Wild West Trip

by Majo

 

I always dreamed about visiting the west of United States. Maybe it was because my father and I used to love watching far west movies. Indeed, I have the strong feeling that I lived there in another life! When talking about horses, United States is an amazing country. In the first place, it’s so huge that you can ride around so many different landscapes. Secondly, it’s the best place to do horse shopping, you can find everything at great prices, especially for people that live in South America! In my country, everything for horses (except for leather) is very difficult to find and sometimes very expensive!

 

In the third place, its roads are made to be able to travel with trailers without problem. Last but not least, you can find whatever you are looking for, such as dressage, jumping, endurance, and polo clinics! In addition, they have many job offers for working with horses. The only problem is that it is difficult to find the correct places to ride, because in many places they have so many precautions that they do not let you canter and enjoy the real meaning of horse riding.

 

As I worked as a horse ride guide for a few years in Patagonia, Argentina, I was able to meet many people related with horses that invited me to visit them in the north. Therefore, in 2011 I took one month and a half off and started my trip in L.A, California. We visited 12 states and in most of them we did things related to horses and the far west. The time of the year was perfect, because the weather was great and we coincide with Cheyenne Rodeo, which is one of the biggest rodeos of the states!
So, first recommendation: RENT A CAR. This is the best way to travel and to know places in such a huge country. You can stop wherever you want because you can find hotels everywhere.

The trip begins

So first, we headed north, doing Road 1 and 154, which leaves you breathless of the sights it has on its way! The road goes by vineyards and always follows the sea. I remember our first ride was to Cambria. This is a small town, very sweet, and it has a lovely hotel located by a cliff. We went for a short ride by the cliffs and mountains, it was fun. The wrangler that took us for a ride let us canter and the horses were good!

 

During the morning, by the west coast, usually at sunset and until noon, the sky looks cloudy, but this is only fog, which completely goes away in the afternoon.
This ride was a good starting point for our trip. Then we continued going north, we stopped at Hearst Castle and finally, spent the night in Palo Alto, SF.

 

Our friend Tim and his wife invited us to their lovely house in Palo Alto. His wife had two lovely horses. Another good thing about the United States is their public protected areas and parks, where you can find people riding, running, biking, walking, and you can see local fauna such as deer. So, we saddled up at the house and we went riding to the public park. It was so beautiful! I couldn’t help hoping we could have these parks at home! Argentina is also huge and, of course, there are plenty of places to ride, but you cannot find this type of public parks near the cities. You can only find them around the farms or rural areas.

 

We spent some days at Tim’s house and then we started our road trip to Yosemite Park. No words for such beautiful place, looks almost exactly as Patagonia. Important tip to take into an account: when going to the parks during the summer be sure to book a tent or a place if you are going to stay inside the park. We didn’t but we were very lucky to find only one tent left at one of the Campings. There are a few ways to get out of the park, but one of the ways, going to Nevada, leads you to a Ghost Town, YES! A proper far west ghost town! My dream came true. I finally got the chance to feel, see, hear, and touch a real old far west town. It was exactly like the movies, even the wind blowing and the dust floating in the air.

Can you imagine that? Long time ago, post cards were taken from one place to another by horse. Of course, one horse could not do the whole trail, so every 50 miles more or less there was a rider waiting for the letters, and so on. They rode fast because many letters had to be delivered as soon as possible! This is how endurance races started. I highly recommend staying in towns such as Austin or Eureka, because there you can really feel the west. These places are not for tourists, what I mean is that here you can find the real thing, the real food and people. This is my philosophy when travelling I LIKE TO BE A TRAVELER NOT A TOURIST.

My introduction to Endurance Sport

STEVENS RANCH: From Eureka, we head to Elko and the 80 interstate road and then 93 to Twin Falls and to Montana, exactly Billings, where Stevens Ranch is located. We did not know the Stevens family, but a few months ago, I met Lori Windows at El Calafate, Patagonia, Argentina. Lori is a very important person in my life because she was the one introducing me to Endurance Sport. Before her, I did not know this sport existed! She taught me many things about endurance, and I will always be grateful to her! Therefore, she arranged for us to stay at Stevens’s Ranch (they were friends of her, the whole family did endurance). They were wonderful with us! The ranch was complete from another world, it has everything: mountains, highlands, forest, wide-open spaces and a lot of history.

 

Every morning we used to go and have breakfast with them, the typical American breakfast: eggs, bacon and even beef (home breed beef) and during the nights we had dinner with them. Meat was in every menu, they breaded Angus cows at the ranch. Of course, we went horse riding everywhere in Arab horses and it was so much fun! We went to the highlands and went cattle herding through the forest. It was magical! The horses were so good! I was very lucky to find them, very lucky to meet so many people with horses. Finding this type of places and horses is impossible! This is what I mean when saying that one thing is to go for a horse ride nose to tail and another completely different thing is to do a proper ride, with people that have the same passion and love for their country and this animal.

 

The local fauna here was very interesting. We saw black bears (for them is normal, they are used to them, but for us from South America is so rare to see these types of animals in the wild) and we also saw wolfs and pumas.

Rodeos and Mustangs

Even though the entire trip was incredible, this part deserves a special mention. Wyoming is equal to HORSES. In every town, you can find horse shops and always a rodeo. Rodeos are so much fun! In Argentina we call them Jineteada, of course it is also a lot of fun but different. In Argentina the government does not give them economic support and not many women are allowed to participate. Instead, in the United States, you can see many girls doing barrel races and they give very good prices! Listening to country music and watching the rodeo was more than I could ask for. We also went to Cody Rodeo, but definitely Cheyenne Rodeo was the best. They really know how to give a good show! I saw as many barrel races as I wished to, and bull riding (this is something you rarely find in Argentina). Of course, I bought my western boots to go to the rodeo; I felt I was really a cowgirl.

 

Apart from Yellowstone, which is stunning, the best part of Wyoming was watching the Mustangs. We went to Blue Sky Sage Horseback Riding Adventure. It was so hot during the day and so cold during the night; this place is located in Big Piney, which is a desert area. The reason why Mustangs are in this poor grass area is that the government moves them here because they are not good to produce cereals nor cows. If it is right or wrong it’s difficult to say. Of course, these horses have been in the land for many years, but they are too many and they eat a lot of grass. At least, here they have plenty of space to gallop and be quiet, and to be honest, they looked healthy!

 

Therefore, while in Sky Sage Ranch, we stayed at “Indian Tents” and we went riding every day. To see the Mustangs, we had to go with the trailer because they were in public lands further away. It is about luck and patience to see them because the place is huge, and they can be anywhere!

 

We arrived, and once we saddled our horses, we started riding looking for them. At the beginning, we could not see anything, so we rode for a few hours and suddenly we saw a big cloud of dust. A huge herd of galloping Mustangs was coming towards us. This was 10 years ago but I still remember it as if it was yesterday. We stood still, just watching; we could see a big black stallion, all the mares with the babies and further away, another group of horses. These last were the young horses which are not allowed by the stallion to be near the mares. In a few months, years, those horses would be older, and they would fight for a place with the mares.

Some Endurance in Illinois

I was able to practice some Endurance with Lori Windows. From Wyoming, we head to Illinois, crossing Nebraska (a lot of corn to see) and then Iowa. A nice stop in Iowa was visiting Madison Bridges. It’s very nice and you can feel you are in the movie with Clint Eastwood!

 

I absolutely loved Illinois! It has soft hills, a lot of farms, and you can see the typical red wooden barns surrounded by corn. It was July and the weather was so hot and wet that the reins would slip from my hands. But during the winter it is very cold, below 0 degrees. My friend Lori trains endurance during the summer, and during the winter she practices sleds with dogs. She lives more or less an hour away from Chicago, and her farm is near a canal. This canal goes for 100 miles and by each side it has a trail you can ride on with the horses, or bikes, sled, running etc. So, she trains by the canal every day.

 

Most of Lori´s horses are Arabian (which is the best breed to do endurance, probably because this breed comes from the desert), but she also has mules. Indeed, she did many races with one of her mules and got amazing results! She told us that she started dreaming about endurance when she saw the movie “Bite the Bullet ”, a western movie from 1.975, based on real events, about a 700-mile race. So, of course, we did a movie night watching this film. We did some training by the canal, Lori lent me her mare Ella, and she was so easy and comfortable and did a great job when running the race. We had such a good time with her, as I said before, she is the person who introduced me to this sport. Our stay at her ranch could not be better!

 

Once we left Illinois, we went through Kansas, Colorado and Arizona. Of course, we went to the Great Canyon, but only by foot. It would have been good to do a ride here, it seems huge, but we ran out of time. I feel I have completely accomplished one of my bucket list dreams. After this one… would come “Have an Arab Horse, train her and run races in Argentina”.