Mounted Scavenger Hunt!

As some of you may know, I volunteer at an Equitherapy Facility as a sidewalker and a horse handler. Lately we have been working hard to set up the annual fundraiser, a mounted scavenger hunt! I kind of fell into this position last year when my BO Linda asked me if I wanted to go help set up trails for the scavenger hunt! Of course, this year after enjoying it SO much last year, we spent most of our days off from work on horseback blazing trails, hanging up the trail markers, clearing out branches, and then a few days before the hunt setting up the "events" which you will see a few of on my picture tour below. The three trails consisted of easy, intermediate, and expert; all of them with 10 events each. To obtain your prize at the end you had to follow the map, find your "10 treasures" and bring back the required items from all 10 events. The orange trail, which was the hardest, proved to be quite a challenge for many of the riders. Of course, we made the "events" much harder to find, and the trail was even more challenging. Lots of rocky terrain, switchbacks, challenging water, and difficult cliff-like hills with rock. I will show you some of the events, not necessarily in any trail order; from setting up the day before on an ATV, (thank God for that ATV or we NEVER would have got it done!!) to the day of the event, to a little bit of the dismantling of the trails which we started on Monday, the event being last Saturday. Hope you enjoy the pics as much as I enjoyed the experience...

Matt

Linda, Kate and Matt on the ATV


The back of that cart got really bumpy at times, I have major bruises as proof!

Pinto Pony--bring back one pinto bean.

Hobo Hollow. This one was my creation. Bring back one hobo stick.

Hanging in the tree at horse height on the easy pink trail.

I made 80 of these! AGH! And if you don't think it looks like a hobo bag, I don't wanna hear about it!!! :)

This is where Lorri's horse Kite spooked at a rustling bag, turned, started bucking, and....


she crashed into this tree at speed, breaking her nose and lying backwards (with her body and head to Kite's tail) to this....

HILL. Matt (pictured) was there and says she narrowly missed these rocks when she finally fell off.

The hill from the bottom. Quite steep, pics never do that justice! She was unconscious when Matt got to her. EMS was called and you can see the pic in my previous post. She broke three spinous processess and broke her nose among other things. She is doing better so thank you for all of your prayers!!!

The Old Kiln. Bring back one match from the basket. Everything on the pink trail you need to be able to get from your horse as it is the easiest one. We did run into some riders on the day of the hunt out on the yellow intermediate/difficult trail, (four of them riding English) who could not get off of their horses and remount on the trail. They dropped something and my newbie rider son jumped off and got it for them. I'm sorry, if you can't get off of your horse and remount, you shouldn't be out on a difficult trail!!! It made me ashamed to be an English rider, we get enough knocks being in the land of Western riders, so we need to look competent....but of course, they were dressed to the nines and had the best tack and horses. Figures.

The BBQ tree. Bring back one briquet.

Fruit Stand. Bring back one grape. This is the little grove where I fell flat on my butt kicking a HUGE branch down from a tree so it wouldn't fall on a rider. I was kicking it because it had a scorpion on it the day before. So kicking was good. Branch came down, so did I. Darn tree roots! Thankfully, well out of the way of said HUGE branch. But not of the way of the chiggers! UGH! We were all covered with bites and are still itchy fully a week later. CHIGGERS ARE THE WORST!!!!!

Paint by Letters. Bring back one paint brush.

She sells. Bring back one seashell from the hanging bag. The big colored ones are decoration.

The whole effect of She Sells.



Teed Off. Bring back one golf tee. We put a little bit of green astroturf on that log pile the day of the hunt. This one was fun to set up!

Kate gunning the ATV up a steep hill. That thing is SO fun to drive!

Caurosel horse. Bring back one bell out of the black umbrella. Jackson didn't bat an eye at this one, although apparantly lots of people have trouble with it. When we rode through while the hunt was going on we had to reload the umbrella by picking up most of the bells from the ground!


Rust in Pieces. Bring back one tombstone. (Popsicle stick painted rust colored with RIP on it).

Rusting abandoned farm equipment. Resting in, well, pieces!

RIP. Trevor Tiller. Gone TILL he learns how to close the gate.

RIP. Sam Shredder. He was all torn up over life.

RIP. Debbie Disc. Plowed under too soon.

School Spirit. Bring back one letter from the bucket.

Fractured Fred. Bring back one pack of....


Citrical--Calcium!!!! This was my son Miles' favorite event. He donated the use of Fred to the cause and was SO excited to go out on the trail the day of the hunt so he could see it personally. Fred is now hanging in my son's room with the Fractured Fred sign, holding a pack of Citrical in his hand. Have I mentioned my son's obsession with Halloween? GRIN....

Toad Wall. Bring back one toad.


Mountains of Ararat. Bring back one animal. The mountains didn't get put out til the day of the hunt.


Tiger's Lair. Bring back one tiger's eye from the hanging basket. (Not pictured). We had a lot of fun getting the tiger to stay in the tree. We tied his tail to something from the back side.

And YES, we did get stuck. But just once. This pic is before he was well and truly stuck...We three tough ladies cowgirled up and moved the trailer (all 800lbs. of it!) into the water and we took the wet route for a bit! Matt offered to get out if one of us wanted to steer the ATV out of its mess, but we opted out of that one!

Alien space discs...


Matt throwing the "UFO's" (garbage can lids!) string over a tree branch.




Kate gets one too....

Bring back one strange looking green alien to show that you've been here.

The sign speaks for itself!




Linda pointing out the red-headed fairy, I don't think we red heads look all that good in yellow! HA!

Lover's Leap. Bring back one gold ring. Make sure you look over the edge first.....

Crime scene view from the edge of Lover's Leap. YES, I must confess, this was my idea, but Linda ran with it and made it happen. Ahhh. Praise be to warped senses of humor!!

Miles at School Pride event on the day of the Scavenger Hunt.

Miles at Fractured Fred, checking it out in person. He was thrilled to see "Fred" whom he claims has, "been in the family" since we lived in D.C. (7 years ago), being so useful!

Most of the Triple H Equitherapy horses got baths and fancy braids in order to present a "Parade of Horses" in which we present the different breeds and where they originated, characteristics, etc. that are in active use at Triple H. From Belgians to Oldenburgs to QH, TB, and even a little POA, there is quite the variety and size!

Classy!


Parade of Horses. Me in the blue with the TB. His name is Laz and he is a high strung pain! Makes me so glad Jackson is an AngloArab; he is SO calm in comparison! Wish I had a close up of Laz's ribbons tho', they were super cool!

Helping a client mount. She got an award in front of the whole crowd in celebration of being at Triple H for 10 years as a rider!!!

Monday morning trail clean-up. Jackson's mane was the perfect place to store the trail markers that needed to come down! Do you like this new fad we're starting? He was unimpressed.




Back from taking down part of one trail.



He is really getting much better at his riding! It's so nice to be able to take him out on the trail!