I’m writing this up after a full day of work while Tom whips up hand made chicken alfredo, and fighting through the inevitable gut gurgling aftereffects of any good trip. I’m well and truly bitten by the Tevis bug, but before I dive into our summary I wanted to give a shoutout to the VIP of our trip: My son. Raising teenagers is no joke (even when you’re busting out dad jokes and rock puns). On this trip Kade 1000% brought the best version of himself along for every moment (except for one very overheated stop on the drive home that we worked through). He was so fun to have along, endlessly helpful without any snark, engaging and polite to everyone we met…and he survived not only being abandoned by yours truly at Foresthill all day, he also managed not to get eaten by any cougars at the Francisco’s vet check.

Once we were cleaned up and well rested, we left the trailer at the hotel and headed up the hill to play tourist in Auburn. We found a wonderful breakfast place that had a patio so Benny could join us (and they brought out a water bowl with ice for him, thank you Katrina’s Cafe!) We wandered around downtown after breakfast and a stop at the AERC office, grabbing smoothies and browsing galleries and admiring how deep endurance of all kinds runs in Auburn. We hit up a local volunteer run tack store called Horse’s Honor, where I had a delightful time finding some new goodies including several endurance books, and Echo Valley Ranch, the official feed store for Tevis (whose owner rides Tevis!) I had originally planned to drive and view the areas I was set to be staged at as horse transport, but skipped that and we headed over Donner Pass to visit Robie Park.

We watched some vetting in, eavesdropped on a bunch of meetings (the juniors meeting, the first time riders meeting, the vet meeting and the general meeting, so chockful of great info!) Benny thought the volunteer setting up the Starlink in the meadow so the general meeting could be livestreamed was a bear, and he kept growling in her direction until I told him it was a person…though he still took a bit to believe me. After dinner I was able to introduce myself and chat a bit with a lovely creator I follow, AP Davies, who was a sweep rider for the first section of trail and has some excellent coverage of Tevis as a whole.

After the meeting we headed out, wild to think we can cross Donner Summit twice in one day when they used to, ya know, eat people to survive up there…Luckily the trailer was still where I left it, so we hitched back up and showered, then went straight to bed. I was up way too early to catch the livestream of the start, though I let Kade sleep in as long as I could. We grabbed breakfast and extra drinks and headed up to find Foresthill. The schedule I was given called for me to stage at Chicken Hawk from 1-3pm, Foresthill from 3-5pm, and Fransico’s from 5pm to whenever. Based on this, I dropped Kade in Foresthill with the expectation I’d be back for him in a few hours, and he could hang out and grab lunch in town. The directions to Chicken Hawk were a bit confusing for me as a non-local, so I took a wrong turn and ended up on the section of road the riders take from Michigan Bluff to CH…but at least I wasn’t the only trailer to do so!

I arrived about an hour early, listened in on the Chicken Hawk volunteer meeting and was completely awed by how professional and cheerful and competent all the volunteers are! We had several hours to wait for the first riders to claw their way out of the canyon, the Reynold’s arriving just past 330pm. We had a few more front runners through than a long lull where a few trickled in. It didn’t make sense to go to Foresthill with the bulk of riders not yet through CH, though I was a little worried that I was only able to get one or two text to and from Kade, with service up there being so spotty. Just as I was about to be the “bad” volunteer and head down the hill the rest of the riders started coming in, trying to beat the 745 (?) cut off for CH, so I stayed and helped cool down horses and feed riders. Once the cut off was reached I headed down to collect Kade, who was just fine having set himself up by the radio crew in Foresthill.

There was some milling about and confusion about where to go next, as the cutoff for FH was past by the time I got there, but the Horse Transport head volunteer eventually wrangled us up and we headed for Francisco’s. In the dark. Down a road of entirely questionable quality. The kind of road that reminds me to be thankful I had my trailer built three inches higher than standard. I had plenty of opportunity to practice backing up in tight spaces, as the parking lot at the bottom was full of cars. The other guy with a trailer asked Kade to run up to the actual vet check, and we sent him off with a flashlight, me thinking it was only a few hundred yards away from the lot where the trailers could reach…until the guy told me it was almost a mile to the vet check area. I had sent my teenager into the woods in the dark with only a flashlight and the wrong information. Whooopsie. He did get a bit spooked but managed to get the information that two trailers were staged for pulled horses before he turned back, uneaten by a cougar.

Not even an hour later (it was pushing midnight at this point) Gary the Head Horse Transport volunteer showed up and we walked all the way to Franciso’s together. Kade and I grabbed drinks and food and then escorted two pulled riders down the hill. He helped us load the horses (both pulled for lameness unfortunately), then we crawled up that dang hill and I tried my best to keep the rig moving while not jostling the tired horses too much. Of course my trailer picked then to tell me I needed to check my brakes (I think the cord head thingy needs replacing) but we managed to get safely to Auburn shortly after 1am. As we had to drive home in the morning, we headed back to the hotel where I showered and gave up for the night.

I was able to catch up on a bit of the post race news (including the Reynolds crossing under the banner hand in hand, and the finish of Tamara the Sweaty Equestrian!) before we had to blitz home. It was over 100* the entire way home, so I had to baby the truck a bit to avoid overheating on the big hills. I kept a bowl of water out and a USB fan on Benny, and we stopped a few times to let him jump in some rivers to stretch his legs. I caught up on all the “Culture Study” podcasts I’d been saving up, and we only got cut off by one trucker.

I had to work today so the rig is still packed and filthy. I have a bunch of notes from the meetings and watching crews and riders and horses at Chicken Hawk. I have no doubt I can get Tarma prepared to toe the starting line, and give her as good a chance to finish Tevis as any one else does…but I am as usual the weakest link. The heat in the canyons after the climb from Robie is intense, and I got to see first hand the condition of everyone climbing out of the hardest of the canyons at Chicken Hawk, so the question remains can I get myself fit enough to take care of myself well enough to support Tarma as she’ll need. I know I can do the work to be able to run downhill with her, though she’ll have to carry me up the canyons to save enough time. But even riding the heat can be so much, and my stomach still isn’t the best during a ride, though I’m learning. Here’s a non-exhaustive list in no particular order of what we’ll have to work on to even contemplate a Tevis entry:

• Heat training (for both of us)
• Hill training (most of the endurance rides we’ve completed have been, overall, fairly flat. We need to find a ride with a lot of elevation to test us)
• Tarma’s heart rate (I need to get a heart rate monitor, so I can really see how different paces affect her and her recoveries)
• Hoof coverage: I have an excellent barefoot HCP, but Tevis and prep rides will require bomb proof foot protection, and given her history of rubs she can’t wear boots for this so some combo of glue or nail on composites will be needed, so I either need a shoe farrier or get real good at doing it myself.
• My stomach: What can I digest that gives me mental as well as physical energy for a full day of riding?
• Speed: Most of our completions have been either as turtles or in the back of the pack. I need to work on getting our overall speed up from our overall average of 5.5-6mph to 8mph to give us time.
• Did I mention heat training? Time to start riding and working out (carefully) in the middle of the day!
• Weight/fitness: I do need to loose a bunch of weight, but more importantly put on more muscle and overall fitness than I currently have. What gets us through a turtled 50 does not a Tevis starter (let along finisher) make.

What I have to do as prep is figure out our strengths and weaknesses and work to accommodate both. I’m a grinder and Tarma is tough and sound and smart, I know she has the guts and the brain to take care of herself and handle what that trail throws at you. I’m fantastic with research and checklists and making plans, though my follow through could use some work. Tarma does like to argue with me about speed until about mile 42, and she can be a picky eater. I did finish my first 50 and then promptly puked while friends had to vet Tarma through (though I have since improved my finishing outcomes!)

Tevis is not something undertaken lightly, and we may never get to the starting line…but I’m ready to put in the work into such a huge, longer term endeavor after the energy and support and adventure of this past weekend. The amount of work to get ready is immense, and Tevis is one of the biggest remaining challenges for horses and riders…but I can get Tarma and I ready to be among the hopefuls, and I can see us riding together under the banner at 4am with a healthy, still spicy chocolate mare.