Ride Start will  be at Bass River Resort which we used last year. Their website is www.bassresort.com. We will  have the same separate camping area and horse pen area as last year.  They have cabins if needed for those who  want  a place to  rent.

Finish will be at Brushy Creek Lodge. Their website is www.brushycreeklodge.com. They are horse people and have been great to us.  Bring your swim suits , as they have a hot tub there we can use.

We will  have two  crew vehicles for those who  need crewing help. These vehicles will  be leapfrogging each other, so be prepared to make up  two separate crew bags. We will  have hay, water, people water, coolers, etc at the vet checks.

Barry  and I will be starting to mark trail and do  some trimming starting the weekend of April 6th.

Entries have been coming in, and it looks like we will  have a fun group. Hope to  see you there

Paul N. Sidio

So  make your plans now to put on your Big Girl  Panties and come ride the only one day 100  mile point to point ride in the world for those people who are afraid of heights:-) . Last year we had 9 people try this ride in daunting conditions. (We received between 8-10 inches of cold rain during the ride). Of those 9 entries, one horse lost a shoe early, and the easy boot available was the incorrect size and caused rubbing on the heel bulb, so  they Rider Optioned out.  Another rider, in his mid 70′s, was trying his and his horses first 100, and at 44 miles decided they had ridden all they cared for on that particular day, and also  RO’d. A third rider thought they had gotten off trail and along with our lone 75 mile entry turned on a road looking for civilization. (We think they were likely still on trail). The remaining 6 riders all  completed. This gave us a 66.7% completion rate for the 100′s on a tough weather day.

The ride times were very slow, as five of us elected to  remain together to  help  get one rider with an equipment issue through the ride. My personal belief is that this ride is not a speed course, but is doable on a top  level equine in about 13- 14 hours. This course is not as hard as the  Old Dominion or Tevis , but is very technical, which slows you down. It doesn’t have the big gut busting hills, but is steady up and down. To  give you an idea, My horse has completed  Tevis and the  OD in the 18-20 hour range . On a decent weather day, and if I don’t have to  put up  glowsticks as we ride, Piper should do  this Trail in about 16 hours.

Speaking of Tevis. The US Highway Department has confirmed to us that the Interstate Highway system has as many east bound lanes as it does west bound lanes. While in the past, each year has seen riders from east of the Rockies  go ride in California at Tevis, or Montana for the  Big Horn ride, it seems western area riders have not been able to make the trip  back east for the Old Dominion or other challenging 100′s.   (It looks like 4 of the Top  10 horse to  finish Tevis in 2010 were from east of the Rockies)

In 2011, we had three brave women from Wyoming and South Dakota who trusted their maps and found their way to  the Ozarks. All  three completed the 100. They set a precedent and blazed the trail  for other western riders.

For 2012, I have an offer for Western Riders. Come ride the Ozark Trail 100. Then if you want to  double down and try the “Beast of The East” ,which is the Old Dominion 100 ride in Virginia,  you can leave your equines and rig at my place in Missouri for the 5 weeks between rides. I would put your equine out on a solitary pasture, and feed it any grain you wanted. Also  could probably get it ridden a few times between rides.  For this service the charge would be … $ ZERO.  There are cheap flights out of Springfield to LA and Phoenix, or you could fly Southwest out of St Louis or Kansas City. This would allow you to  go home for a month and then come back  to  drive to Virginia for the OD.

More updates to  follow

Paul N. Sidio

(417) 818-0210

Here are a few personal  impressions to help  you prepare for the ride. First:  This ride is sneaky hilly. No big steep  dramatic mountains to climb, but lots of steady up and down twisty trail.  There is about 15,000 feet of Elevation  change in the 100  miles. Tevis has about 40,000 feet of elevation change. It will  sneak up on you and your horse if you are not paying attention.

Second:  This ride is technical. Plenty of moving on out trail, but it is single track wooded stuff. Very little trail  you might want to  walk. The walking  stuff comes in short pieces of 100  feet or so . They would be loose rocky places, narrow knee knocker places, coming in and out of tiny creeks where you step  down and then back  up. We will need to follow Julie Suhrs advice. ” Never hurry, Never tarry”. It is rocky. So  if you like putting pads on, or wear boots, do  so here.  There is lots of water on the Trail. Most places it is every mile or two between water. There are a few places where we go  3 miles without hitting water.

This weekend, Ride Manager Barry Cole and myself talked about a few things and his decision was that we will do the first 5 miles out of Bass River Resort on county dirt and gravel  roads then drop onto the Ozark Trail itself. This allows us to  start about 30- minutes earlier, as in shortly before daylight. We should start shortly before 6:00 Am, then sunset is at 7:48 with twilight lasting until 8:15.  When you take out the one hour hold, and the gate and goes, we will have about 12 hours of day light riding time to  get to  Brushy Creek Lodge 75 mile vet check and the one hour hold there.

We also  decided to  use the dirt/gravel  roads we used on Day #2  of the ride last year from the 84mile to the  -93 mile mark. After leaving Brushy Creek, the trail is very technical, and riders will be going slower. So we will  switch over  to  the road at Suttons Bluff after 8 miles of  technical trail to give riders and horses a break.  Another issue was that if we stayed on the Trail after Suttons Bluff, there would be a long 5-6 miles stretch of no water on the trail, and no way to  haul  water to  the trail. On the road, we have 4-5 water crossings in 8 miles. Then we finish up with 7 miles of wooded trail. Don’t worry, there is plenty of technical trail  left:-)

Third.  There is not much grass on the Trail We are in the woods. At the Harmon Springs area , about 9 miles into the ride, there is good grazing. Then pretty much nothing until  the gate and go at mile 20 at the Highway 8 parking area. Then nothing until Hazel Creek Vet Check at Mile 32.

After that there is a few spots with some grass and then good grass at the 50  mile gate and go  at Hwy DD/32 . Then not much until  you get to the  Barton Fen gate and go at  mile 62. Plenty of  grass there.  Then a few spots and good grass where you cross Hwy J  at Mile 72.  This is only  3 miles from the  Brushy Creek Lodge hold. Plenty of grass at Brushy Creek Lodge.

After that there isn’t much grass until you get to  the Sutton Bluff gate and go,  and not much there.  On the road part of the Trail, past Sutton Bluff, there is plenty of grass alongside the road. At the Gate and Go at Mile 93, there is plenty of grass close by.

After riding over 60  miles of the trail this spring,  I am very comfortable that it is a very doable trail. Also that most horses that try to fly down it will wear down and not make it to  the Finish Line. Most riders should plan on being out there for 18-20 hours , including holds. Some riders will need almost the entire 24 hours to  get it done. Remember that at Tevis, about 1/2 of all  the completions are in the last hour. This Trail  may be something like that.

Note on Crewing:  Many of these vet check areas are small. We have room for the rig hauling the vets and crewing stuff for crewless riders, but not a lot of big rigs. Also the roads are narrow and twisty. While there is a way to  use only paved roads, this may make you take the long way between vet checks. What you may consider doing if you are crewing is to  drop  your trailer someplace and crew out of a pickup truck.  There are also  many places between the vet checks that a crew could meet riders.  We will  have crew directions up in the next month or so.

This Trail has lots of water crossings, make sure to  get your mount to  drink at these. We will also  have some horse water at the vet checks, .

Trot by at OT Mile 22, RM 9.5: This is just so  anybody in trouble can stop and fix it, drop off stuff, use a potty etc. No pulse, no  CRI. Just trot by and wave hello.

Gate and Go at Hwy 8 Trailhead.  OT Mile #33. RM 20. Pulse down, trot out, vet exam, CRI etc. Crews should easily be able to  meet you there. Hay will be there and there should be grazing also. Plan on treating it as a short (15-20 minute) hold to feed your mount.

Hold at Hazel Creek Trailhead.  OT Mile 45. RM 33. One hour hold.

Gate and Go at Hwy DD Trailhead. OT Mile 62.5   RM 50. Pulse down, Trot out, CRI, feed your steed, grazing there, use the potty, grab more water, Again treat as a mini hold of 15-20  minutes.

Gate and Go at Barton Fen,:  OT Mile 75, RM 63. Grazing there, feed the rascals, take 10-15 minutes, You are 12 1/2 miles from a one hour hold.

Brushy Creek Lodge: OT Mile 87.5  RM 75.. One hour hold. Use the potty, take a shower if you like, lounge in the hot tub, kick back in the John Wayne room and watch the big screen TV. The 75′s complete here. The 100′s have 25 more miles to  go.    This is where we will  haul back  to  from the 100  finish line.

Sutton Bluff Gate and Go. OT Mile 96, RM 84  . By now you know the drill.  Pulse down trot, CRI etc. Feed the ponies, use the potty,  some grazing here, grab a jacket if it is cooling off.

Freemans ATV Camp. OT Mile 106. RM 93. Gate and  go. grazing, potties, etc.

THE FINISH!!!  Hwy PP/Hwy 72 Trailhead.  OT Mile 113. RM Mile 100!!! Completion exam. As we get full trailer loads, we can haul  back  to  Brushy Creek, or wait for the other riders, which ever people prefer.

Note this is tentative depending on weather and access. But it should be very close to  what we will be doing. We will post more trail photos in the next month or so.

Now we are having fun!

Paul

They cut trees down, moved debris well off the trail  area, and filled in root ball holes.

They made the trail  wide enough for an atv to  get through. They were using a small  bulldozer, mini excavator and an ATV with a drag flex harrow. 

They tipped up  stumps into the holes, packed dirt in there and moved on.

4 wheeler ATV dragging the flex tine harrow on the trail. (Me driving)

This gives you an idea of the devastation in some areas.  It was hard going. They usually lifted the fallen debris and moved it further off trail. In steep hillsides they couldn’t do  this as much.  But it still  a tremendous improvement.

I walked 3 1/2 miles of the trail  doing finishing hand limb lopping to  get the small  stuff, and low hanging branches.

There are areas where they didn’t get the equipment in, but did massive chainsaw work to  open up  the  the trail and move debris. There is still work to  be done there, but it will be fine for our ride on April 23rd.

See You there

Paul

#1) You are pretty much on your own. Crewing, people food and water, horse feed, etc. You are pretty much on your own. There will be a trailer following along and leapfrogging ahead to the vet checks and the gate and goes. There should be plenty of natural water and green grass along the way. There will be a vet. There will be a trailer to haul those who get pulled back  to Brushy Creek Lodge. There will be no porta pottys.  There may be an RV with a bathroom that you can use. If you have a crew that is fine. If you don’t have a crew, you can either stash stuff along the way, or hope that somebody will carry stuff for you. Plan for having to 100% take care of yourself and your horse, then any help  you do  get will be a welcome bonus:-)

#2) Whiners, Mean people, and Rude people will be left behind to be eaten by Bears.

FAQ”s ( Frequently Asked Questions).

Q: If I am whining, mean, or rude will  Ride Management provide the Bears that eat me?

A: See Rule #1. Riders must provide their own Bears if they wish to  be eaten by a Bear, or take what is available in the woods to be eaten by:-)

Q:  Will the Trail be well  marked?

A: The Ozark Trail is permanently marked. There are a few places where illegal ATV trails have been made and run alongside or intersect with the Trail. There are few places where there is a spur trail that goes off the main Trail.  We will  have pink survey tape to mark those places.  South of Brushy Creek, the last  25 miles has no  illegal  trails crossing the Trail.  If there needs to be a detour along the Trail after dark, we will  put out a few glowsticks. Not a glowstick every few yards, but a few.

Q: How will I know if I and my horse are ready for this type of event?

A: If you have to ask, that should be your first clue that you may not be. This will not be an easy ride to quit. We will be in isolated country. We will be a long ways from anything. If you get sore, tired, sick, etc, you will still be better off riding to the finish. If you quit at 40-50 miles, it may take 5-6 more hours to get you back to camp. That is assuming that everything goes well, and we have no problems.

Q: But if I can talk somebody into coming and crewing, and pampering me, I am allowed to do  that?

A:  Yes you can. However,watch out for Trail Pirates, who have been known to loot and pillage other peoples goodies:-)

Originally it was not going to  be a sanctioned ride. But folks suggested that we go ahead and sanction it. Barry and Linda Cole were gracious enough to volunteer as Ride Managers. Since we were in this deep we decided to go  all out. We are doing the 100 miles as a point to point ride starting near Bass River Resort which is at the 13 mile mark  on the Ozark Trail. We will  go  down the trail stopping for gate and goes and holds along the way.   We will  also have a 75 mile distance offered with the option to elevate to 100 miles. The 75 will  start in the same place and time as the 100 and will  finish at Brushy Creek Lodge. The 100 will  continue on 25 miles past Brushy Creek. Entries will  be limited to  15. Pre-Entry will be required.

The Forest Service has contracted to re-build 40 miles of the trail  repairing the root ball holes and logs in the way. This work should be completed well  before the ride. Even if the work isn’t completed, we are still riding.

Just so  we are perfectly clear on this point: This will  not be a race. It will be an Endurance ride. This is a very difficult trail, and should not be taken lightly. It is highly technical and has many hills. Prepare for it as if you would for  Tevis or the Old Dominion 100. You will mostly be on your own as far as taking care of yourself. This is going to be  less than No Frills. There will be no  porta potties, armies of volunteers handing you nice stuff, pop up  tents, chairs etc etc  unless you bring them yourself.  If you think that you or your horse are not ready for a Tevis or Old Dominion type of trail you should not come, because you will not enjoy this trip. You should use as much hoof protection as you would for a ride on those type of trails. You and your horse should be as fit and prepared as you would for those type of trails. The Trail is a full 100 miles long. We will not ride 85 miles and call it good. You will not get done in 10-12 hours. Plan on doing 16-22 hours of riding.  This will  not be like a normal AERC ride.  This will be much more like that first trip Wendall Robie and few friends took about 56 years ago, when they decided to ride from Lake Tahoe to Auburn just to prove it could be done. We are going to ride 100 miles from The Bass River Resort trail  head to the Hwy 72 trail head….. just to prove it can be done.

The trail  is permanently marked. In the weeks before the ride, we will  go and use pink tape for areas of possible confusion.  To give you an idea, we estimate that we will  use less than 2 rolls of survey tape for the entire 100  miles. There will be very few glow sticks at night. That part of the trail is pretty simple to follow. If you want to  see at night, you will need to carry a light.

More details to follow in the next few months

It was a really pretty place to  ride, and we could not have asked for a more welcoming and helpful  land owner.   The Brushy Creek  owners and employees all  went well  beyond the call  of duty to make this work  for us. Unfortunately the fairly low number of entries made it where the ride will not return next year. At least with myself and Patsy managing it.

Thanks to  all who volunteered and helped us get through it.

Paul N. Sidio

We will be posting ride updates on Endurance.net and on the Yahoo AERC members forum. 100  mile updates will also go on the yahoo  New 100 Mile riders group.

We should have two  great days of riding

Paul

Day#1 , 50 Mile Ride: 19 miles to  hold with probable trot by at 13  miles. Hold #1 is 45 minutes. Then 5 miles to  turn around and 5 miles back = 10  mile Segment  to Hold #2 at same site as #1.  30  minute hold. Then 19 miles  back  towards basecamp with probable trot by at 6 miles.

Day #2, 35 Mile Ride: 17 miles to hold with checkpoint at 8 miles. 9 miles on County and Forest Service roads.  Hold is 45 minutes. Return to  base camp for finish.

Day #2,  50 Mile Ride: 17 miles to  hold with checkpoint at 8 miles. 9 miles on County and Forest Service Roads. Hold #1 is 45 minutes. Then out 7.8 miles to checkpoint, turn around and return to hold area for Hold #2. 45 minutes. Then return 17 miles to  base camp for finish, with the same 9 miles of County and Forest Service roads with a checkpoint at 9 miles.

Day #2, 75 Mile Ride: Identical to  50  mile ride..Then at Base camp. Hold #3. 60  minute hold. Leave basecamp and turn north on Trail for 13 miles to Vet check #4 at site of Day #1 hold for 25 mile ride. 45 minute hold. Then return 13 miles to  base camp for finish with a checkpoint at 7 miles. Total Hold time is 3:15

Day #2, 100 Mile Ride: Same as 50  mile ride. Hold #3 at Basecamp is 60  minutes. Leave camp, turn north and go  13 miles to  checkpoint. May have trot by there. Go another 6 miles to hold. Hold #4 is a 45 minute hold. Leave hold and continue out 5 miles to  turnaround and return to  hold area for hold #5 which is 30  minutes. Return 19  miles towards basecamp with a checkpoint at 6 miles, then another checkpoint after 7 more miles and then on to the finish. Total hold time is 3:45.

All  checkpoints will have hay available and will be near water.

Spent the weekend at Brushy Creek  working on Trails.  They will be ready by ride day. The Owners of Brushy Creek Lodge have been incredibly helpful in making this work.  They are eager to  have us there.

The north trail (Day#1) has plenty of water. I rode the entire 25 miles of it on Sunday. We had nice clear cool water in about 15 different places along the trail. It is more technical than I remembered from back  in May. More switchbacks, and more rocks too. The goal was to  create a mid western version of Tevis, and we may have gotten closer to  that  than we thought. There are a couple of wooden bridges crossing marshy areas and creeks. A concrete “no hands” bridge across a river. Lots of turns. The hills are taller than I remembered, especially on the Northern  part, but the Trail  is not steep. Just more switchbacks. This will be a challenging ride. It is very doable, but when you are done, you will know you have accomplished something special.

Trail etiquite will be important on this ride. There are not a lot of wide open places where it will be easy to  pass another horse. We will  have to  be courteous and yield trail when asked. Some riders go fast on the more open places and walk at the more technical  parts. Some prefer a more consistent pace.  Let us try and do this as pleasantly as possible.

To  give you an idea of the trail, I rode with a young woman who was on her Friesan/Quarter horse cross mare who  had never done this before. She thought Endurance Riding sounded like fun, so we did a 25 miles training ride. It took us almost exactly 6 hours to  cover the 25 miles which included a lot of trail  trimming and clearing, plus a 20-30 minute “hold”.  We moved out when we weren’t clearing trail, but never got the horses hot or blowing hard. There are areas you can canter, but most of the trail is trotting terrain.  If you were to  add up all the places you had to  walk, it is much less than one mile.  There is one patch of about 50 yards that has some slick shelf rock. There are all those small  creeks with rocky approaches and exits. Some of the switchback turns are fairly sharp, so you may walk those. There are only  a couple of short boggy places,  (50-75 feet). My gut feeling is that the fastest 25 milers will  run it in about 3:30-3:45 . Fastest 50 will likely be 6:30 -7:00. There will  be no 2 hours and change 25 mile or under 5 hour 50  mile riders here.

One other thing… This trail has been measured. It will not be a 45 mile and let’s just call  it 50 ride.  This may make it seem longer than other rides.

There is plenty of grass on  trail and at the vet checks, so Cavalry riders get ready:-)

The South trail (Day #2)does not have as much natural  water. We will  have some water troughs out, but there will be places where the water stops are 4 miles apart. All  vet check areas are easily accessable by car, and are  1 mile or less off paved roads. There are also several other places crews can easily get to for their rider if they want to do this. We will  have road maps showing this for those who  want them.

We will be heading down there on Friday the 10th to  get everything ready. No  cell service in the valley, but they do have wifi at the lodge. I will be checking emails at night. You can leave voice mail, but I won’t know it until I  get on top of a hill:-)

There is a short waiting list for electric hookup camp  sites. Call  now and get on the list if you want a shot at one of them.  I have several sites  reserved for Vets, Vendors,  and Volunteers. I may have an extra one or two, and they will be released to the waiting list by Thursday. One other thing is that, as I understand it, there are sites available up until Saturday when a group of trail  riders arrive. So  it might be possible to have electric hookups early in the week, and only have to  move into primitive camping for Saturday and Sunday. Contact Brushy Creek Lodge and ask  for more details

Hope to see you there

Paul