City of Rocks - Castle Rocks

Day 2 of City Rocks promised to be a scorcher and it warmed up fast as soon as the sun came up.

Our trail headed towards Castle Rocks Park, a section of private land that had been purchased for National Parks. We rode past the Castle Rock Lodge and up to the Circle Creek trail which we looped around twice.

Then out to the Tracy Homestead for a vet check in the City of Rocks Reserve. Some of this was beautiful and great footing, however we had quite a few miles of hard pack gravel road to connect it all. This was probably my least favorite day because of the rocky roads with no shoulder.

Because it got so hot, 101, several horses had to be rechecked for their Cardiac Recovery Index, including Thunder. His pulse jumped to 68 on the trot out but for our recheck his CRI was 48/48 so I was very relieved and happy about that!!

We had some really nice mountain trails with Aspen and shade which helped with the heat and the footing was superb. We had many great views of amazing rock formations and the last couple miles were on a wonderful horse trail with the trail head near the Smoky Mountain Campground.

From the trail head it was only about a mile or so to camp and hooray we were finished!! Just a bit slower than day 1 with a time of 7:33 and 7th place finish.