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Equestrian Trails/Horse Camping Review: 

Share where you have been--Any State Allowed!
Any information will be appreciated such as: primitive camping? hookups complete with electric and water? picket poles? pens? how many miles of trails? are they well marked? personal experiences?

Del Norte, Colorado
Reviewed by Sherry Robinson

Sherry, Dusty Fuller, Tecla Mozingo, Velvet O'Hair and PD O'Hair

During spring clean up in 2004 at Robbers Cave, I ran into Lesa O’Hair and said “want to join me in a trip to Colorado this summer?”  She brought it up with her husband, PD, and daughter, Velvet, and they were all for it.  They had just ordered a new living quarters trailer and the factory assured them it would be ready in time. 

Tecla Mozingo and I had ridden in Colorado twice before, and I knew she would be willing to go again.  With gas prices soaring, I asked if I could ride with her and we share on gas and expenses.  I wanted to ride from Platoro, Colorado but the lodge I had stayed at last year went into foreclosure and wasn’t available.  I got on the internet and clicked on my favorite website, www.horseandmuletrails.com and found a place in Tres Piedras, New Mexico that had brand new cabins and large spacious corrals for the horses.  A phone call to Holly Wolosin (www.kenwolosin.com) gave us some details of the cabin and trails in the area.  I decided to reserve the cabin for two nights and then we would meet up with Barbara Carpenter from Del Norte, Colorado to learn some  “Leave No Trace” camping.  Barb is a certified instructor and was happy to accommodate the group from Oklahoma.  The first week of August was scheduled for the trip, right when the hot weather was going to hit in Oklahoma.

I had been conditioning my Foxtrotter, Rafta, for the trip.  He was chosen because Tecla and Dusty Fuller were riding non-gaited horses and Rafta can mosey slow down the trail.  That was one of the reasons I purchased him, didn’t want my friends to have to trot behind me, plus he is sensible going up and down steep trails.   Well, guess what he does eight days before we leave?  Pokes his eye in some brush and the vet restricts him to the barn during the day to avoid the ultra violet rays and damage to his cornea.  The vet asked me when I was leaving for Colorado?  Well, you can’t take him.  Great, now what do I do?  I inventoried my collection at home. My daughter’s 18 year old quarter horse mare. I switched to gaited because of my back and I really didn’t want to take her because she was out of shape. 

I had a young four year old that I had just started riding and I ruled him out. I had just sold his sister that I took last year.  His mother wasn’t in the running because of one of my trips to Colorado, she didn’t like being in the back of the line when we had to turn around to go back down a treacherous trail. She tripped and fell in a snow bank. I had bailed out of the saddle into the hard packed snow before she fell, and she and I went sliding down the side of the mountain.  No damage done, but I made up my mind only a calm sensible horse was going to carry me in the mountains.  I had a two year old and my four year old, Shiloh.  Shiloh is my dream palomino and is the perfect temperament for high country.  However, he is a Walking horse, about 16.2 hands, all legs, and can take two steps to Tecla’s quarter horse’s one stride.  He hadn’t been ridden in four months because I had been busy working two other horses that I had plans for selling.  He was the only other choice, so I made a call to the farrier for shoes.   Shiloh had no idea what was in store for him.

Lesa O’Hair emails me and says their Peruvian was playing in the pasture and hurt his hip.    Her next selection was a 13.2 hand POA that had been a pasture ornament since she switched to gaited Paso Finos.  It is hard to switch to a trotting horse after riding a Paso Fino!

We were suppose to leave as a group on Saturday, July 31^st, but the factory that the O’Hairs had ordered their trailer from, didn’t get the trailer ready until Friday (with a lot of frantic phone calls to them from the O’Hairs).  After they rushed home and started packing, I got a phone call about 10:30 Friday night from Lesa.  They were exhausted and stressed and decided to drive up on Sunday, meeting us in Tres Piedras.  Tecla arrives Saturday morning to pick me up and her trailer brakes weren’t working!  A quick drive into Broken Arrow and she found a sympathetic mechanic to take a look at her wiring.  He found the problem, some wires pulled loose, fixed it and voila – we had trailer brakes again! 

Several of us were wondering if maybe we weren’t suppose to make this trip?  Lesa said if she had a gun, she would shoot the albatross flying over our heads!

Tecla, Dusty and I headed out at 11 am from Coweta, and went south to I-40.  The trip went smoothly from then on, we stopped in Amarillo and decided none of us could eat a 72-ounce steak at one sitting, so we ordered a steak at Texas Roadhouse, and was it wonderful!  We found a horse motel in Tucumcari from the internet and pulled in before dark.  The place was immaculate; an older couple had been running it as a horse motel for the last 15 years.  The horses each got a 12 x 24 paddock and were happy to stretch their legs.  We left early the next morning and pulled into Tres Piedras around noon on Sunday. 

The accommodations were fantastic!  I had rented the cabin and there was enough room in the circle driveway for the two living quarter trailers to park with electric hook ups.  The corrals for the horses were big enough for them to run around and play.  We saddled up and got in a short ride from the cabin.  It was mostly logging roads and even though the country was beautiful, it wasn’t the high country we were used to in Colorado.  

Las Cruces Basin wasn’t a far drive, but the O’Hairs had pulled in late Sunday night and we decided we were all too tired to load the horses up and haul to a different location.  Some of the horses were stiff from the trailer ride so we went easy on them.  We wanted to save them for the high country in Colorado.

As we headed north to the Colorado state line, my excitement started building. We pulled into Del Norte and met up with Barbara and followed her nine miles to the trail head.  Barb belongs to Trailwise Back Country Horsemen and they are active in volunteering their services with the National Forest.   They don’t have the electric site campgrounds that we have, but the trailhead we stayed at, had four big corrals for the horses, three permanent tie lines that were within the 200-foot distance guideline from the  creek.  You can’t take grain and non-certified weed free hay, so the horses have to graze.  The O’Hairs brought their electric fence, but Tecla and I had to hand graze our horses.  I cheated and let Shiloh out of the corral early in the morning and let him loose.  He wasn’t going to leave the other horses so that worked out good. 

Barbara brought her 20-year old Appaloosa gelding to teach us to pack.  He was very patient with our attempts at hanging the panniers and tying on the manti (the canvas covering that goes over the pack and protects it from rain).  We decided to stay at the trail head since we were short a pack horse (Barb had her own planning troubles, too) and that was just fine with us.  We had living quarter trailers and even though we had no electric hook ups, they were warm and cozy when a cold summer afternoon rain came through.  Not hiking into the woods to bury our waste because we had indoor toilet facilities was NOT a problem.

Barb took us on a short ride down the trail and the scenery and weather was perfect!  Every time I make this trip and arrive in the mountains with my horse, I just ache to live there. Lesa must have shot down that albatross because we didn’t have any more troubles. 

The next day, Barb led us up the trail called San Francisco Creek.  We rode up until we were at 12,000 feet elevation and the views were spectacular!  We rode to Blow Out Pass.  I had ridden on the back side of this mountain with four-wheelers in past years and always thought the term was for the road, from blown out tires because it is an extremely rough.  But riding with someone from the area, you find out the true facts.  It was called Blow Out because we were riding on an extinct volcano.  Years ago, the top had blown out and left a big chunk missing on the side of the mountain.  We continued riding through some fat cattle grazing at the top of the mountain, past the timberline.  The trail worked around the side of the mountain and we crested the top and over to a beautiful view of a lake nestled in the crater.  Barb informed us this is a great place to have lunch.  A chipmunk had obviously had visitors before because he was running from rock to rock around us.  I threw him some peanuts from my trail mix but Barbara asked me not to.  She is teaching us the do’s and don’ts of trail riding in her country.  She said the nuts are not from the area and we really shouldn’t feed them strange food.  I hadn’t thought of that and I told the little guy - sorry!!

Barb told us the names of all of the wild flowers, and pointed out a tree that was scarred on one side.  She said Indians made it.  They would cut out an area on one side of the tree and collect the sap to waterproof their baskets.  It would not kill the tree and they would return every year and collect sap.  We didn’t get to see any wildlife but a glimpse of one elk as she bounded up the mountain from the creek bed she was resting in and two mule deer.  We heard pikas, a small rodent with round ears. Barb informed us they are also known by the locals as “whistle pigs”.  They make a sharp sound as we approach them on the trail.

I’m proud to say, our ponies pulled from right out of the pasture, did well.  We took it easy on them and let them stop and rest when they asked.