Two riders from the Northwest have completed epic rides on September 22 - Bernice Ende, who recently completed a 5,000 mile solo ride, and Scott Griffin, who started endurance racing in style - he won the 515-mile Great Santa Fe Trail Race.




Their journeys were very different in style and length, but the motivation in both cases was deeply personal.


THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST ON $20 A MONTH



Do you want adventure but think you can't afford it? Take the example of a retired ballet teacher from Seattle, who financed her 5,000 mile journey by speaking engagements, on a horse she bought with money borrowed from her sister, and using gear donated by her local tack store, Outfitter's Supply.

Bernice Ende spend 16 months on the road with no support team except for the friends she made along the way. Often her first stop in a small town would be the post office, still the human hub of the rural network. Her journey was documented in snapshots taken by new acquaintances.

In her weblog, Bernice posted what she thought was the key to the kindness of strangers:

"I think I will always be amazed at the response received at the sight of a packed horse, its rider obviously covering long distances. Is it just the love of horses, or just the idea? Does it represent for many the spirit of freedom and timelessness, the connection to an era that once was ours and now eludes, mostly with responsibilities, things, and jobs? Hundreds and hundreds of people have said and continue to say, “Oh how I’d love to do something like that”. Perhaps that is why so many offer help, in order to become at least a small part of the ride, part of the vision they hold dear to their own hearts."

Her journey began in her home mountains of Montana, through the prairies of Minnesota and Kansas, across the arid country of New Mexico and Arizona, across the Mojave Desert, taking in the Sierra Nevadas and the Cascades, touching the Pacific Ocean, and then back along the Columbia River to Eastern Washington, the Idaho Panhandle and over the Bitterroot Mountains.

For her mount she did not choose an experienced trail horse with many miles under saddle - instead she bought a discarded thoroughbred - a failed racehorse and broodmare who was going in the wrong direction. "When I found her she was at a horse trader’s on the West Coast, standing knee deep in mud and it was pouring down rain. She was covered in rain rot, which is a fungus, and she had sores all over her body. She was full of worms and fleas and lice and was about 150 pounds underweight. And she was pretty goofy. She just didn’t have an ounce of trust left anywhere in her."

The first few months were downright dangerous. But Honor quickly gained experience and confidence, and soon became reliable. Her hollow hindquarters filled out from the combination of feed and work, and her dapple grey hide gleamed. Life on the road suited her, it seems.

"Every day I ask her to face something new and it’s like, ‘OK.’ She never gets to go home like most horses do and it’s like, ‘OK.’"

And Bernice herself? She lived in a series of cities, ending in Seattle with her husband, where she was a corporate dance instructor. The dreamed of a more rural life, and bought a property in Trego, Montana, intending to retire there. Unfortunately, he was killed in a traffic accident in 1993, and Bernice moved to Trego and continued to teach dance to impoverished rural girls. In Montana she was able to fulfill her lifelong passion for riding.

In 2005 she rode 2000 miles to Albuquerque, NM, to visit her sisteron a Tennessee Walking Horse named Pride. On her return, she stopped by Outfitters Supply to replace some worn-out gear, and met owner Russ Barnett. He designs packs, and made some custom ones for Bernice, as well as becoming a sponsor of her next ride.

The passion for adventure was part of her heritage. "I was raised in a family of adventurous women. My aunts were adventurers, philanthropists, suffragists. And they explored the world at a time when women did not explore the world.”

Still, not every descendant of a pioneer or an explorer continues the journey.
Bernice is without a doubt an inspiration to anyone who thinks they are too old, too poor or too urban for such an adventure. She is already y planning next year's ride, and I suspect there is more than one person she met along the way who might be planning to follow in her hoofprints.[/size]

http://endeofthetrail.com/
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http://www.outfitterssupply.com/long-rider-bernice-ende.asp


RELIVING THE SANTA FE TRAIL

In 1821 this route was established by a Missouri trader Wiliam Becknell. He was driven by dire financial circumstances capitalize on Santa Fe’s own desperate situation – cut of from its normal trade with Mexico due to the uprising there. He followed the Platte and Arkansas rivers across the prairie, as did the Pawnee, Kiowa, Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho, because rivers provided a reliable water source. The trip took 2-1/2 months each way, but proved extremely profitable.


This soon became a surveyed freight route, with improvements and trading posts along the way. By 1848, the normal time taken to travel this route was a month.

Francis X. Aubrey, a young Canadian trader, built his life and legend on the Santa Fe Trail, He was jockey-sized – five feet tall and 100 pounds -- with had a yen for publicity. He set the first speed record in 1847, when he made the ride in 14 days, documenting his success in The Daily Missouri Republican. But that wasn’t fast enough - the next year, he made the ride in 8 days and 10 hours, When challenged, he bet $1,000 that he could reduce that time to six days. In the summer of 1848, he did it in 136 hours, arriving bleeding and exhausted, strapped into the saddle after riding through thunderstorms and killing 6 horses.

Aubry’s passion for the trail had a tragic end – he was stabbed to death in Santa Fe by a journalist over an argument over the best route for the railroad. That was 1953. In 1880 the Santa Fe railway was completed, and the wagon ruts eroded back into the prairie. But the trail and Aubry were not entirely forgotten.

The Great Santa Fe Trail Horse Race was the brainchild of Jim Gray, the owner of the Drovers Mercantile Store in Ellsworth, Kansas and a history buff. His friend Rob Phillips, a retired real estate developer and owner of two hotels in Lawrence, Kansas caught the idea and decided to turn it into a reality.

"When I heard that story, I thought we've got to do something about the Santa Fe Trail and get the world excited about it again," Phillips said. He didn’t want to do it small – he envisioned 100 teams blazing their way into headlines and building tourism for his home state of Kansas. Each team would field one rider and 10 horses, covering 50 to 80 miles in 10 of the 13 days, with 3 days of rest, for a total of 515 miles ridden. Each night would be a stop in a “race city” – mostly small rural towns for whom this would be a big event: Elkhart, Dodge City, Larned, Lyons, Council Grove, Burlingame, and Gardner. The ride had to be designed around the development that has taken place since 1848, and kept to Forest Service roads, county roads and private land where possible.

Phillips decided not to offer prize money to keep it about the glory, but entrants still had to cough up entry fees of $3,000 to $4,500, depending on the size of their team, to cover the costs of organizing it.

Phillips had no intention of letting anyone push their horses past the limit the way Aubry did, so regular vet checks were mandatory. The ride followed the rules of the National Endurance Riding Commission.

There were, in the end, only 60 riders. One of them was Scott Griffin, who had never ridden in an endurance race before, but when he saw an article about the race, it grabbed his attention. His life had gone through some upheavals and he “needed a personal challenge.” His team was titled “Mission Not Impossible.”

He did it with only two horses that he bought for the race – Cruiser, a 13-year old Arabian who was his primary mount, and Silver, a younger Quarter-Arab cross, and slept in the trailer next to their portable corrals every night.

To keep the weight off their backs, he rode standing in the stirrups much of the time, or walking alongside them to reduce the strain. He intended to sell them when the ride was complete, but now he has changed his mind. After completing a mission like that, he said, “"That horse now is your buddy. You've been through something."

Griffin took home the prize belt buckle, but more importantly, he said, was the experience of riding, seeing the country and getting to know the other participants. With 7-12 hours in the saddle, they had plenty of time for that. Each day’s ride was timed, and the rider with the best overall time would be the winner, but the spirit of endurance riding prevailed over competitive zeal in most cases.

Of the 60 riders, more than half had dropped out by the end, and only six completed the entire ride. In many cases it was the riders who broke down – from dehydration mostly, and one man fell from his horse in Dodge City when his horse reared and broke his shoulder and collarbone. About 5 or 6 horses a day had to retire for minor ailments or soreness.

There was only one tragedy. Two horses were killed and their riders injured when they raced across the finish line at the end of the 9th day. They could not pull up their horses in time and they shot out into a busy road south of Canton, Kansas, and were hit by oncoming traffic.




FOLLOWUP

Griffin is planning on participating in next year’s race. There is already a waiting list at

http://www.sfthorserace.com/08teamwaitinglist.htm


If you are inspired by these journeys, a more local and lower key ride you might want to check out is the John Wayne Ride, held every summer from Rattlesnake Lake out to the Palouse country of Tekoa along the old Milwaukee Railroad. Its's not a competitive ride and only covers about 20 miles a day, but you will need a driver to haul your gear,

http://www.jwpwr.org/john_wayne_pioneer_trail.htm