Issue link: http://trailridermagazine.uberflip.com/i/1517946
18 Trail Rider www.TrailRider.com Post Enduro Riders Post Enduro Riders Caprock Canyon Enduro Caprock Canyon Enduro What a Difference a Day Makes! What a Difference a Day Makes! By Jeff DeBell By Jeff DeBell Photos By Lacie Szydloski Photos By Lacie Szydloski The li le town of Turkey, TX, home of the Post Enduro Riders' annual Caprock Canyon Enduro, is literally in the middle of nowhere. It's an all- day 580-mile trip for me across this big state, yet the event s ll drew well over 400 entries. The PER club ran a 30-mile 3-test short enduro on Saturday and a 65-mile 6-tester on Sunday. The weekend double booked as part of both the Tex- as State and Rocky Mountain enduro schedules and drew riders from both circuits. As a New England kid, the vastness of this state s ll awes me. You can literally drive 30 miles and pass 3 or 4 houses and maybe a car or two along the way. It is hard to imagine se lers coming out here on horses and wagons, waking up to look at the western horizon knowing that, if they were lucky, they might make it those 7 or 8 miles by nigh all. This is hard country with sturdy people. You could tell just by looking at the kids riding the youth classes. Lanky kids in weathered boots and sweat-stained hats who were driving tractors and working ca le well before they hit junior high school. You make do and take care of your own because big city help is a couple of hours away. To get to Turkey and Caprock Canyon, you drive across hours of flatness un l you reach the picturesque and rug- ged canyon area. Any one of dozens of old westerns and John Wayne movies could have been filmed here. There are all varie es of cactus and other thorny bushes to poke you and wiry but tough mesquite trees that won't yield much to your bark busters. A student of geology would love the terrain as you can go from red dusty clay to dark topsoil to white gypsum-like rock outcroppings all within fi y to a hundred yards of trail. It is hard to appre- ciate the beauty of the area at race pace, and it is very popular with hikers, mountain bikers, and UTV folks. My plan was to go help my buddy Billy Hoffman, a 1975 ISDT vet, run a check. Billy's been with the club for years and this is a family affair for him. His wife, June, runs a check with him, his daughter does sign-up, and his grandkids sell t-shirts and help with scoring. Our friend Erik Nijkamp was coming from Colorado to ride Saturday and check Sunday, but nearly three feet of snow kept him home, so I decided to ride his number Saturday for fun and help Billy on Sunday. Billy and I rode most of the short course on Friday with some club members to check arrowing and the test entry and exit gates. Jen Swisher Jen Swisher