Heaven's Gate Spring 2023

It's official!! March 15th-19th this year, me, hubby and aunt Gail, will all be going on a camp trip to Heaven's Gate!! This will be my second time visiting Heaven's Gate (HG) and I cannot wait! HG is an amazing place and has so many beautiful sites to see and hundreds or miles to ride!

The last time we were at HG, the weather was predicted to be BEAUTIFUL... that is until literally the day before... chances of rain.... ugh .... but that's ok, it looked to move out fast.... until we course end up driving in the rain and 50 mph wind gusts all way there... for 3 hours... When we finally arrived, we checked in, in the rain... however this was also back in my little 2 horse days and everything that we packed was in the back seat of the truck and in the tack room of the trailer.

The rain broke for about an hour so we hurried and set up camp. We were there for 4 days and 2 out of the 4 days, the wind never stopped and the rain was on and off. The horses, soaked and annoyed, hubby slept for 2 days lol, and I went on an adventure hike and walked the creek some and then froze. I did not have a good rain jacket at the time of this event and so my clothes for the first 2 days stayed wet....

We had tried several different ways of sleeping with having the 2 horse and this particular time, we decided to get a tent that attached to the canopy that we already had. We both fit in it pretty well and it was nicer than having the trailer shake every time one of us turned over in bed or got up out of bed. Still a little cramped however.

The second night came around and about midnight- 1am in the morning, a HUGE gust probably 60 mph lifted up our canopy, snapping it into pieces causing our tent to fall over on top of us because the front half of it was held up by the canopy. We had alot of our stuff in the back of the trailer to keep dry, ergo, feed, hay, firewood etc.

the feed was in totes so i could have just set that outside, but I was not sure what I was going to do with my hay. We decided bc it was still windy and rainy at the time this was deciding to happen, that we would throw everything in the back of the trailer and jump in the truck and try to sleep the rest of the night out.

So we did just that, except i did not get any sleep LOL. As soon as dawn broke, I jumped out of the truck and started cleaning out the back of the trailer and setting the cots up in the back to sleep for the rest of the weekend. Everything was a HUGE mess... this process took me over an hour to get it finished up. Oh but the wind did finally stop 🤣

After we both were up and at it, I decided there was no point in trying to go to sleep now so we saddled up and went on the black trail and rode 11 of the 13 miles. We took white to cut it down so we could get back to camp. The horses were not fond of this trail bc they had been in the stall for 2 days and so I think they were a little stiff and pulling those big hills was a bit hard on them. So i gave them some "buteless" and rubbed them down with some sore-no-more and tried to give them round pen time to stretch their legs more.

The very last day that wrapped up our trip was absolutely GORGEOUS!!! There was a slight breeze, it was 60-65 degrees and SUNNY!!! There is a check out time at HG but we did not want to miss this opportunity to ride, so we talked to Collin and D'Anna and they let us pull our rig out off to the side where they park their stock trailer and let us go ride as long as we wanted to. We took the red trail which was about 7 miles and it was a very nice fun trail. There are places on that trail that was clean enough to trot and lope on. Not many rocks. The horses loved this trail a lot more LOL

Even though the wind and rain put a damper (literally) on our trip for the first 2 days, It for sure was not a complete bust and I couldn't wait to go back! So this year, we are making that happen!

This year however, we have a much different living situation and so it will be A LOT nicer and with Aunt Gail going, she has a really nice LQ so we can also hang out at her trailer if need be. I plan to ride all the days we are there. I think we will start with the red trail on the first day we get there to break the horses in and then we can probably ride blue, orange, yellow and maybe some of purple. That would get us 56 miles for the trip which I feel is pretty good mileage for horses that wont be in complete shape for mountain riding but not out of shape lol ( as of now thats the state they are in LOL but I am trying to get both horses in shape myself... and with the little of daylight left in the day by the time I get off work, they have been getting rode every other day)

Anyway, I am looking forward to camping here once again and getting to see a lot more views!!

Happy Trails yall!