FROM: Sam DiMuzio, NV Divison President
PST
After 3 separate days of trail recon where the consensus went from “nope” to “we can do this” to a definite “not gonna happen”, the contingency plan was put into play: Hwy 50 it is.
While waiting for the last Section 2 rider to come in, the Section 3 riders hung out on the frontage road just south of the Spring Market Gas Station in Silver Springs, Nevada, whose employee was super excited to meet us. She was very sweet! NHP Trooper Casillan also stopped by to check on us as he was supposed to be our escort over the aborted trip over the Carson River bridge. He was also super excited to meet the horses!
The 8 rider pairs in this section had also ridden in at least one of the previous sections and the ride captain had ridden multiple legs in both sections on her 2 horses. Each rider set was tasked with 2 mile legs and the leapfrogging commenced. Hwy 50 really lives up to the “Loneliest Road in America” at night, which is a great thing on horseback since there were quite a few narrow two-lane bridges our riders need to ride across. Our horses may have also caused quite a few sleepy residents in Fallon to wonder why in the world their horses were calling out in the middle of the night!
Our well-rode Pony Riders passed off the mochila to Section 4 an hour behind schedule.