11.26.06
acadia carriage roads horseback in September
Our yearly horse vacation in Acadia National Park Maine was unusual in many ways. We have enjoyed the carriage roads in the Park for the last 14 years with our horses stalled at Wildwood Stables and us camping on the Wildwood grounds.Anyone who visits Acadia and the Bar Harbor area will appreciate its beauty and unique ocean panorama from Mr. Rockefeller’s 57 miles of carriage roads, Cadillac Mountain, and the several other peaks of Mount Desert Island.
Marl on Abby and me on Willow’s Bask. Both the mares are 20 years old.
Three of us on summit of Day Mountain– my hubby, Marl and me on horseback.
We were unable to bring Gilford, our 3-yr.old Arabian/percheron, due to his resolving sole abscess (see
LINKS,)
but we did have a borrowed driving horse Abby (who we used to own) and our Polish Arabian mare Willow’s Bask. Our two friends, Marl and Ron, bringing their two horses arrived with news that one of their horses, Micah, was also lamed up, having just been diagnosed with laminitis the previous day, but they had brought him anyway so as to treat him there with cold soaks.
Our campsite picnic area at Wildwood Stables (Ron’s trailer in background.)
So, after stalling our horses, we set up our joint camp in the afternoon. Our setups involve sleeping in our horse trailers; once cleaned out and rearranged, they are quite suitable as rough living quarters, and really beat tenting on the ground. We keep a futon mattress in the gooseneck and camping utensils in portable drawer units, and have other conveniences we’ve built in. Our friends have similar arrangements in their own horse trailer, plus a large canopy which we put over two picnic tables provided at the campsites.
Hubby in Meadowbrook cart with Abby, atop Day Mountain.
Our first day’s excursion sees dad driving Abby put to our Meadowbrook cart, together with my good friend Marl and me riding our mares. We split off after awhile so dad could do extra trotting (his big love of driving is being able to trot without getting a sore butt!) Marl and I were out maybe 3 hours mostly walking the mares.
Marl on CC. Though she loves the outdoors, Marl must protect herself from sun exposure due to a serious sun allergy.
Well don’t you know, after we got back we noticed Marl’s quarterhorse mare, CC, holding up a forefoot in her stall and SHE was acting lame. So for the next two days that mare was rested, and on the third day we took her out again in some borrowed EasyCare hoof boots, which made her comfortable enough that she didn’t limp. Since no injury was visible, our guess was she had either bruised her sole or else her brand new shoes had a nail gone awry.
Both the mares we brought were barefoot in Acadia for the first time. Abby, our former percheron/morgan mare borrowed for this trip, had been barefoot since the previous winter. Her new owner Kim was maintaining her with barefoot hoof trimming, stone gravel around the barn, and careful use.
Ron tagged along on his bicycle, working much harder than we did.
Though Abby’s soles were pretty well callused, she was still a little ouchy on the packed gravel/stone dust carriage roads after her first day out, and so was my mare. So most of our week there we went slow with the horses, doing our trotting only on softer areas of roads where the draft teams had pulverized the surface, and on the limited sections of grass carriage roads.
Driver’s view behind Abby, with Connie in front. Note coping stones along side of carriage road.
We met a natural hoof trimmer, Susan Walker, while there, and she was kind enough to check our horses’ feet and Marl’s mare. Susan showed us the Old Mac G-2 hoof boots she had on her own barefoot horse.
Returning into Wildwood from the carriage road access.
We were told that the carriage road surface is so abrasive that the draft horses used for the commercial carriage rides are reshod every 5 weeks INCLUDING borium studs in their shoes to help slow down wear. So those conditions were very rough for barefoot horses. Next year we’ll be better prepared with hoof boots for both our guys.
Ron soaking Micah’s laminitic feet; Micah is a very tall morgan horse, age 16ish.
One of our daily horse chores, even on vacation when you take your horses along with you!
In spite of unusual horse issues, we and our friends had a good and relaxing time. Our weather was perfect; Marl rode out on Abby one day; hubby played golf a couple of times; and Marl’s hubby Ron rode his bicycle and gave us stiff competition in Scrabble and backgammon and soaked his horse’s feet.
Hubby the chef smoking a chicken for dinner (rough life huh!)
Overlooking Bar Harbor and Frenchman’s Bay from one of Mount Desert Island’s peaks.
Each evening was a shared camp dinner. The hubbies cooked our dinners and we ladies cleaned up dishes, afterwards enjoying the congenial warmth of the campfire.
My Arabian mare’s lovely kind eye.
See more Acadia National Park scenics and horse carriage pictures on Blog at Acadia National Park Maine scenes
See also Colt in Acadia on the blog, posted 07.28.06 for when we took Gilford to Maine at 3 months of age. Baby colt in Acadia
For information about Acadia National Park:
Acadia Park website
AcadiaMagic.com
Wildwood Stables at Acadia
For reservations, stabling and camping at Wildwood see www.acadia.net/wildwood/
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Connie Moses, petArtist– self-built website: PortraitsWithHorses.com
(horse and pet portraits)
