Fall Alone Horse Trail Riding

I've written before on Lone riders and Social riders and said that I consider myself a Lone rider (maybe Solo Rider is a better name). This post is about one of my solo trail rides.

Trail ride plan

It was me, Ipak, and the dogs (Almas, Hamoun, Sareen, Bahar). I saddled Ipak, loaded the tea equipment into the saddlebag, put it on Ipak, Took my book, and went on a solo trail ride.

You can also watch the trail ride VLog in the video below.

My destination was a place called Soltan-Morad. There was a water fountain there so I could use it for making tea and I knew that probably at this time of the year, no one would be there so I could have my privacy and read my book in silence.

Forgot the rope

Everything started as I had planned and Ipak was in a good mood. I can notice that she is in a good mood as soon as I mount on it. Half an hour passed the ride I noticed that I'd forgotten to bring the long rope for tying the horse. The plan was to tie Ipak with a long rope and let her graze while I was reading my book and having tea. I was thinking about what should I do when I just remembered my uncles had built a fenced area for shepherds to keep their sheep at night. They had built it in remembrance of my grandfather who once was a shepherd too. As I said this time of year there were no shepherds and their sheep so decided that I would put Ipak inside the fenced area (which was about 100 meters far from the fountain). She could not graze there but it was going to be fine.

Trot, Canter, Gallop

I was so glad that the problem was resolved and the horse had warmed up that I started to trot, canter, and gallop. God, I love going gallop and now writing this I miss it. Still, I had a problem with Hamoun and Sareen getting behind. They are young (less than a year old) and they get behind when I go gallop. This is not the case with Almas and Bahar as they are used to this kind of ride and even if they get behind they can find me. I had to walk from time to time so the younger dogs could reach me. Also, I walked the last 15-20 minutes so Ipak could cool down.

Camping

We reached to the fenced area I came down, unsaddled Ipak and locked the fence. I was thinking if I could sit by the water fountain or not. As I said before the fountain was couple of hundred meters away from the fenced area. I was worried that Ipak being alone would get anxious. I had to fill my bottles with water from fountain to make tea so I thought I will go for filling the water and check out Ipak if she got anxious I will get back and camp beside the fence and yes Ipak got anxious started walking around nervously inside the fence and neighing. I filled the bottle and returned back, The dogs followed me all along drinking water and playing in the muddy place.

Started the fire by the fence put the water kettle on the fire and started reading my book while waiting for the water to boil. Everything was great as just what I want from solo riding. Nature, Silence, Privacy, Friendly companion (dogs and Ipak).

Read my book and drink tea for about an hour of an hour and half then saddled Ipak and rode back to the club.

I'm really looking forward to going a solo trail ride for complete day including sleeping in nature. And maybe going for more than one day after that. Let see how it goes :).