My Rides AT 8100': CR 34

I FINALLY got to go riding again. For a week, the weather was windy and then rainy and then windy again. I was trying to ride to MacFarlane Reservoir which is in the middle of the county, but didn't even get close. There are two ways to get there. I tried from CR 34 and on the map it looked like a simple three mile ride down a two track road on BLM land. I've never been to the reservoir and now can say I still haven't.

I was riding Duster and he does not like boggy ground at all. We had to cross a boggy little creek between two of the irrigation ponds right off the bat and he would not step into it. If I had been riding Copper, he would have dived right in because not much bothers him. I tried to out-wait Duster and not let him get away without crossing, but he was adamant and starting rearing up a little and it wasn't helping that Bear the dog kept circling around behind him and nipping at his heels. So I finally gave in and rode him all the way around the pond and there was another crusty gray mud ditch that even the dogs were sinking into that I didn't even try to cross. I kept having to open and shut gates to get through the fence lines and kept circumventing to get back to the two track road I thought we needed to be on, but by then the wind was blowing and I was a fed up by the whole deal. We hadn't gone very far at all and I could still see the truck and trailer from where I decided to turn around, but even getting back to it was a pain. I didn't want to have to backtrack (the story of my life) and ended up crossing another semi boggy area with a lot of alkali, scrambling on top of the dam of the irrigation pond to the east of the first one, led Duster over the same little creek that had caused us problems earlier but at a really narrow spot, down a short road, and then back to the truck. Ugh!

But, I know another way to get to McFarlane off of CR 28, and I will try again at a later date. I think it took Shackleton a few tries too.