Randy Winter, BCHA Trail Advisor On September 28, 2021, Randy and Cheryl Winter, along with their horse, Ellie, met up with a few cyclists from the Boulder High School Mountain Biking Team. Randy, BCHAs Trails Committee Advisor, and his herd mates have provided bike-horse interaction presentations to multi-trail user groups for quite a long time. […]
Trails
Planning to trail ride on National Forest?
By Clare Tone Download the free U.S. Forest Service (USFS) Motor Vehicle Use Maps first! The USFS has established official Motor Vehicle Use Maps (MVUM) for the Roosevelt and Arapaho National Forests. These National Forests include some great horseback riding trails in Western Boulder County. The MVUM displays National Forest routes, roads and trails open […]
On the Trails: What’s New!
By Randy Winter, BCHA Trail Advisor I recently met with City of Boulder Open Space staff on a variety of topics. We covered a lot of ground—so to speak. Here is a April update on trails around Boulder County. Hall Ranch Thanks to trail maintenance crews, it’s smooth sailing into the horse trailer parking area […]
Trail Riding Skills: it’s all about ATTITUDE
By Randy Winter Trail riding with horses, like many other ways people enjoy being with their horse, is a skilled discipline not to be taken lightly. Some of the trail skills for your horse are: trailering, obstacle negotiation, control of spook response, maneuverability, gait control, sure footedness and group manners. These are all equine-specific skills […]
Fourteen Heartbeats
By Tamar V.D McKee, PH.D. President, BCHA On a day so perfect you could literally watch the wildflowers grow, 14 heartbeats (7 human, 7 equine) joined together at the Beech Pavilion trailhead in northern Boulder County for the first BCHA trail ride of 2019. As newly appointed president, I was up on my 10 year […]
The Bridge is Open! Riding the White Rocks Plateau from Gunbarrel Farm
Revised from the original posting on Jan 22, 2013 by Ann Hayes The White Rocks Trail is a segment of the East Boulder Trail System which stretches six scenic miles from the Teller Farm South trailhead off Arapahoe, to its northern terminus at the East Boulder Trail—Gunbarrel Farm trailhead in the heart of the Heatherwood […]
Happy Trails – Hermit Park Update: Limber Pine Trail, Kruger Equestrian Campground
By Suzanne Webel Larimer County Parks and Open Lands has recently opened a brand new trail complex at its 1,362 acre Hermit Park Open Space near Estes Park. Time to go check it out! Stop near the entrance station and pay the nominal $6 entry fee. It’s worth it, because this is an exceedingly horse-friendly […]
Happy Trails – Hermit Park / Moose Meadow Trail / Homestead Meadows
By Suzanne Webel Thank you, Larimer County, for Hermit Park!!! Goodbye, Lion Gulch, and good riddance. I have spent many hours over the past thirty years trying to find a better access to one of my favorite haunts: Homestead Meadows. And for 30 years I have been frustrated by the steep, rocky Lion Gulch Trail, […]
Happy Trails – Lagerman Agricultural Preserve
By Suzanne Webel It’s taken more than 25 years for Boulder County and the City of Boulder to cobble together a complex assemblage of nine properties comprising more than 2100 acres, now known as the Lagerman Agricultural Preserve – but it’s done. And the new trail system, comprising the existing 1.6 miles at Lagerman Reservoir […]
Happy Trails – Picket Wire Canyon
By Suzanne Webel This trail had been on my bucket list, for just about ever. It was reported to be enormous and gorgeous, with dinosaur tracks, prehistoric rock art, a Spanish Mission, and a historic ranch….. But it was always a bit too far, too remote, and too … well, just too unknowable. And then […]
Happy Trails – Jack’s Gulch
By Suzanne Webel Having looked for some time for a campground designed for horses in the Roosevelt National Forest, I was rewarded to find a great one up north: Jacks Gulch. There are five clean camp-sites in the horse loop, each with a pull-through to park your trailer, a picnic table, a flat space for […]
Happy Trails: Eagle’s Nest Open Space
By Suzanne Webel Imagine, if you can, an enormous new open space property… one at the scenic junction between mountains and plains, with a river running through it… one that contains a variety of wildlife including nesting golden eagles and Preble’s Meadow Jumping mice… one that was purchased in 2001 and opened to the public […]
Happy Trails – Gordon Gulch
By Suzanne Webel Here’s another “diamond in the rough” – a series of elegant stacked-loop trails in Roosevelt National Forest just north of Nederland. The reason I say it’s “rough” is that a bulldozer had coincidentally just preceded us, grading the old roads and clearing trees, to make this trail system work. When the dust […]
Happy Trails – Caribou Ranch
Our favorite? If you would like to escape the sizzling summer days on the plains, discover the diverse cooler vegetation at Caribou Ranch Open Space. Caribou Ranch Open Space is located on County Road 126, approximately two miles north of Nederland. Horse trailer parking is available ONLY at the Mud Lake Open Space (turn left […]
Happy Trails – Hayden Green Mountain
WILLIAM FREDERICK HAYDEN PARK ON GREEN MOUNTAIN By Suzanne Webel Whew. There is some controversy over how Green Mountain itself received its name. In the early spring, perhaps, the grasses up there might provide a flash of green, but for the rest of the year it’s pretty much a tan prairie. A member of the […]
Happy Trails – Hessie – Lost Lake – Woodland Lake
HESSIE TO LOST LAKE TO WOODLAND LAKE, WITH “ONE COOL DUDE” By Suzanne Webel Poor Hessie. In all the research I’ve done I haven’t been able to learn if there once was a maiden named Hessie for whom this tiny gold-mining community west of Nederland was named, or what. In any case, she’s famous now, […]
Happy Trails – Heil Valley Ranch
By Suzanne Webel My personal involvement with this property goes way, way back. Having ridden the entire Heil Valley Ranch property with the Heil family and their neighbors many years ago, and having taken friends to ride the Heils’ livery horses there, and having roamed the whole ranch by myself with nothing but my crazy […]
Happy Trails – Marshall Mesa
By Suzanne Webel Many years have elapsed since my original trail log of Marshall Mesa, and a lot has happened there in the meantime. The grand opening of the new Marshall Mesa Trailhead seemed like a good impetus for revisiting an old friend. In the interest of giving positive feedback wherever possible, let me hasten […]
Happy Trails – Bobcat Ridge
By Suzanne Webel Thank you, Fort Collins!!! … for yet another miracle. Bobcat Ridge is the latest in a series of large open space acquisitions north of the border – more than 2,600 acres of mixed grassland, shrubland, ponderosa forest, red rock cliffs and granite outcrops, homesteads and meadows, that were purchased in 2006 and […]
Happy Trails – Doudy Draw
By Suzanne Webel They did it! They finally did it! Thanks, Open Space and Mountain Parks! Lest anyone think that the only news I ever report is bad news, here’s some great news: the City of Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks has just expanded, and reopened, both trailheads at Doudy Draw and Flatirons Vista […]
Happy Trails – Lory State Park / Horsetooth Soderberg
By Suzanne Webel Ready for another foray to the North Country? Any time is a good time to explore this part of Larimer County, but “off-season” offers solitude and a sheltered foothills environment. Best of all, it’s an amazingly horsey environment. I rode this lovely park recently and there were more equestrians on that random […]
Happy Trails – Soapstone Prairie
By Suzanne Webel “Meet the past, enjoy the present, preserve the future… Naturally yours.” The life of a trail advocate outside the People’s Republic must be a very pleasant one indeed. More than 50 miles of trails allow people to explore Soapstone Prairie, a vast spread of 18,764 acres – more than 29 square miles […]
Happy Trails – North Table Mountain
by Suzanne Webel North Table Mountain has been hiding in plain sight forever. Those with insatiable curiosity and an incurable need for exploration, like me, have known that the park has been open for several years, with no designated trails and only a very snall, obscure trailhead (P-2); in fact, I wrote this area up […]
Happy Trails – West Magnolia – Phoenix
by Suzanne Webel Although Boulder County already has quite a few trails, it’s a big place and there’s always demand for a few more. Because of environmental, or inertia, or development, or budget, conflicts, it’s a struggle to get even one more inch of trail on a map, let alone get a new mile of […]
Happy Trails – Centennial Cone
By Suzanne Webel I absolutely loved about 95% of this spectacular new trail system in Jefferson County. Curiously, the best part of this park for me was the “WOW!” experience upon arriving at the trailhead. Drive up Golden Gate Canyon Road about 8 miles to Robinson Hill Rd, turn left and continue to Camino Perdido, […]
