Where Rumor Meets Reality
About an hour and half drive from us there is a town called Love Valley. An older western town nestled in the mountains accessed by horse back with lots of trails and lots of places to camp.
It sounded like my kind of place but rumors from friends had me reluctant to ride there. Rumors of drunken cowboys riding their horses as hard as they could up the side of the mountain. Open drug use, theft of personal property including the horses and visits from vets and emergency responders to the town every single weekend.
Still the draw of the town called me. Could it really be that bad? Maybe a few people opening up their horse or a patron or two cracking open a beer BUT could the town and trails really be taken over by ignorance and bad riding.
Yesterday presented an opportunity to finally visit the town and see for myself.
As it turns out...YES the town really could live up to the rumors. As we were driving in we saw several riders on the road and non were missing the signature Bud Light in their free hand. It should have been a signal to turn around. On we went. Campgrounds were actually people's yards with 10-15 trailers stacked on top of each other, stalls and paddocks were vet bills waiting to happen. Once in the actual town the amount of open alcohol was overwhelming, the horses were struggling to behave and be calm in a loud overwhelming environment with hundreds of people and horses milling about complete with mechanical bull and blaring music from the bar. No one seemed to worry much about safety of themselves or their animals. If you wanted to bombproof your horse this would be the place to take them.
Trails were actually scenic with nice footing EXCEPT for the constant sweat covered galloping horses coming around the bends in all directions and the discarded aluminum beer cans strewn throughout.
It is the kind of place you either love or hate. Those that love it will feel right at home. Those that hate it are not welcome there anyway. Personally I will mark this up to an experience I only needed to have once.
As we were leaving we passed two ambulances coming in.
YeeHaw!!!
This pretty much sums it up:
It sounded like my kind of place but rumors from friends had me reluctant to ride there. Rumors of drunken cowboys riding their horses as hard as they could up the side of the mountain. Open drug use, theft of personal property including the horses and visits from vets and emergency responders to the town every single weekend.
Still the draw of the town called me. Could it really be that bad? Maybe a few people opening up their horse or a patron or two cracking open a beer BUT could the town and trails really be taken over by ignorance and bad riding.
Yesterday presented an opportunity to finally visit the town and see for myself.
As it turns out...YES the town really could live up to the rumors. As we were driving in we saw several riders on the road and non were missing the signature Bud Light in their free hand. It should have been a signal to turn around. On we went. Campgrounds were actually people's yards with 10-15 trailers stacked on top of each other, stalls and paddocks were vet bills waiting to happen. Once in the actual town the amount of open alcohol was overwhelming, the horses were struggling to behave and be calm in a loud overwhelming environment with hundreds of people and horses milling about complete with mechanical bull and blaring music from the bar. No one seemed to worry much about safety of themselves or their animals. If you wanted to bombproof your horse this would be the place to take them.
Trails were actually scenic with nice footing EXCEPT for the constant sweat covered galloping horses coming around the bends in all directions and the discarded aluminum beer cans strewn throughout.
It is the kind of place you either love or hate. Those that love it will feel right at home. Those that hate it are not welcome there anyway. Personally I will mark this up to an experience I only needed to have once.
As we were leaving we passed two ambulances coming in.
YeeHaw!!!
This pretty much sums it up:
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