Metro Pulse/Cover/The Outdoors Issue

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Introduction

Back in the Saddle

Bicycle Blues
For those on two wheels, Knoxville's not a friendly town

Coveting the Cove Why do automobiles dominate the Smokies' most popular haven?

Hiker Types
There are many types, but two main ones are the GEAR GUY and the MINIMALIST.

Ticket to Ride

Have a hankerin' to get on a horse and experience the great outdoors from six feet up? Here are some local stables that will give you a hand. This list is not comprehensive but should contain a hint or two of a place to start. If none of these locations meet your needs, check out the Yellow Pages under "stables."

House Mountain Farms Stables
The UT non-credit sessions for the Fall term have already begun; however, Spring/Summer courses will most likely be available. The class costs $145 plus a $55 membership fee to the stable, which allows you to ride at your leisure during the 10 weeks the course is in session. Call 974-0150 for more information.
Plus, this stable also offers its own lessons, which run $25 per hour for group sessions; $15 if you buy a membership to the stable. Call 687-8159 for quotes on their rates.

Cades Cove Riding Stables
This stable offers one-hour guided trail rides for $15 per person. Excursions leave every 15-20 minutes, seven days per week through the end of October. The trail takes the rider three miles out into the foothills, streams, and valleys of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Lessons are not offered. Call 448-6286 for more info.

Waldens Creek Riding Stables
A variety of trail rides, which last from one hour to more than four, are offered at this stable near GSMNP. Some trails tackle steep elevations; one meanders past an old moonshine still. The stable is open every day and covers 500 acres. Call 429-0411 for a recorded message containing a wide variety of information.

Cedar Ridge Riding Stables
Located three miles from Sevierville, Cedar Ridge offers four-mile, hour-long guided rides through the area's mountains and valleys. The cost is $15 per hour per person. Lessons in both Western and English styles of riding are offered afternoons and Saturdays. Call 428-5802.

—Adrienne Martini

Do I miss my regular horseback riding? Well....

by Adrienne Martini

The smell hit me first, with cut hay producing the top notes over an earthy underlayer of dirt and old wood. And, of course, that almost undefinable odor of horse. Musky, maybe, but more complex and less heady. Not as pungent as unwashed dog or wet sheep yet stronger than cat paws.

Every horse barn I have ever been in, which number six or seven and are scattered up through Pennsylvania and down into Texas, smells the same. Hay. Horse. The drive up smells green and grassy. The tack room is leather with a hint of metal and disinfectant. If I lost every sense save smell, I would still know the instant I stepped onto a horse farm.

Drive northeast out of Knoxville, past Ritta, past a Vol orange sculpture in the shape of, well, an orange, past the turnoff for Corryton. Stay on Washington Pike and look right. That big hillock, which rises from a relatively flat plain of East Tennessee scrub, is House Mountain. At its base is House Mountain Farm Stables, all 130 acres of it.

Sarajane Tracy, one of the farm's horse trainers, has a cup of coffee in one hand and a bottle of Powerade in the other. She's not a big woman—downright petite to be honest—but she has a personality that this spacious farm just barely contains. Tracy asks if I've ridden before. I did in college and a bit after, I explain, but it's been at least four years. "Didn't you miss it?" she asks.

House Mountain Farm has a loose affiliation with a local college—in this case, UT. The vet school students use the farm's 40-plus horses to hone their skills, and extension courses in riding are taught on the property by Liz Green, the farm's owner. On this day, Green has packed up and gone fox hunting.

The college where I went offered riding as a gym class. An easy credit, I thought, since the horse does all of the work and you're just along as a passenger. Like so many other things, I was wrong about how much physical energy a ride consumes. Most of your body's movements are subtle shifts to keep from falling off. Once you progress beyond a walk and into trotting, cantering, and galloping, you have to work to keep your balance—also called your seat—as well as guide this charging beastie where you want it to go. Oh, and you have to make it look effortless, as if you're just out on a Sunday stroll astride. Proportionally, you break as much sweat as the horse and this doesn't even take into account other activities like jumping, hunting, or dressage.

Tracy has left me alone with Nick, the white gelding I'll be riding, so that she can saddle up Cash, her mount. Nick and I are having a bonding moment—at least I think so. For all I know, he's thinking about mares or the cat who is meowing just outside of his reach or Equus. Nick is one of the farm's herd horses, a group of 25-30 who are basically left to roam one field until they are called back in at night. When a rider is in need of a steed, one of these herd horses is brought down to the barn and saddled up.

But it's not quite as easy as simply throwing a saddle on and galloping out into the wilderness. First, you must brush. And brush. And brush. Horse hair, especially manes and tails, has a knack for attracting every last burr, leaf and dirt clod within a two-mile radius. Before you even attempt to sneak a saddle on, you must get all of this debris off the animal. Not only will this make everyone involved more comfortable, it give you a moment to strike up a quiet, tacit agreement— like, I'll brush you and you won't fling me to the ground and step on my head.

Cash is a lean, mottled white and black horse who used to race. Horses are more social than we know. Cash's girlfriend's name is G-W-E-N. We have to spell it; otherwise he tries to head back to her. As Tracy and I leave the cozy environs of the barn and its paddock, he races ahead. Nick and I mosey. Tracy explains that Cash can be a bit temperamental but is fine as long as he gets to be in the lead, which will be fine since Nick doesn't want to move beyond a gentle lope that feels like being in a rocking chair—a big rocking chair that's about six feet off of the ground.

Tracy is pointing out the different fields that the farm contains, like the "Power Line" field that is home to a giant metal structure carrying power lines and the "Rock Field." "I guess we're not very creative," she jokes. I'm not really listening, though. I'm just trying to remember how to do this, how to relax into my seat, how to tell Nick what I'd like him to do (and this will become an issue when we cut through the herd's field and Nick tries to stay with them), how to get Nick to pick up his hooves and keep pace with Cash. Ninety percent of my mind is focused on horse stuff and I'm frustrated I've forgotten so much from when I was riding regularly.

After passing a series of scenic views, we start up a forest trail. The view is spectacular. All of the flowers, leaves, and fauna that I don't notice when hiking—mostly because I spend most of my trail time looking at my feet, for some reason—jump out. And some of them smack me in the face, literally. The land looks different from this high up. Greener, despite our recent lack of rain. Flatter. Tastier, according to Nick who keeps nibbling leaves.

The ride ends too soon. We head back in, cutting through the farm's jumping course, which Cash seems eager to try. Nick and I aren't. But we have been trotting and, briefly, cantering. Not nearly as thrilling as jumping over a tall gate, but good enough for right now. I'm picking burrs out of Nick's mane as we get to the barn and I jump off, rubber-kneed.

"Riding keeps me sane and happy," Tracy says as we watch G-W-E-N give Cash a good sniffing. "I'm ready to attack the rest of life as long as I'm riding."

Do I miss riding? Before this trip, I'd forgotten the feeling of lightness that riding instills, the thrill of moving with great speed on the back of a giant beast. As I got back into the car, with sore legs and butt, smelling of horse sweat and dirt, steeling myself for a drive back to the office, the answer was (and is) yes.