By The main portion of this trip was in Utah. My sister planned this trip months ago, booking horse camp spots and getting passes that would allow us to ride in Bryce Canyon National Park.
We drove from Williams, Arizona to Flagstaff to pick up our mules and horse that my parents had hauled up. From Flagstaff we drove to Utah. For this trip we stayed at the Bryce Valley Ranch RV & Horse Park.
If you are not familiar with horse parks, I will give you a brief overview. These are typically RV parks with horse stalls/pens where riders can stay while bringing your personal stock animals (horses, mules, donkeys). Some people will stay in horse trailers with living quarters or they might stay in tents or they might rent a trailer from an RV share site. Some horse parks have cabins or trailers on-site available for rent. When staying at a horse camp you as the owner have to bring everything but the fence. Okay, that’s a bit sarcastic, most also have: water, wheelbarrows and rakes for clean-up. Here is a basic list of what to bring:
- Buckets with bucket straps – water and feed (2 per animal)
- Hay bags
- Hay – check with the horse park and make sure that it is the right type for the area. Some states have state laws regarding what hay/feed can be brought across state lines to prevent invasive species.
- Feed
- All your tack – I’m not going to list everything this list is extensive and will change depending on riding discipline, location, animal type (mule v. horse), etc.
- Basic medical supplies – vet wrap, topical antibiotics, gall cream, etc.
- Health papers from the vet and negative Coggins test – these are requirements to ensure that animals don’t spread easily preventable diseases.
- Brushes and grooming supplies
- Emergency supplies – This can be everything from extra latigo to fix tack, multi-tools, rubber boots if a shoe is thrown, etc.
- Most importantly treats
- Etc.
Now that I’ve gone down that rabbit hole, the video below is the about all the prep work we did to get the mules and horse ready for this trip. In addition to getting the animals and ourselves in shape, we needed to make sure they are consistently shod and making sure all our gear is in good condition.
Depending on the horse camp the trail systems are different depending on the type of land they are on. National Forest for example, don’t allow trail markers. So one of the things we learned the first day is the local trails both connected to and off of the horse park that need to be trailered to. I will definitely be talking about all of these trails in later posts.
I loved Utah. It is absolutely beautiful and I can’t wait to show it to you.
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McGee Travel Tales 