Dating - Trailer Wreck

In the summer between my sophomore and junior year of high school (1984), my brother Cade and I asked Julie Lowe and Kristin Davis to go on a horse ride date with us. Neither Julie nor Kristin had ever ridden a horse before.

We put four horses into the fifth wheel horse trailer and drove to Freedom and up Deer Creek canyon. We parked the truck and trailer near the gate to the National Forest where we ran the cattle on the "summer range".

After unloading the horses from the trailer, we gave Julie and Kristin a quick orientation to riding horses. We then rode up to the top of "Old Man Ridge". We rode for about an hour. While we were riding, a few clouds moved in. As we were almost back to the truck and trailer, it started to rain a little.

We galloped the horses back to the trailer. As we got to the truck and trailer, a huge downpour arrived. Cade and I helped the girls get into the truck. Then, we loaded the horses in the trailer and jumped into the truck as well.

It rained really hard for about 20 minutes or so. We sat in the truck and waited until it mostly stopped raining. As we were driving back down Deer Creek road, the road made a sweeping left turn that was a bit downhill. In addition, the roadbed (which was really a dirt path) slanted downward to the left toward the inside of the curve. I slowed down to make sure that we did not slip off of the road. Unfortunately, as we went around the corner, the trailer slipped off the edge of the road and got high centered. The truck was still on the road but the roadbed was just wet enough that we could not the trailer pulled back on the road.

As the crow flies, we were about 1.5 miles away from home. However, there was not a direct travel line between where we were stuck and home. So, we unloaded the horses (it was no longer raining) and rode them home along the road (about 2.5 miles). It took us about two hours to ride home. Of course, by that time, the girls were tired of riding horses. They got into their car and went home.

Mom and Dad were not home. Kelly was home and came to help us. We used Kelly's pickup and Uncle Jake's pickup to pull the truck and trailer back on the road. We had to use the Handyman Jack, cut some trees, and the sides of the truck as a ramp. (Author's Note: The details of this paragraph were provided by Cade and Kelly via text message on January 4, 2020.)

Dad later told me that I should not have slowed down for the turn but sped up to use the momentum to keep the trailer on the road. I do not know if that would have worked because I was never in the same situation again to try it out.

Although Julie, Kristin, and I remained friends through the rest of high school. we never went riding on horses again.