saddlesore; like you I ride more than I walk these days. I'm pushing 64, so the old grey mare beats shanks mare. I like a good saddle mule too, but these days I am riding and packing 2 BLM mares from the "adopt a horse program".
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<br>My house sits at 2975 feet in very northern California, not far from Oregon. I have the Marble Mountain Wilderness Area practically in my back yard, and I can be at trailheads in the Russian Wilderness and the Trinity Alps Wilderness in an hour or less.
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<br>Like you, we are limited by snow conditions early in the season. The last 2 years have been pretty dry however, without a big snowpack. We did have a lot of wind last winter and there are blowdowns everywhere. We made the trip over in the Salmon River country earlier this week primarily because we knew a trail crew had just pulled out of there and we would be able to get around better than we could closer to home.
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<br>We set up camp at an old abandon homestead at about 3100 feet. We had our choice of a couple of trails well below the snowline. The longest ride was up to Big Flat, 8 miles one way and practically all uphill in the Trinity Alps Wilderness. Big Flat is about 5080 feet, and we were still a couple of hundred feet below snowline. The trail crew hadn't been all the way through, but we didn't encounter anything we couldn't handle. It was a good trip!
