Ruff Riders at Pine Valley Mountain

This was the week of our annual Rough Rider fall ride. We had never ridden up on Pine Valley Mountain near St. George so we got a map on decided to try it. Our golf club pro Robert McArthur came from there so we went over the map with him and decided on this Whipple Valley to Brown's Point Canyon trail. The thing that he forgot to mention to us was that he had never actually been there! By our rough estimate it looked like about 12 or 14 miles which would make a nice afternoon ride for our first day, but as it turned out, it was closer to 30 miles!



Usually we plan on travelling at about 6 to 8 miles an hour, but here the terrain was so steep and rocky, that we moved along at more like 2 to 3 miles an hour.

At the top we found this magnificent meadow where our horses had a fun time frolicking around for a while.


But then it was back to rocky, steep and slow.

After a while we realized that it was certainly going to be flashlight time before we got down, and we had only two good and one weak light for the 6 of us. My main worry was that we would get caught in the dark before we got to the Brown's Canyon turnoff and maybe miss it. That would have meant space blankets and bonfires overnight for sure. So we pushed on as fast as we could and managed to find the turn right at sunset.

From here it was 4 miles to the bottom of the mountain and another one and a half to our trailers. We knew it would be hard and slow but if we just kept moving we would sooner or later make it. This night picture doesn't really show how tough it was at times with dozens of steep switchbacks, boulders, ledges, reluctant horses and tired Larry.
So it took us over 3 hours to do that 4 miles, but we finally made it.

We were glad to have had another exciting adventure, but did not get to our beds at Richard's beautiful St. George home until after 3 a.m.

We had planned to ride the next day too, but our horses told us that they needed the day off, so we had a nice time playing golf instead.

Dave had no problem dealing with this hazard at Coral Canyon compared to what we had been through the day before.

Then we played at fabulous Sand Hollow and had a great time.
You can see the dreadful Pine Valley
Mountain peering menacingly down at us between these cliffs.

We all agreed that this golf course is definitely on our "return-to" list, but that might not apply to Pine Valley Mountain!