Christina Chesterman Memorial ride 2024 - Nick Warhol

May 22 2024 Nick Warhol

One of my favorite things in this sport is going to new rides for the first time. I'm a little surprised I haven't made it to this one before, but I went up with Sorsha, and Ines with Rayos this past Saturday. The ride is a 3.5 hour drive for me, located just north of the town of Paradise CA, the poor town that was burned to the ground by the big fire a few years ago.

I'd never been to Paradise, and seeing it was kind of scary. Most of the buildings that are there are new; the ones that have been rebuilt, but a lot of the town is still just gone. It's very spooky. The ride is put on by JayaMae Gregory, who did an absolutely splendid job. Everything about it was well organized and well run; I didn't see any real issues at all.

The whole event had a great vibe to it since it is a memorial for a young local woman who was killed by a drunk driver. Her parents come to the ride, the whole town supports it; it made for a really neat atmosphere. I hadn't heard that story before. The ride camp was great, located at this big ranch up in the mountains.

There were campground spots, and a big Meadow with lush green grass. Lots of bugs in the meadow though; luckily we were up in the campground away from all that. The ride itself was entirely out from camp; there were two vet checks on the 50 out at a single location about 15 minutes up the highway.

You know how every time you do a ride, it always seems like something can happen for the first time? Well, it did for me. In 33 years of endurance, this was the first time that I ever slept late. I set my alarm on my phone and for some reason it didn't go off. I was awakened to Ines and Laura Fend talking outside and wondering where I was. The ride started at 6:30, I got out of bed at 6:08. In 22 minutes I got dressed, ate, tacked up, and made it to the start exactly on time. That included my shoelace snapping off as I tied it. That’s why there is a spare pair of riding shoes in the trailer! Nothing like a little bit of stress in the early morning!

The ride started out on forest roads in the chilly morning air. After winding through a combination of forest roads and some nice trails, we ended up on this amazing raised road/trail that went alongside the right side of an irrigation canal of sorts. But it was a wide canal of 15 feet or so with deep, rushing water, with about an eight foot drop to the water itself. It was really neat to ride along this thing for about a mile, with an occasional slowdown or stop because you did not want your horse to go left into this thing. That would ruin your day real quick!

The ride in the past has had an extraordinary amount of forest roads in it, but management took the advice of riders and threw in much more single track. They put some very nice trails in here. There was one section especially that I just had an absolute hoot in. It was an old, soft, Jeep road sort of thing that wound through the forest that had been trimmed for horses. We blasted through that section, even cantering some of it; it was like chase in the Old West where the horses are running through the forest. Sorsha and I led, and poor Rayos had to really work to keep up! It was fun! That ended all too soon. We continued along on a combination of Jeep and logging roads, with occasional segments of single track through the trees. It was a fun loop with perfect weather.

We arrived at the first check at 20 miles where our crew Laura and Judy were there waiting for us. Laura spent the weekend hanging out with Judy which was great, and a huge help for me. We had our hour hold, and then continued on to the 2nd loop of 15 miles, where we climbed up into the high country. The terrain up here reminds me a lot of the Wild West ride; same kind of elevation, trees, and trails. This loop started off on forest roads, but culminated in a steep technical climb that was really steep, but only for a little while. Sorsha hammered up it as she usually does, thinking she should just run up it, which she usually does. It was one of those hills that has the breast collar really doing its job. Once at the top, about a mile of forest roads took us to the end of the loop where we picked up the playing card and rode back down the mountain. The way back down was less interesting, being just on fire roads, but they were fire roads in the pretty forest with the footing mostly good.

Back into that same location for our second vet check where we spent half an hour this time. The weather was really interesting; it was just lovely when you were riding in the shade, but when you get into the exposed sun it got a little warm.

But overall it was quite nice. I didn't think a lot of the first half of the 3rd loop going home, since it included a few miles of open exposed boring flat gravel roads. We actually saw the guy who had done some trail sabotage riding a quad with a woman on the back. He had gotten on to the course, kicked out a chalk arrow line, and was taking down ribbons coming towards us. We didn't know that at the time. We didn't have any issue whatsoever since we found the chalk line that he had kicked out at the only intersection in question.

We then continued on until we picked up the next ribbon in a hundred yards and all was well. By the way- the trail was marked exceptionally well. I think there was one time in any of the many turns I had to look to see where the ribbon was, and there it was. Great job ride management! I take trail marking personally, and these guys did it well. Once we got off the ugly forest roads, we reconnected with our outbound loop for about 5 miles and had a lot more of that fun stuff in the deep forest that we had done in the morning in the opposite direction.

It was also nice getting back into the forest where it was cooler. The ride has an interesting finish in that you get to the base camp area and do an entire mile loop around it. The poor horses are very confused! There's a giant, deep, clear water crossing right before the finish line where you round the meadow and come back to the finish, where both horses really tanked up.

We finished at about 3:30 PM in the middle of the pack after having a great ride. The ride meal was also very good. We camped Saturday night and headed home in the morning which was nice. Sorsha just cruised through it as usual, fresh as a daisy at the end. I really enjoyed it, and I will certainly be back! Next stop- two days at the Wild West ride!