Downed trees blocking trails

The trees in the photos are all Lodgepole Pines which are much smaller than the Ponderosa Pines. The Lodgepole are found in the Alpine region, Ponderosa are a Sub-Alpine, meaning they are found at lower elevations. I see the Ponderrosa in the 5000 to 8000 foot elevations. We see the Lodgepole pines and Elgin Spruce above 8000 foot.

Ponderosas can be a very large tree. With trunks often bigger than 3' in diameter. When they are down and across the trail, They are a formible obsticle. The Lodgepole Pines are very straight, but they don't often get more than 12" in diameter.

Of course the new growth coming back in after the fire is Quaking Aspin. The fire removes the mature forest of pines and Quakies quickly bring new growth back into the area.

I would have the horse go over the tree. Or way around it. I like taking my horses off roading. Where it is hard for them to get through makes them think.

I had to deal with this a few weekends ago, big wind storm knocked down loads of trees on the trail. There was only 1 place we couldn't get through so we had to deviate and go on the road but all of the other trees were crossed. We climbed over, jumped a little and climbed through. Phoenix didn't care at all and was happy to steal bits of tree for a snack as we passed through.

Found many downed trees yesterday! My husband was attempting to trail run as I ride but the poor guy worked himself too hard and ended up trail walking, LOL. I got off and walked along with - horse was having fun. Ended up manually moving what we could and whatever we couldn't move, we cleared out the space in front and back so peoPle could either have their horses step over or jump safely.
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I live in the tallest, longest standing timber forest in the nation so our downed trees are well over 3 feet and hundreds of feet in length. My first time we had a straight up hill over holes and boulders and smaller fallen trees to avoid a huge fallen tree on the trail. I was SO relieved to have made it to the top! But that quickly went away when I was told that now we had to go back DOWNHILL on the other side of the fallen tree. Downhill was way scarier...it was so steep! Everyone was fine.

Painted horse: at least the area to either side seems to allow you around most of them...at least in those pictures! I get stuck in the thick woods here all the time with no way to squeeze between two trees and get around some that have fallen. Sometimes it means going way out around and finding a path through the woods that could take half an hour to loop back...and then its nice if there are enough of us so that one can crawl over and yell from the other end and one stay behind with horses while someone tries to find a path so that nobody gets lost!

Sadly I never took pictures of places I got stuck. But here are some of the trees. If you imagine a pile of them down in the middle where the trail is cleared you can imagine a predicament :) Especially on a narrow trail.


This last one is titled "finally out of the woods" in the album from the ride that this was taken on.

Thankfully, I don't live in an area that is as thickly populated by trees as many of you guys seem to.

What I do on a trail when I come to a downed tree greatly depends on what the individual circumstances are; how tall the tree is, how wide a spot in the trail it is covering, which horse I'm riding, whether or not there is another safe way around, etc.

One thing I'll sometimes do that I haven't seen mentioned if the tree is too large for me to move myself, I'll put a rope around it and dally to my saddle horn and then have the horse move the tree for me.

BUT, I ride in a ranch saddle tough enough for roping and most my horses are broke to the rope and to pulling.