Keep your damn horse off my trail!

The BBQ Pit
1

Let’s get this out of the way first off: I like horses. My friends own horses. I like my friends. I like my friends’ horses. Okay?

I just got back from a glorious weekend in Olympic National Park. On Saturday I hiked an eight-mile trail to Flapjack Lakes in the “Staircase” area on the park’s southeast side. Beautiful. This part of the park allows horses on many trails - but not all. Specifically, it does not allow horses on the upper half of the trail to Flapjack Lakes. There are HUGE signs on the entrance to this trail, specifically saying so.

The reason for banning horses from this trail is not because hikers don’t want to step in piles of horse shit. We can handle horse shit. Ever step in bear shit? It’s a hundred times worse. And hikers love bear shit. “Hey, look everybody! There’s bear shit on the trail! They haven’t all been driven out of this park after all. Maybe we’ll catch a glimpse of one. Maybe it’ll eat the motherfucker riding his horse on this trail. Hooray!”

The reason no horses are allowed on this trail is because it’s perched on the side of a steep mountain and is too narrow and soft to support horses. Every fifty feet or so, there was a deep (4 to 8 inches) hoofprint in the trail, where the horse stepped on an especially soft part. In some spots, the downhill side of the trail was collapsed. These soft spots are easily firm enough to support even the burliest of mountain men. But not one perched on the back of an eight-hundred pound pack animal. The National Park Service has a hard enough time maintaining its trails. It doesn’t need the extra expense of fixing hiking trails collapsed by horses.

So, equine-shit-for-brains: When you see a sign saying “No Stock” on a trail, this doesn’t mean except for you. If you’re too fucking lazy to hike up a trail open only to hikers, stay the fuck off it! There are miles of trails around open to horses, all easily as nice as this one. And I hate to imagine what would have happened if the trail had fully collapsed. That would have been one long, steep, nasty fall. I doubt you or your horse would have survived it.

2

Shouldn’t make light, but I can’t resist…

So basically, fuck you and the blacksmith who shod the horse you rode in on?

::d&r::

3

So if all you saw was hoofprints, how do you know somebody was riding the horse?

It could have just gone up there by itself, horses not usually paying much attention to signs.

Before you can accuse the rider, you’ll have to prove there was one.

All well and good for you to go around accusing others, but what were you doing on that trail?

Members of the jury: Take a good look at Kamandi here. Notice the ears, the long face, pronounced nostrils. Is that a piece of hay your chewing on?

Is it not true Mr. Kamandi that you yourself are a horse?

I rest my case, your honor.

4

Dammit, dammit, dammit! I am so pissed off that I missed using that!!

I may indeed be a horse, but you, Sir, are an ass! Heehawww!! :smiley:
Seriously, though, if you’d seen this trail, you’d know that no horse would be dumb enough to go up it without encouragement from a rider.