Horseback Riding

Bob Zybach: That's one reason you don't want it?

Lorna Grabe: Right, right, it would destroy it. We don't know if the stove is the original or not. It's not the one in the pictures of the second. We don't have a picture of the inside of this school when it was functioning. It might have been added by the Farmer's Union, we don't know.

Bob Zybach: You said you are a bird watcher, have you noticed any difference in the bird population in this valley since you've been here? Are there more hawks now or less owls or

Lorna Grabe: I'm not too good at owls, we have great horned owls in our oak tree occasionally.

Bob Zybach: Any idea how old that oak tree is, between you and the Hollisters there?

Lorna Grabe: Well, it's supposed to grow an inch every ten years. That's what I think we read somewhere, and it's probably three foot thick, so that's 360 years old.

Bob Zybach: It would look like it's taking up a lot of space, you said when you moved here, all these fir trees have grown up since you've lived here, is that similar for the rest of the valley are most of these young fir ... groves we're seeing, have those grown up in fields or have those grown up from old logging?

Lorna Grabe: I think it was more clear in earlier days because Charlie Olson said where he lived down there that that was clear, I think, more clear meadows going over towards King's Valley.

Lorna Grabe: And now when we are ride the horses up in the woods behind us, we see evidences of old fences, so I think people used this for pasturing and so I think there weren't as many trees back in the old days.

Bob Zybach: Do you have regular horses trails that you follow?

Lorna Grabe: Yeah, there's paths. Logging paths up through here. We follow them.

Bob Zybach: Do those go pretty much on your property or do they go on Dun Forest, OSU property?

Lorna Grabe: Starker's and OSU.

Bob Zybach: Has there ever been any problems with Starker's or OSU for

Lorna Grabe: No.

Bob Zybach: Would there be problems with local land owners if Starkers or OSU started having those trails developed for riding?

Lorna Grabe: No, I think people would ... if they ... there's a conflict of interest here I suppose, if they were used strictly for horses it would be just wonderful, but you have the problems of three wheeled vehicles and motor bikes, people coming in with noise. And then you really have trouble.

Bob Zybach: Is that a big problem here?

Lorna Grabe: It hasn't been, no, but

Bob Zybach: How about mountain bikes, is there a conflict between them and the horse users?

Lorna Grabe: Yes, definitely ... no, mountain bikes don't have motors, the ones with motors are the problems, mountain bikes are just the heavy

Bob Zybach: Peddle bikes.

Lorna Grabe: No, there's no problem with mountain bikes.

Bob Zybach: Somebody suggested it, so I'm asking this.

Lorna Grabe: I haven't seen any problem there.

Bob Zybach: Are there many people that use motor bikes or it's just occasionally, they use it, whenever they did, basically?

Lorna Grabe: Yeah, occasionally they did and when they do it's a problem. When they're ... there are certain teenage kids that when they get to a certain age they have motor bikes, and they want to play and have some fun. But if you created, I think, horse trail would be a good idea but they're already using a lot this land around here for horses.

Bob Zybach: The local residents, you mean?

Lorna Grabe: Yeah, I think a lot of people ride ... well, it's hard to ride up through certain areas now because they've been gates have been fenced off, we used to ride across Hollister's pasture and up the hill over there, and then we used to ride down through Jack Dolan's property and the

Lorna Grabe: people there have now put up gates, and you see there were no houses up on the other side of the Moss Rock Drive and now there's a lot of places up there that say "private property keep out."

Bob Zybach: Do you think it would be good if The School of Forestry put in horse back riding trails?

Lorna Grabe: I think that would be great.

Bob Zybach: So how I'm involved in this

Lorna Grabe: I think it would be wonderful, yeah, if there's a way to keep the motor and the three wheeled motorized bicycles off.

Bob Zybach: Do you know ... there's talk now that the people using horses then, and I didn't realized there was so many people here locally, residential users, but there's talk that they could share those with regular logging roads are used now, do you think that's true?

Lorna Grabe: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: Do you see a conflict between regular motorized traffic and horses?

Lorna Grabe: On the logging roads, no. I don't think there's that many logging trucks coming out that often and I think the people that are doing the riding are usually doing it on weekends. And I don't think ... I think there ... it would be on a main highway, I mean on this main road now, when we moved out here, there would be maybe one or two cars go by in a whole

Lorna Grabe: day. Louise Hollister and I agree on that, we've talked about it earlier. And now one or two cars go by in a minute maybe, five minutes, maybe three cars. So you see it's very heavy traffic on this ... what we consider heavy on Soap Creek Road. So if you're riding horses along there, that's quite a few cars to dodge.

Bob Zybach: How about the old logging roads you use, those have been people were using mountain bikes on those roads because of erosion or because of their moving so fast does that create problem with horses or are those pretty compatible uses? I know there's an incompatible use between horses and hikers because people are stepping on the ground

Lorna Grabe: Stepping on the horse dung, huh?

Bob Zybach: Yeah.

Lorna Grabe: I'm not a biker so I don't know what their feelings are towards horses.

Bob Zybach: I'm just curious from the horse back rider?

Lorna Grabe: I don't think a horse back rider would mind a bike, except that their horse might spook. You know if you round a bend, like one time I was coming back with Jalin and we rounded the bend just before we came down through the forest and here comes a bike and the horse, you know, lunged quickly to the side and there's more opportunity for spooking a horse and having an accident but it could happen, but I think because