10/30/2025
Hi everyone, I'm sorry life has been life-ing so I haven't had time to post anything lately. I hope you all have had a great riding season. As we wrap up this year it's already time to be planning for next year. Yes, I've already been out scouting for new routes again. I just wanted to check in and let our riders who came to the endurance ride this year know that we'll be emailing a survey to you soon to get some feedback on our event. Once again we want to sincerely thank everyone for your support, no matter what role you played at the ride, or even if you're just a fan on the sidelines giving us encouragement from afar. Thank you all so much for joining us on this journey.
When you come off a horse you have 2 choices, stay on the ground, or get back on. After the fiasco of having so many riders get off course this year because of my mistakes, it was so stressful that I felt like such a loser and I should really just not even try to be a ride manager. This ride is difficult enough to put together, so for sure the easy thing to do would just be to walk away from it. But....I'm not ready to give up.
What happened the first day of the ride with so many people getting off course was a perfect storm. I'll spare you all the details, but just know that I take full responsibility for it and I am so sorry. Many lessons were learned, and by the next day all the intersections were extremely well marked. And next time I will definitely do everything in my power to eliminate confusion. What can I say, someone's got to be the guinea pigs on a new route 😜 I just hope the trails and the event itself were enjoyable enough to make up for my shortcomings.
It's crazy how after spending countless hours and months and months of preparation for one weekend. Jumping through all the hoops to get land use permits, buy insurance, plan routes, clear trails, staying up til 2 AM with my sister the ride secretary doing admin tasks, ordering prizes, getting donations, promoting the ride, making food arrangements, diverting the irrigation ditch to dry out the camp area, getting cows moved, etc, etc.....And then, in a single moment you go from being a dedicated ride manager to being a moron who can't mark trails correctly. I want to thank everyone for their kindness and patience with us as we got through that chaotic and stressful time. Once again, I need to give sooo much praise and appreciation to the amazing RMs from the Hat Creek Hustle, Jo and Cyd for saving my bacon thay day. And of course my sister Emilie, our brand new ride secretary who did an outstanding job of handling all the chaos. All the volunteers and vets also were all phenomenal, I cannot thank everyone enough.
So....back to next year. AERC needs to get the ride calendar set, so we're working on getting dates settled. In an effort to avoid being too close to other rides there will be a date change. Due to our high elevation and many other factors, biggest one being that camp is in a valley that is very wet early in the year. And are you familiar with little demon bugs called buffalo gnats? We really can't go before August. We are tentatively trying for the end of August.
When I decided to be crazy and become a ride manager, it was because I kept hearing that we needed more rides and new ride managers. With the way things are currently in the sport, that doesn't really seem to be the case, at least not in the west region. There doesn't seem to be enough riders to support all the existing rides. I sure hope things will be different by next year. But where we're at right now, is that it seems the only rides not in danger of being lost are those longstanding bucket list rides. Especially those put on by clubs that can absorb the costs and have lots of people to help out. Rides that are put on by individuals are very much at risk of having to call it quits if we continue to lose money doing this.
I'm not saying all this as a pitty party. Until I became a ride manager I was clueless to a lot of things. I believe in transparency, so I'm just letting you know some of the struggles. So, with all that said. I'm willing to keep killing myself and possibly losing money putting on this event because I love the sport. I love the riders and horses, and I love being in my beloved forests. But....I can't keep asking friends and family and dedicated volunteers to give so much of their time and effort if there's really not that much of a need for a ride in this location. The bottom line is this. If ride managers have to spend months and months of preparation and hard work, only to have to beg people to come to the ride at the last minute. Obviously that's not sustainable.
Again, this isn't a guilt trip or anything like that. I'm a rider too, I get it. Times are tough. Life happens and plans change. I'm just throwing this all out there as food for thought since there's been so much discussion lately on how to keep the sport alive.
We all love those rides with amazing loops and especially ones with nice singletrack. I wish my ride could offer more of that. The thing is, it takes years and years of building relationships with public and private landowners to get those sweet trails. Believe me, I'm working on it. I made some progress this year by getting the Forest Service and the private timber company to allow us to use things other than official designated roads. The Forest Service will not issue a permit for anything not on a designated road or trail, without special approval from the district ranger. Like I said, I'm making progress, but it does take years of effort to get those super sweet routes.
If people do like this ride enough to want to see it continue into the future. With your support and encouragement, I will keep working my butt off to make improvements. I already have some pretty epic routes picked out. It's just a matter of getting approval to use them, and getting helpers to clear and create new trails.
Ok, this got waaaay too long again. Sorry, I just wanted to say a few things. Thank you for your time. From all of us on the Lost Sierra Endurance Ride management team, we love and appreciate you all.
Photo taken early in the morning on Saturday September 13th, from the ride route looking down at ride camp hidden in the lake of fog.
