Homeschooling, Horses & Motocross: Banff

Our third day of riding was to take us to Allenby Pass way up high in the mountains. The group before us hadn't been able to make it to the top because of six inches of snow that had fallen a few days earlier. The horses have regular shoes on and snow can build up on their hooves making hard ice balls. This is bad. We had watched some of the snow melt over the past few days - you could see the white spots getting smaller - so we had high hopes. The day was a bit overcast but the clouds were high and we didn't really expect rain. We did expect it to be cold. We dressed warm and used our cowboy slickers again.

The trail was steep and challenging.

Lots of areas of landslide rocks and patches of snow.

One path we followed for a ways was very wet. As we got up closer we found it was actually a little snow-melt stream that had been diverted from continuing a straight path down by the trail. Many of the horses stopped to get a drink here.

Once again, I wasn't sure how Tess could even see the trail sometimes and felt very sorry for the horses having to pick their way through the rocks.

As we got near the top of the tree line I got a pleasant surprise - LARCH TREES! I had discovered an usual type of pine tree at our cottage in northern Michigan many years ago. After taking pictures and talking with the DNR, I found out they were larch trees - fairly unusual for Michigan and generally only seen at higher elevations. Well, we sure were high at this point - about 8000 feet elevation! Larch trees loose their needles in the winter - this the carpet of red needles on the path.

Of course, the view just got more amazing as we got higher.

Tess got up ahead of us at this point - Pierre was leading for a change!

We started running out of trees and encountering more snow.

Jill and Sara - Jill's younger daughter.

And then Tess made the call that we couldn't go any further but we we were only about 400 feet from the top and it was a great spot to see forever.

Madison and Samantha on their trusty steeds.

This snow was still about 6 inches deep. At the end of June....

Being up this high and looking down was magical.

This panoramic shot barely does it justice. We did have a few snow flurries while we were up here but not even enough to get us damp.

We celebrated making it up this high! And as odd as it sounds, it was a challenge to get this shot since these horses are used to going nose to tail - not standing side by side!

And then we went back down. Sometime riding along these rock strewn paths going down was scarier than going up!

This was fairly near our little Halfway Lodge up on the ridge. The lodge was down near the bottom to the left.

And then we crossed the river back up to the lodge. Since we hadn't made it to the top of Allenby Pass, we came back to have our sandwiches and then head back out for another short trip.