows of the lake.  We used to ford the creek when we reached the fork in the trail that heads up the Upper Lake.  If the creek was running high, our dogs would have difficulty swimming across because the current would carry them down stream.  Now there is a nice bridge there.

One time we ate lunch at the lower end of the Upper Lake.  When we were starting our return trip back down the mountain, we met a bunch of hikers with backpacks. My horse, Prozac, got nervous when passing people with backpacks.  The hikers were friendly and stepped off the trail.  There was a steep side slope, so they stepped up the hill to give up the trail.  I was the last one in our group of horses.  Prozac wasn’t happy to be passing these hikers so close to him, but he was willing to follow the other horses.  Suddenly, he bolted forward with so much force that I almost rolled off his back.  I got him under control and turned back to see if everyone was alright.  Thankfully, everyone was ok.  There was a middle-aged woman picking herself back up.  She had fallen backwards because of the force on her hand Prozac created when she reached out to touch him as he passed by.  I apologized and she apologized.  It all ended well.  It probably reinforced Prozac’s fear of backpacks.

My last ride with Desiree’, was on this ride.  We rode up past the Upper Lake to the waterfall up Waterfall Canyon.  We took pictures, but looking back, not enough.