Great pictures Hair! I think those mossy trees are really cool, although a bit spooky looking. The guys that maintain your trails do an outstanding job. I wish they kept our trails half that nice. We do good to get them to keep the downed trees cut off of ours and I'm sure there are tons of them after Katrina's visit. The bear scratchings are a little scary too. I'm glad we don't have to worry about them here!
That first bear scratching looks fresh too.... Our black bears aren't really predators, they scavange and eat berries mostly. But I'm still not sure how the horses would respond to a close encounter! We try to talk loud when we are in real dense areas that look 'bear-y'. I don't want to come around a corner and be surprised by one. Maybe the horses would recognize it as a threat and bolt, maybe they'd not think it was anything other than a dog. Probably the former :~D
Years ago, I rode with Bob around the edges of "Wolf Haven", a wolf refuge here that has huge 40 acre pens for whole packs of them and they are semi wild. As we rode right along the chain link fence, wolves followed from the inside, cautiously moving through the trees, almost letting us see them but not quite. The horses knew they were there but I don't think they recognized them as being different than a dog. We've raised them with dogs and upset the natural instinct where at least ~that~ predator is concerned.