Advice

Trail Clearing: an under-appreciated skill set

On March 22, 2024 by Erika Eckstrom

Of all of the skills that students regularly want to learn, the one that nobody ever mentions is “Mounted Trail Clearing.”

And quite frankly it’s also the skill set I find that, in a pinch, most people are incredibly lacking.

There has yet to be an EquiTravel trip where we haven’t ended up on a trail that had a fallen tree or some kind of blockage that required clearing. And all too often, I’m the one who has to deal with it solo because even the skilled riders on many of these trips don’t have the skill sets to manage their horse while also clearing trail.

Being able to have a horse in one hand and a saw in the other is a huge part of trail riding, as is knowing how to tie a horse safely while you’re about to make some loud noises.

But it’s not just understanding how to manage the horses, but also knowing what qualifies as a safe and passable trail or an acceptable reroute.

Too often I’ve seen people try to get their horses to clear a log they simply can’t step over, or duck a branch or tree they can’t actually get under —- and it’s ended in some tears and even injuries and concussions.

Skills involved with trail clearing:

It’s more than you’d think. Clearing trail is the ultimate amalgamation of all other skills you have learned in riding and trail riding. It brings together elements of horsemanship, riding, logic, and citizenship.

And the only way to get good at it is to practice.

Horse Behaviors:

• Realistic expectations of a horse’s patience.
  • Horses do not naturally stand still (they don’t idle in park like a car).
    
• Management of a horse’s frustration and capacity to handle repeated obstacles and requests to stop and go.
  • Every time you ask a horse to stop and go it increases their frustration. Stop and go repetition is seen as unnecessary from the horse’s perspective.
    
• Horses do not naturally let you steer them directly into obstacles while you address them.
  • While it may seem like horses “like” to take you off trail into bushes and trees sometimes, what they are actually doing is finding the path of least resistance from their perspective. Every time they go off trail it is to avoid something they don’t want to deal with — such as mud, rocks, something suspicious. However when you ask them to do it on purpose, such as in the case of clearing trail, they will not see the point.
    
• Horse’s reactions to falling objects and crashing branches.
  • While clearing a branch, it will inevitably fall. If you are doing this unmounted it may just make a big noise or sudden movement that could bother your horse. If you are doing this mounted there’s a chance it may also fall onto your horse.
  • It is important to understand how horses, and more importantly your horse and the other horses with you, will react to these falling objects.

Rider Skills:

• Controlling horse with one hand, and being able to switch which hand you control the horse with
  • Being able to control a horse with one hand is a skill unto itself, but more importantly is maintaining that control while your focus and coordination is set on a completely different task with your other hand.
  • If you’re mounted, often it doesn’t matter if you’re left handed or right handed, you need to trim a bush, branch or vine with the hand closest to it so you’ll need to use both hands.
    
• Multitasking without detriment to your horsemanship
  • It’s also important to make sure that your trail clearing activities are not at the detriment to your horse. Unconscious torques on the reins as you reach for branches are not acceptable.

• Tying horses on trail
  • Multiple slip knots and emergency knots for various settings
  • Identifying a tie point that is strong enough to hold a horse
  • Knowing how the horse will behave in the location you chose:
    • can they go completely around the point in a circle?
    • can they step over the secure rope?
    • could they get tangled?
    • could they back into something dangerous?
  • Knowing where you can safely attach a rope to the horse
    
• Learning about risks and issues of trail systems versus non-problem obstacles, how to see them when you are in strange trail systems
  • This is super important for faster speed trail riding such as Competitive Trail and Endurance Riding. It is a true skill to see and calculate, at speed, the upcoming obstacles.
  • Examples include:
    • Understanding what height of log is passable for a horse to walk over, or jump over
    • Knowing what kind of branches you can pull back, which ones you need to duck under and which are just unsafe to pass without clearing
    • Being able to see mud and guess how deep it is, how slippery it might be, if it is full of debris
    • Understanding how rocky segments on trail may benefit or hinder your horse
    • Predicting footing on steep hills for your horse
  • It is also important to understand where do you want the debris from clearing the trail to be located so that it is truly out of the way.
    
• Seeing and planning horse safe alternate routes
  • If an obstacle has to be circumvented, how can you make a route that will:
    • Be safe for horses to traverse, either mounted or unmounted
    • Not cause future issues for the trail maintenance crew
    • Not increase mud on the main trail
    • Provide an option that a horse would be willing to take

• Mounting on trail
  • This seems obvious but being able to ground mount and/or identify higher ground locations for remounting is a key part of trail riding and a repetitive skill when clearing trail
    
• Teamwork in handling situations
  • Being able to work as a team with other riders is hard. You have to not only take into account other rider’s but their mounts as well coordinating multiple horses for one task.
  • Leg ups are also a huge teamwork effort to get everyone back on!
    
• How to pack work tools on horseback
  • Packing a saddle bag is hard enough due to limited space — and now you need to pack sharp stuff!
  • Making sure that the tools are both accessible but also not going to bounce around, bother the horse or get lost.
    
• ….and for those who never used a saw or nippers, how to do that!
  • It’s not just knowing how to pull a saw back and forth, it’s about understanding where to cut so that you are not making another obstacle. Cuts at odd angles can create sharp points that could become hazards unto themselves.
  • It is also important to understand the physics of your trimming.
    If you cut a branch just so, which direction will it fall? Knowing where to snip, cut and saw and planning where you want something to fall is a learned skill.
    If you pull a log off the trail, which way will it roll and is there a branch on that log that could snag your horse’s legs as it passes.

Why to find a mentor or hire an instructor to teach you how to clear trail or handle trail irregularities and emergencies?

You don’t know what you don’t know. It’s that simple.

Mentors and instructors who specialize in trail riding carry with them a vast amount of knowledge and foresight. The mileage they have on trails with a variety of horses in varying settings has given them the ability to handle problems they have seen before, or anticipate and prophesize problems and prevent them from happening.

If you don’t have the miles, you just wouldn’t be able to predict all of the variables.

Find a mentor or pay an instructor to help show you and test you on your abilities to handle irregularities on trail. They can set you up to see the hazards, teach you how to set yourself up for success, and supervise you as you handle the obstacles.

Whose responsibility is it to keep trails safe?

Are you on that trail? Then it’s your responsibility.

If you utilize a trail system, you are a citizen of that trail. It does not matter whether it is a public park or on private land, nor whether you paid for access or traversed it for free — trail maintenance support is your responsibility.

A proper horseman would get off and clear ANY trail they are riding.

A proper horseman wouldn’t leave it for the next rider.

I’ve had a lot of older men mentor me on trail riding over the years. But I’ve never been on a ride with any of these horseman that we didn’t have to dismount at least once because he insisted we pull a log to the side. There’s even been cases that it took an hour of our time but it was seen as a job that had to be done.

Even if it’s the responsibility of Park Management or the property owner to do the maintenance of the trails, there is no way that the responsibility to maintain miles of trails can be done in a way so that every trail is clear at all times. As the trail maintenance gets to the end they simply have to loop back to the beginning to clear trees that have fallen in the meantime.

It is only with the support of users that a system can be maintained in a constant form.

It is up to users to:

• Clear low branches, saw or clear small diameter logs, and remove minor safety hazards
• Create alternate routes around non-removable and major hazards that will not cause permanent issues
• Inform trail management of the exact location of unmovable hazards using GPS and photos.