A lot of hikers will start enumerating:

Poop, Urine, Flies, Torn up Trail, etc.

This is sort of unavoidable in a horse area and doesn't bother me terribly. Some people will not be tolerant and will object. If you keep your horse out of camping areas and water supplies, I'm ok with all that stuff. (Although I avoid shared horse trails in "high fly" season. I hate horsflies)

I have *very occasionally* up here seen riders here that will, for example, in a section where (if you have a brain) the horses should obviously go down the streambed, and the hikers are on something narrow above it, take the horses down the hiker trail and affect something narrow and important for hikers. sometimes this is annoying

The usual "other guy" syndrome you'll find a lot from hikers "packers leave trash and don't give a damn" - (same can be said for some hikers) I don't subscribe to that theory myself believing that there are good and bad apples in both camps.

My biggest concern is really, skittish, poorly trained horses. I've had occasions where I will give the horse the trail, and ok, it's a relatively tight spot, and I've only stepped aside - then had riders go to pass and have the horse pitch a minor fit, with the rider saying "I didn't move off enough - he's skittish" - really... if he's that damn skittish, *don't take him on a trail with hikers* - your horse, your responsibility.

Combine that with an attidude that I'm "in the way" for being in a place that puts him in an awkward place where he won't control his horse, while *I'm* the one worried about getting stomped - Those encounters, (althoug rare) leave me with an annoyed feeling. Understaning that we will

1) share the trail reasonably
2) be smaller and afraid of your horse
3) expect you to have a well trained and stable animal on the trail. If you bring your Destrier that is fit for jousting and stomping the groundbound, don't expect "sympathy" from us, any more than you'd expect sympathy from us if you were bringing an unmuzzled fighting dog on the trail.

(I feel the same way about dogs, btw



Oh, and one final thing, it's not about passing. Holy crap, when you bed down for the night don't leave your horse to wander with a big old set of bells on him! I recall very distinctly moving *away* from a trailhead camp because the horsepackers there wouldn't tie their animals but just put a ton of clanking metal on them.. I don't want to sleep somewhere that it sounds like a frying pan and cowbell symphony. The best part of it was, I drove a click down the road, and hammocked in the pines with my son. Halfway through the night, I got the frying pan concert, getting louder and louder till they hung around below me. I walked out of my hammock to the truck and attempted to shoo them off.. (there were 2) No luck. they simply were walking down the road and hanging around my truck. I went back, retrieved my car key, and set off the car alarm (with two horses staring into the lights that came on). That set them moving away (rapidly, down the road, leaving lots of startled horse buns in their wake) and I got sleep.

Next morning we passed these characters "seen a couple horses"? "nope.. sorry.. Some poop back there on the road that looks fresh tho".

So if you're camped remember - not everyone wants to hear the bells on your horse all night