I Survived and Have the Brown Boogers to Prove it.

As nervous/excited as I was to work for Compass, it was a relief for Sunday to actually get here.  While I've known Compass for years, I've never actually worked for her.  We hang out sometimes when I'm at the lodge, we go for rides on ocassion, and I help out scooping poop when it needs done, but she's always managed to have her rides covered and hasn't needed me as a day rider in the three years she's been Barn Boss.

This year, her wrangler pickins is kind of slim.  Three weeks into the season and she's already fired two wranglers and had one walk out.  Which left her with her one full-time kid, Packer.  Packer's a rock star and I hope she can keep him for the season.  The problem with rock star wranglers is that they get burned out; new people always coming and going, having to train new people and pick up the slack when they get fired or walk off wears on a person.  Packer hasn't had a day off in three weeks and he's been busting his ass every day since he got there.  He's obviously no stranger to hard work and loves working for Compass (I heard that from his own mouth).  I'll do whatever I can to ease his burden, and subsequently, Compass' burden, because I want him to stay.  He's good with the horses and guests and works from sun up to sun down.

Compass has changed things about the livery - mostly how the horses are treated.  They're happy horses and I love that.  But each Barn Boss has their own way of doing things, so I was pretty much in the way at barn call.  I eventually got the hang of the new routine, but I was definitely a third wheel.  She and Packer have it down to a science.

She offered to let me come up after barn call, but I insisted on being there.  I *hated* day wranglers who just showed up and took out rides and never had to do any of the actual work of the livery, so I was up and on the road by 6:00 am to make barn call.  I was ten minutes late because I couldn't remember where all my stuff was, but I did make it in time to throw a monkey wrench into their routine.

I love the physicality of working the livery.  I love the grooming, feeding, saddling - all of it.  Call me crazy, but I feel like I've accomplished so much by the end of the day.  There actually aren't many people who get to do what we do.

Compass had a private ride scheduled for me at 10:00: three semi-experienced riders for a three-hour ride.  Estes' feet aren't ready and I don't have a saddle that fits her, so, darn, I had to take out Eli.  I like to ride Eli because he makes my butt look small.  Seriously.  Ride a draft - they're good for your self image.

My ride showed up almost an hour late, but we got to go out.  Remember how I said Eli makes my butt look small?  Well, that's pretty much all I love about riding Eli.  He's huge!  Mounting from the ground is an issue for me, but I did it.  Repeatedly.  He's also twice as wide as Estes.  Add in the Western saddle and he's closer to three times as wide as Estes.  My ass told me about it for the first thirty minutes of the ride.  It's still grumbling a little bit, to be honest.

Funny story: Compass' legs are longer than mine.  I know, it's no surprise.  So I made sure to mount up before my people got there to adjust the saddle to fit me.  I had to raise the stirrups all the way to the last hole.  Again, not surprising.  Only, even with the stirrups on the last hole, they were too long for me.  That didn't bother me so much because I only use stirrups for mounting and dismounting anyway and since I ride bareback 99.9% of the time, not having them wasn't a big deal for me.  Anyshortlegs, my ride got there and we got mounted up and as I was leaving the yard, Packer asked me if I wanted help getting my stirrups.  Poor kid thought I dropped them and couldn't recover them on my own.  I had to admit that they were too long, so he started to offer to shorten them.  About halfway through his offer, he must have seen the look of amusement on my face because it dawned on him that they were as short as they would go and he sent us off with a laugh.

The ride was amazing and the guests were fun.  We passed a pile of Moose poop and I told them about how I'd never seen a Moose in real life on the trails, but that we'd been seeing piles of poop for the last year or so.  I told the story about how I went on a "Moose hunt" last year and finally saw one over Trail Ridge Road.  I told them about how Beel had seen one just a few weeks ago at breakfast.  But not me.  Poor GunDiva, moose repellant.

And then we rounded a curve and were able to overlook some beaver ponds.  I was pointing out that shortly we'd be riding down through the beaver ponds and I saw something move.  No way!  I just been talking about moose and there were two of them, about 300 yards away down in the ponds just as happy as they could be.

For such big critters, they're hard to spot

Does this help?
One is broadside to us, the other is facing us head-on.

I'm so glad that I learned years ago to always take a camera with me.  The guests didn't have a camera with them, sad day for them.  They weren't quite as excited about seeing them as I was, but whatever.  I'm the first one to have seen them while out on a ride, nanner, nanner, nanner.

Since we saw the moose in the first hour of the ride, the rest of it was pretty ho-hum.  At least for me.  The guests loved it, even once their knees and ankles started hurting.  All I can say is thank God the scenery is so breath taking.  If it wasn't none of the wranglers would make any tips at all; the guests would be too busy focusing on their sore bodies.

We got back to the livery dead on time - something I've always prided myself on being able to do after the first and only time I've ever gotten a ride lost.  There were no other rides on the books, so Compass had called it a day while I was out, to give Packer a break.  A half a day off is better than no day off, I suppose.  It all worked out, because once I got my horses broken down, I still had time to hang out with the family for Nebalee's belated birthday celebration and spend some time with Her Highness, who was P-I-S-S-E-D that I was working with Those Horses.

I Got Tagged - First Post Flashback.

Quixy at Quixotic Life tricked me into being tagged for this first post re-post.  I'm actually looking forward to it.  I could remember what my first post over at Just Another Perfect Day was, but for the life of me, I couldn't remember what my first post here was.

While the purpose of Perfect Day was to keep in contact with friends and family, Tales was designed to promote the book I've been working on about my experiences as a wrangler.  I've used this blog to "test out" potential stories to include in my book.  Recently, it's evolved to be a little more personal and I've added the weekly feature Ride of the Week.  I realized that if I put all of my favorite stories from the book up here that no one would ever have a reason to buy my book if I can ever get it published!

A Day In The Life...

Offering trail rides to tourists is big business in Colorado. A search on Colorado.com shows that there are 67 riding stables, or liveries, in Colorado. A few of those offer rides year ‘round, but the vast majority operate from mid-May to mid-September.

When most people think of horseback riding, they think of ranch cowboys & rodeos. Mountain trail riding is a whole different ball game, buckaroos. Trail riding isn’t easy and not all horses are cut out for it; if they were, there wouldn’t be a demand for trainers, clinics, and magazines devoted to trail riding. Being a livery horse is even more difficult. The horses at livery stables are often labeled “trail nags” and thought of as useless. That impression couldn’t be further from the truth. Those horses work six to ten hours a day, day in and day out, with several different riders of varying ability, all of whom are strangers. The nature of the business doesn’t allow any time to develop trust between the horse and rider. Not only do they take their riders in stride (mostly), they have to deal with situations that the typical privately-owned horse never has to deal with. Traffic. People honking and waving. Loud motorcycles. Screaming kids. People sawing on the reins. Crossing water. Crossing bridges. The list is endless.

80% of the trails in Rocky Mountain National Park are non-motorized mixed-use trails, meaning that they can be used by hikers, bikers, or horses. Riding the mountain trails is also completely different riding than most people believe. They are called the Rocky Mountains for a reason. There are rocks. On the mountain. The trail will go up the mountain, and probably over the rocks. And, guess what? Basic physics law states that what goes up must come down. The trails are well-established, but not groomed. Trees branches or snow drifts may cross or block the trail. Rides may cross running water or bridges. There may be wildlife to deal with. There will be hikers & bikers; in the forest there may be dogs, either leashed or unleashed.

Livery wranglers are a different breed of cowboy. One former wrangler, who grew up riding and barrel racing, thought she knew what she was getting herself into. She admitted later that she actually had no idea what “Cowgirl up” meant until she was 10,600 feet above sea-level, four hours away from the trailer with a group of sore and cold guests in the snow in July and all she wanted to do was get some place warm and dry, yet she had to rally the troops, get them back on their horses and lead them back to the pick-up point safely. Only then did she understand that “Cowgirl up” in a rodeo arena and “Cowgirl up” in the Colorado mountains meant two completely different things.

Like the horses, the wranglers must be able to deal with multiple situations – from atop a horse and leading the ride – that the average person does not. Traffic. People honking and waving. Loud motorcycles. Screaming kids. People sawing on the reins. Crossing water. Crossing bridges. A good wrangler will know exactly which horses do and don’t get along, can pace the ride so that there are minimal gaps between horses, and can identify and head off potential problems. On top of that, they have to be friendly and informative no matter how difficult the situation (or the guests). Good wranglers put Boy Scouts to shame when it comes to being prepared for every eventuality.

A wrangler’s job during the season is often six to seven days a week from early morning until late evening. While the job sounds great (“wranglers get paid to ride horses in the mountains!”), it is physically demanding and often emotionally draining. Most livery stables provide room and board, guide horses for the wranglers to ride, and a small salary. Wranglers are tipped employees, so the monthly salary would make most sane people cry.

Wranglers come in all shapes and sizes, with horse experience ranging from essentially none to someone who was practically raised on a horse. Some are excellent horsemen, but terrible with people, while others are wonderful with people, but terrible with horses other than their own. The reasoning behind many Barn Bosses’ decisions to hire people with little or no horse experience, but who are good with people, is that teaching people skills is much harder than teaching someone to ride. I tend to agree with this train of thought with one caveat – they must be willing to learn and not think themselves an expert after one or two rides. Anyone who spends any real time around horses knows that the more they learn, the more they don’t know.

The beginning of each season is a lot like “Cowboy U”; wranglers come from all over the United States, and occasionally we even get a few from out of the country. The reason they want to be wranglers is pretty much the same – we get paid to ride horses in the mountains!

I got started as a wrangler after my parents bought a Bed and Breakfast in the mountains; we were told that they’d need help from all of us as they ironed out the kinks and got the business off the ground. After the first season, I told them I’d rather scoop horse poop than change another bed. And a new wrangler was born! My first day at the livery found me bright eyed and bushy-tailed without a clue as to what I was in for. The end of my first day found me filthy, sore and still clueless. I never got near a horse the first day – I got to wax the stock trailer from top to bottom. By myself.

One memorable wrangler named LB was literally a department store cowboy. He was a city kid who had been working with our Barn Boss at a department store during the off-season. LB was one of the wranglers who had no horse experience, but was wonderful with people, not to mention that once he was costumed up he looked like the kind of cowboy that graces greeting cards. The ladies loved him! He quickly found out that no amount of working out in a gym, no matter how chiseled the body becomes, prepared him for the physical aspects of the job. Daily feeding included loading between fifteen and twenty one-hundred pound bales of hay onto the back of a truck, then throwing the bales from the truck into the feeders. Find me a weight machine that duplicates that!

Every career has people who are attracted to it because they think they know everything there is to know about the career; at a livery those are typically the wranglers who grew up around horses, but who are terrible with people. They tend to be “stiffed” or under-tipped much more frequently than the wranglers with no horse experience.

Somewhere in the middle is where most wranglers come from; they’ve had some horse experience, but also have an idea of what it takes to work for tips. My favorite wranglers to work with are these, maybe it’s because that’s where I came from.

Once the staff is set, then housing becomes an issue. The bunkhouse is typically nothing more than shared rooms (segregated by sex) with multiple beds and external bathroom facilities. This is where the fun really begins, “Cowboy U” meets “The Real World”, but without any cell service, internet access, or cable. And often, wranglers from out of town don’t have transportation of their own. It’s a recipe for disaster any way you look at it, but year after year, the wranglers survive.

One bunkhouse – and I use the term loosely – was nothing more than an 8’ x 12’ building with a built-in bed platform, no insulation, and a hole in the roof that had been haphazardly patched. The bathroom facility was an outhouse; the sink was next to the outhouse and our running water came from opening the valve on a five-gallon water jug. Our lights were battery-operated. At least we had a phone to call the main house and to take reservations. Since the livery was small, only one wrangler at a time was required to stay in the bunkhouse over night. On my nights at the livery, I often had one of my children with me, sleeping on a twin mattress at the other end of the room. To say that it was an adventure would be an understatement! What I remember most about that bunkhouse is that it was cold! Even with a portable propane heater, we’d often wake up to frost on the inside of the windows (in July!).

Livery stables can run as few as ten head or as many as one hundred fifty. No matter the number of horses, the daily routine is predictable and is not for the faint of heart. A typical day may begin with barn call as early as 4:30 a.m. The horses must be chosen, caught, and pulled from the pen. They must then be brushed and saddled. Breakfast is usually an hour or two after barn call, but if the horse chores aren’t done, there won’t be time for breakfast. After breakfast, the rides begin. The wrangler may spend eight hours in the saddle on any given day, taking out different groups of guests. When not out on a ride, there are always chores to be done; rides to be loaded and unloaded, poop to be scooped, horses to be watered, injuries to be tended, and tack to be mended. If the wrangler is lucky, he or she might be able to get out of the saddle long enough to scarf down lunch and run to the bathroom. The work’s not done when the day’s rides are over, though. The horses must be fed, broken down, and turned out. Once the evening’s chores are done and the horses are taken care of, then the wranglers can eat dinner, shower, have a beer or two to decompress and stumble to his or her bed in the bunkhouse.

Very few wranglers make it the entire season, running into one who has worked for more than two or three years is the exception, not the rule, but those who do will have enough stories to last them a life-time.

My family and I are some of the few who have made it well beyond one season. I’ve been blessed to have worked for a multitude of barn bosses, some good, some not, at different stables in the area. If I didn’t love it, I wouldn’t have continued to do it for as long as I did. Even though I’m not currently working as a wrangler, I’ll always have the “itch” to work new horses, catch up with returning guests, and meet new guests. And, of course, compile new stories.

Ride 'Em Cowboy!

During the Summer of Rain, when my parents were running a local livery, there was a lot of training that had to go on with our horses.  We'd leased ranch horses, who were impeccably trained as ranch horses, but had some holes in their training for livery horses.  One of the holes was mounting blocks.  They'd never seen one.  They had no idea what the heck a human would want them for.  After all, their owners could mount them on the fly, they never needed a stairway to nowhere, which is exactly what our mounting block looked like.

Guests sometimes needed a little help up onto the horse, so we had, literally, a stairway to nowhere.  It was a platform about stirrup-height, three feet square, with stairs up one side.  Each of the horses had snorted at the mounting block when they saw it, so we knew that they'd need some training.  The training began with just leading them by it until they no longer snorted at it.  Then we left them tied to the rail next to it.  Eventually, they just didn't care about it.  Great, step one taken care of, now on to step two; people on the platform.

They didn't really like that so much, as it puts the human in predator position.  As prey animals, the horses understandably were nervous having predators (humans are the ultimate predator) poised in an attack position.  Again, we lead them back and forth near the platform and let them stand tied.  So far, so good.  After a while, they didn't even notice my kids scrambling up and down the stairs, sitting on it, swinging their legs, even jumping off of it.  Great!  Time to move to the next step, having someone step from the platform to their backs.

By the time we got to this point, it was just my son, Digger, and me at the livery.  One of us had to lead the horses to the mounting block and one of us had to step on.  Digger was twelve years old at the time; I opted to let him be the one to mount up, so that I could control the horse. 

You know what they say about best laid plans.

The first couple of horses were astounding.  They walked right up to the mounting block with Digger standing there and stood patiently while he slung a leg over and mounted up.  I walked them around the pen and back to the mounting block so that he could step off.  They acted as though they'd been doing it their whole lives.  Not a problem at all.  We were getting pretty cocky, Digger and I.  We were horse trainers extraordinaires, just ask us.  We'd started a project and were having great luck with it.  Mom and Bill were going to be so thrilled to see the progress we'd made with the horses!

And then we got to Peanut.  Or P-knucklehead as I began to call him.  Peanut lead up to the mounting block calmly, didn't even twitch his ear.  He let Digger swing a leg over and get settled.  And then the rodeo started.  Peanut acted like we'd just opened the gate to the bucking chute.  He started with a little crow hop away from the mounting block, followed with a snort and a little half-rear.  When that didn't work, he charged forward a few steps, throwing a buck or two in for good luck.  I played out a little lead rope, so that I wouldn't have those flying hooves so close to me, but I was going to be damned if I let go while my son was still aboard.  Digger seated himself deep in the saddle, with both hands on the saddle horn, since I hadn't bothered to bridle up any of the horses.  He rode like his butt had been Super-glued to the saddle.  His face initially went white, but as he realized that he was riding out P-knucklehead, a grin broke through.

Peanut's temper tantrum only lasted a few seconds and a handful of bucks, but it made an impression.  His tantrum ended as quickly as it started and he walked nicely around the pen.  Digger opted to dismount the traditional way, rather than go back to the mounting block, and I can't blame him.  We tied Peanut to the rail to let him think about it while we worked with the other horses.

We had to come back to him, though with a bit of trepidation.  I wasn't thrilled about putting Digger back up on him, but I couldn't have Digger on the end of the lead if Peanut thought to have another tantrum.  I lead Peanut back to the mounting block, Digger took a deep breath and swung his leg across.  Peanut didn't twitch, he just walked away from the block as though nothing had ever happened.  Knucklehead.

I thought that Digger's wild ride would maybe shake his confidence and decrease his desire to ride, but it had just the opposite effect.  Being able to ride out the temper tantrum gave him a boost of confidence - probably too much - but at least he wasn't afraid to get back on.

Cowboys and Indians

One summer day, my step-dad and I headed out for a ride, just the two of us. We knew that there was at least one paid ride out on the trail, possibly two; one from each of the nearby liveries, so we initially stuck to some of the less-ridden trails. We kept our eyes on the other trails, wanting to stay out of the other rides’ way, but shortly that got boring. Instead we began stalking one of the other rides, just to see how close we could get without them noticing. Like I said, we’d gotten bored with trying to stay out of their way.


For twenty minutes or so, we took parallel trails and cut back and forth between trails, keeping one particular ride in sight. The wrangler leading out the ride was the owner of one of the liveries and a good guy with a sense of humor. Bill got the bright idea to play “Cowboys and Indians” with the ride and once we figured out which way they were going, we circled around to head them off.

The plan was to burst out of the tree cover in front of the ride and circle around them, whooping and hollering. We got into place and waited for them to arrive for our “ambush”. The wrangler played right into our hands; as they arrived at the spot we had chosen, he stopped the ride to point something out.

Bill looked at me and nodded, so following the plan, I put my heels to Estes and burst from cover doing my best war whoop. The wrangler was startled and jumped, but then as soon as he figured out who I was, just stared incredulously. I’m sure he was seriously wondering if he’d made a mistake by hiring me as a part-time wrangler. The looks on the guests’ faces were priceless; they and their horses stood stock still. The only thing moving on their horses were their ears as they followed Estes’ progress around. I played up the role, and could fully imagine myself with a flowing headdress and bow circling the “Cowboys”. Except about halfway through my first lap around the ride I realized I was alone. Bill, my co-conspirator and lame-ass Indian, came calmly riding into the clearing laughing his butt off.

I finished my loop, my war whoop winding down, face burning momentarily in embarrassment before I started laughing, too. Bill was laughing too hard to explain to the wrangler that they’d been drawn into our game of Cowboys and Indians, so I had to. Luckily, the wrangler got a good laugh at it and told us that it would have been better if we’d had bows and suction cup arrows. The running joke that summer became the Cowboys and Indians; from that point on, we were on the lookout for more Indians with every ride we took out.

The Worst Ride Ever

Sometimes, the guests with the most horse experience turn out to be a wrangler’s worst nightmare. Perhaps the worst ride I’ve ever taken out consisted of just two fourteen year-old girls, best friends. One of the girls lived in Colorado and the other had moved away the year before and had just returned for vacation. The father of the Colorado girl thought it would be fun for the girls to go out on a four-hour ride, since Visiting Girl was a competitive hunter/jumper and they both loved horses.


The ride started out okay; there wasn’t a whole heap of whimpering from either girl as we ascended the steep switchback to reach the trail. Visiting Girl asked once or twice if we could trot. I told her that there just weren’t a lot of places in the mountains that are safe to trot, but that we might be able to once we reached the meadow. Colorado Girl and Visiting Girl were chatting, getting caught up on their lives since Visiting Girl had moved away the year before. Their mutual gossip kept them entertained for the first hour of the ride.

Going into the second hour, they were starting to wind down and Visiting Girl began to pay attention to her surroundings. She started asking questions about what would happen if she fell off and weren’t the horses scared being in the mountains? I assured her that the horses would take care of her and that, no, the horses weren’t scared being in the mountains.

At the end of hour two, going into hour three, we began to ascend the Olive Ridge route, which parallels some fairly steep drop-offs, but is a good, safe trail. I had taken literally hundreds of guests on that exact trail without a problem. In fact, the less horse experience my guests had, the more adventurous they seemed and the more they enjoyed the trail.

Colorado Girl was having a great time, enjoying the scenery and just being on top of a horse. Visiting Girl, however, the one with the most horse experience began to lose her mind. I don’t mean she was a little nervous, but that she went into a full-blown crying panic attack when she looked down off the side of the mountain. Now, the trail did run along the edge of a drop-off, but was nice and wide; there was no reason to worry that the horse would lose its footing and fall, but that’s exactly what Visiting Girl had envisioned.

There was no calming her down – she was absolutely, one hundred percent certain that her horse was going to fall off the side of the mountain and plunge her to her death.

As quickly as I could, I moved the ride off the trail and onto a nice, wide, graded fire access road, but there was still no calming her. Colorado Girl did her best, trying to talk Visiting Girl down, all to no avail. The return trip was spent assuring Visiting Girl that we were headed back to the livery and that there weren’t any places on the trail that she could fall off the mountain. We returned to the livery yard silent except for the sniffy, drippy tears of Visiting Girl and I swore I would never take out an arena rider again. Of course, I couldn’t get away with it, but that one ride distilled a deep distrust of “experienced” horse people who have never ridden outside an arena.

Hung up

An important part of being a wrangler, believe it or not, is looking like a wrangler, which means jeans, boots, button-down shirt, cowboy hat and, of course, the belt buckle. Some wranglers wear spurs, but since I’ve never been properly trained in how to use them, I refuse to wear them. I’ve seen some spectacular “rodeos” caused by inept spur usage.

There was one day when my wrangler get-up almost got me in a whole heap of trouble. I had just lead my ride – of only three guests – into the yard and “parked” my horse at the wrangler rail. I was riding a tall horse. Who am I kidding? All horses are tall next to me; I’m only 15 hands tall (that’s five foot nothing). I was riding a horse taller than my usual wrangler horse, so I cheated a bit on my dismount. That’s where I got into trouble.

Normally, when you dismount, you swing your right leg behind you, over the horse’s rear end and place your foot on the ground, and then remove your left foot from the stirrup. Now, this being a taller horse than usual, if I had put my right foot on the ground, I would have had my left foot at approximately ear level. I was much younger and much thinner then, but I was not nearly that flexible.

So…rather than dismount the normal way, I kind of cheated. I swung my right leg behind me, over the horse’s rear end, kicked my left foot out of the stirrup and slid down the side of the horse. Sort of. I got both feet kicked out of the stirrups and got most of the way down the side of the horse before I came to a rude and painful stop with my feet dangling above the ground. Besides the obvious felt-like-I-just-straddled-a-tight-rope painful sensation, there was a sharp, stabbing pain in my abdomen.

It took me a second of hanging there before I figured out what happened. The bottom edge of my belt buckle had gotten hung up on the stirrup, the top edge of the buckle was digging into my stomach. I was stuck; I tried to touch the ground with my tippy-toes, but no go. I tried just swinging away from the horse in hopes that the buckle and stirrup would part ways; that was also a no go. I finally had to pull myself back up the side of the horse with one hand on the back of the saddle and one on the saddle horn. Thank God I had spent the winter in the gym and had the upper body strength to do it. Once I pulled myself up high enough to unhook my belt buckle from the stirrup, I pushed away and jumped to the ground.

I was so involved in getting myself untangled from the stirrup that I had completely forgotten that I had an audience. Oops. Bad Wrangler. I’d already made a complete fool of myself, so no sense in trying to play it off, I just warned them not to try to dismount the way I did, that it wasn’t graceful and was very painful.

After they left, I untucked my shirt to look at my stomach. Yup, there it was – a perfect outline of the top of my belt buckle. That little beauty stayed for days.

A Day In The Life...

Offering trail rides to tourists is big business in Colorado. A search on Colorado.com shows that there are 67 riding stables, or liveries, in Colorado. A few of those offer rides year ‘round, but the vast majority operate from mid-May to mid-September.

When most people think of horseback riding, they think of ranch cowboys & rodeos. Mountain trail riding is a whole different ball game, buckaroos. Trail riding isn’t easy and not all horses are cut out for it; if they were, there wouldn’t be a demand for trainers, clinics, and magazines devoted to trail riding. Being a livery horse is even more difficult. The horses at livery stables are often labeled “trail nags” and thought of as useless. That impression couldn’t be further from the truth. Those horses work six to ten hours a day, day in and day out, with several different riders of varying ability, all of whom are strangers. The nature of the business doesn’t allow any time to develop trust between the horse and rider. Not only do they take their riders in stride (mostly), they have to deal with situations that the typical privately-owned horse never has to deal with. Traffic. People honking and waving. Loud motorcycles. Screaming kids. People sawing on the reins. Crossing water. Crossing bridges. The list is endless.

80% of the trails in Rocky Mountain National Park are non-motorized mixed-use trails, meaning that they can be used by hikers, bikers, or horses. Riding the mountain trails is also completely different riding than most people believe. They are called the Rocky Mountains for a reason. There are rocks. On the mountain. The trail will go up the mountain, and probably over the rocks. And, guess what? Basic physics law states that what goes up must come down. The trails are well-established, but not groomed. Trees branches or snow drifts may cross or block the trail. Rides may cross running water or bridges. There may be wildlife to deal with. There will be hikers & bikers; in the forest there may be dogs, either leashed or unleashed.

Livery wranglers are a different breed of cowboy. One former wrangler, who grew up riding and barrel racing, thought she knew what she was getting herself into. She admitted later that she actually had no idea what “Cowgirl up” meant until she was 10,600 feet above sea-level, four hours away from the trailer with a group of sore and cold guests in the snow in July and all she wanted to do was get some place warm and dry, yet she had to rally the troops, get them back on their horses and lead them back to the pick-up point safely. Only then did she understand that “Cowgirl up” in a rodeo arena and “Cowgirl up” in the Colorado mountains meant two completely different things.

Like the horses, the wranglers must be able to deal with multiple situations – from atop a horse and leading the ride – that the average person does not. Traffic. People honking and waving. Loud motorcycles. Screaming kids. People sawing on the reins. Crossing water. Crossing bridges. A good wrangler will know exactly which horses do and don’t get along, can pace the ride so that there are minimal gaps between horses, and can identify and head off potential problems. On top of that, they have to be friendly and informative no matter how difficult the situation (or the guests). Good wranglers put Boy Scouts to shame when it comes to being prepared for every eventuality.

A wrangler’s job during the season is often six to seven days a week from early morning until late evening. While the job sounds great (“wranglers get paid to ride horses in the mountains!”), it is physically demanding and often emotionally draining. Most livery stables provide room and board, guide horses for the wranglers to ride, and a small salary. Wranglers are tipped employees, so the monthly salary would make most sane people cry.

Wranglers come in all shapes and sizes, with horse experience ranging from essentially none to someone who was practically raised on a horse. Some are excellent horsemen, but terrible with people, while others are wonderful with people, but terrible with horses other than their own. The reasoning behind many Barn Bosses’ decisions to hire people with little or no horse experience, but who are good with people, is that teaching people skills is much harder than teaching someone to ride. I tend to agree with this train of thought with one caveat – they must be willing to learn and not think themselves an expert after one or two rides. Anyone who spends any real time around horses knows that the more they learn, the more they don’t know.

The beginning of each season is a lot like “Cowboy U”; wranglers come from all over the United States, and occasionally we even get a few from out of the country. The reason they want to be wranglers is pretty much the same – we get paid to ride horses in the mountains!

I got started as a wrangler after my parents bought a Bed and Breakfast in the mountains; we were told that they’d need help from all of us as they ironed out the kinks and got the business off the ground. After the first season, I told them I’d rather scoop horse poop than change another bed. And a new wrangler was born! My first day at the livery found me bright eyed and bushy-tailed without a clue as to what I was in for. The end of my first day found me filthy, sore and still clueless. I never got near a horse the first day – I got to wax the stock trailer from top to bottom. By myself.

One memorable wrangler named LB was literally a department store cowboy. He was a city kid who had been working with our Barn Boss at a department store during the off-season. LB was one of the wranglers who had no horse experience, but was wonderful with people, not to mention that once he was costumed up he looked like the kind of cowboy that graces greeting cards. The ladies loved him! He quickly found out that no amount of working out in a gym, no matter how chiseled the body becomes, prepared him for the physical aspects of the job. Daily feeding included loading between fifteen and twenty one-hundred pound bales of hay onto the back of a truck, then throwing the bales from the truck into the feeders. Find me a weight machine that duplicates that!

Every career has people who are attracted to it because they think they know everything there is to know about the career; at a livery those are typically the wranglers who grew up around horses, but who are terrible with people. They tend to be “stiffed” or under-tipped much more frequently than the wranglers with no horse experience.

Somewhere in the middle is where most wranglers come from; they’ve had some horse experience, but also have an idea of what it takes to work for tips. My favorite wranglers to work with are these, maybe it’s because that’s where I came from.

Once the staff is set, then housing becomes an issue. The bunkhouse is typically nothing more than shared rooms (segregated by sex) with multiple beds and external bathroom facilities. This is where the fun really begins, “Cowboy U” meets “The Real World”, but without any cell service, internet access, or cable. And often, wranglers from out of town don’t have transportation of their own. It’s a recipe for disaster any way you look at it, but year after year, the wranglers survive.

One bunkhouse – and I use the term loosely – was nothing more than an 8’ x 12’ building with a built-in bed platform, no insulation, and a hole in the roof that had been haphazardly patched. The bathroom facility was an outhouse; the sink was next to the outhouse and our running water came from opening the valve on a five-gallon water jug. Our lights were battery-operated. At least we had a phone to call the main house and to take reservations. Since the livery was small, only one wrangler at a time was required to stay in the bunkhouse over night. On my nights at the livery, I often had one of my children with me, sleeping on a twin mattress at the other end of the room. To say that it was an adventure would be an understatement! What I remember most about that bunkhouse is that it was cold! Even with a portable propane heater, we’d often wake up to frost on the inside of the windows (in July!).

Livery stables can run as few as ten head or as many as one hundred fifty. No matter the number of horses, the daily routine is predictable and is not for the faint of heart. A typical day may begin with barn call as early as 4:30 a.m. The horses must be chosen, caught, and pulled from the pen. They must then be brushed and saddled. Breakfast is usually an hour or two after barn call, but if the horse chores aren’t done, there won’t be time for breakfast. After breakfast, the rides begin. The wrangler may spend eight hours in the saddle on any given day, taking out different groups of guests. When not out on a ride, there are always chores to be done; rides to be loaded and unloaded, poop to be scooped, horses to be watered, injuries to be tended, and tack to be mended. If the wrangler is lucky, he or she might be able to get out of the saddle long enough to scarf down lunch and run to the bathroom. The work’s not done when the day’s rides are over, though. The horses must be fed, broken down, and turned out. Once the evening’s chores are done and the horses are taken care of, then the wranglers can eat dinner, shower, have a beer or two to decompress and stumble to his or her bed in the bunkhouse.

Very few wranglers make it the entire season, running into one who has worked for more than two or three years is the exception, not the rule, but those who do will have enough stories to last them a life-time.

My family and I are some of the few who have made it well beyond one season. I’ve been blessed to have worked for a multitude of barn bosses, some good, some not, at different stables in the area. If I didn’t love it, I wouldn’t have continued to do it for as long as I did. Even though I’m not currently working as a wrangler, I’ll always have the “itch” to work new horses, catch up with returning guests, and meet new guests. And, of course, compile new stories.