We used to take our girls there when they were little. We would camp for 1 week at a time at one of the creeks below the lake and visit Wrights Lake during the day for a few days. It has become a popular place for people to go now, the people camping part is always full. There are 73 Summer Home Tracts there...people own cabins and rent them out. The equestrian camping spots are not full and that was nice. We were there from Thursday to Sunday. We only had one "neighbor" 2 spots down from us on Thurs and Friday. And one other "neighbor" on the other side of the meadow on Saturday and Sunday. Half of the equestrian camping spots are reservation only-they are the nice shady spots, next to the creek, with nice trees to high line the horses from. The other spots were more out in the open, less shade. We explored the campground a month beforehand and decided on our spot #77. We came home and booked it on line with no problem. Apparently you have to try to get the regular camp spots about 7 months in advance. It was a nice time of the year to go. We learned this from our earlier years camping in this area. The late summer is the best because there are fewer bugs. We had NO problems with bugs, not even mosquitos. And the mushy parts of the trails were all dried up and that was nice for horses.
They want all the horse manure picked up and put in the dumpsters that they provide. That made me stop and think about how to accomplish that. We decided on a large plastic garbage can and a dolly. It worked great.
The bathrooms were nicely maintained, better than Euer Valley.
There was no water at the individual camp sites. You had to haul water to your site for yourself and your horses. #77 wasn't too far from the bathrooms and the water faucet. Again the dolly came in handy. Our water containers were shaped like large blue squares so they stacked nicely on the dolly and weren't too heavy to fill up.
The camp ground had a meadow in the middle with the sites around the outside edge. The meadow was nice to walk the horses. They enjoyed eating the grass and having a good roll in the grass.
It was our first camping experience high lining the horses. They did great. No one got caught in their lead ropes. I caught them all laying down one night. They could get to their food and water okay. Food was somewhat of an issue. I bought hay bags for them, but Zoe and Skippy tore the back fastener off of theirs. Also the hay bags tended to be noisy during the nights. So I switched to hay nets. Zoe and Sky were fine with their nets, but Skippy managed to move one of the knots on her net to make the hole bigger. She seemed frustrated and I didn't want eating problems maybe causing some health issues on a camping trip...so I decided to feed everyone on the ground. They were pretty good about it and didn't go pee or poop on their food. By that time each horse had figured out their own designated "bathroom" spots away from their food areas. We did tighten up the high line once with a come-a-long. That made it really tight, almost too tight when we were removing them to go home.
The weather was great. It did rain the first 2 nights but we didn't get soaked. The first night I got up and changed the blankets on the horses to some waterproof blankets. The second and third nights I just put on the waterproof ones. If it did rain during the day it was just a few sprinkles. It never got really cold. The days were nice. The last day it was cloudy and my daughters and I went for a ride with our rain gear on but when we got to our destination, Bloodsucker Lake, we were roasting. Good thing for saddle strings.
We had many people coming up to camp with us. Both my daughters and their husbands came. Also my grandson came-on his first real camping trip! And we had some good friends come, Dottie and her husband Mario. They lease our horses. It was opening day for deer season for archery and Chris wanted to bring his bow. He didn't really think he was going to get a deer but it was fun practicing at the barn to get ready for this trip and it was fun to bring it. He loved the pictures that he could share with his hunting buddies of what he did on opening day.
If we weren't riding or relaxing we were at the lake. One day we all took turns on the rafts and inner tubes to go out on the lake. Even Zeke enjoyed the time in the water...he liked to splash and pretend to jump off the rocks into the lake.
Our truck was having a problem getting there. The engine temp light came on as we were going up the grade to Ice House Res. And remember we have a desiel. The road was a 7% grade for a long time. We got to the top it seemed to take forever especially when we were going slow and the engine was sounding funny. Turned out that we were low on transmission fluid and radiator fluid. We had checked all the levels before we left but I guess we lost some on the climb. We made it to camping okay but had to refill the fluids. So if you're hauling horses on that grade make sure you have a good truck to pull the load. Apparently ours is questionable on that ride. Maybe our next trip will be to the ocean-less of a grade to pull the horse trailer. Everything worked fine on the way home.
The only horse problem we had was the trails. You would think that an area with an equestrian campground would have better trails. I remember years ago when we were there with our kids that the horses could go on any of the trails and all around the lake. But it is not that way now. I don't know the history of why that changed but it is different now. There are very few trails that horses are allowed...and those trails aren't the best. The signs for some of the trails were not very well maintained. The Bloodsucker Lake trail was okay. From that trail you can go go Lyons Lake and Lake Sylvia, but getting all the way to the lakes was not good. We didn't end up doing it but talked to one of the "neighbors" who frequently go here and they said it gets pretty rocky towards the lakes and is probably not advisable. The Barrett Lake trail is also a 4-wheel drive trail-only there were no 4-wheelers allowed on it this year. But the trail itself is too rocky for a horse. Big round rocks with no solid ground to put feet on...that was the trail. Jim, Dani and Ryan tried that one but decided to turn around and go on a loop.
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| On the way to Barrets Lake |
They got lost coming back and ended up on some undesignated trail-there were no clear signs for them to follow and one of the residents got mad at them. Maybe that's why things changed there-the residents didn't want the horses there and complained. Some of the designated horse trails around the lake were also pretty rocky and some were okay. There was a trail that went to Beauty Lake and Maude Lake on the Rockbound Trail. Getting to Beauty Lake was good, a nice trail that Dottie, Mario and I went on.
Beauty Lake
But beyond that the trail went to Maude Lake, and according to the "neighbor" was too rough for horses. We only had time to go to Beauty Lake that day. There was a trail that the "neighbors" were working on to Windermere, we took it about 1 mile, but lost the trail after that. We ended up at a meadow that was really pretty and the ride there was nice, but short. Zoe was uncomfortable in the meadow and wanted to leave in a hurry-hence the tight reins.
Hopefully those people will get the trail more established. Apparently they come up there often to work on it and the forest service approves of it. So the trails aren't much-doesn't seem like a very horse friendly place. The rangers were very nice tho. But we probably won't be coming back with our horses.
It didn't seem to bother us too much about the trails tho. We had plenty of family and friends to visit with. We only had 3 horses for everyone to share so short rides turned out okay. We could also play in the lake. So all in all it was a good trip for us. If one were to go there just for the horse trails I think they would be disappointed.
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