I try to haul down to the Bryce Canyon area and ride, Maybe every other spring. It's about a 5 haul, but with so many places to see and ride in Utah, It's hard to revisit places you have already been.  But the Bryce area has spectacular beauty and is worth the return trips.

I had originally planned the trip to take my two youngest daughters with me. They have grown up and in a few weeks, I will be an empty nester. So I was hoping to get to spend a little time with them. But I had told others of the trip  and had a couple of other say they had never been and wanted to see the area. As it turns out my daughters couldn't get off work and I ended up going down to lead some folks that I had only met once before.

Both of these fellows are named Mike and they turned out to be excellent company and pretty good cooks.

Southern Utah had a really dry winter. The places I usually camp ( with horse water) were dry and I was glad I brought 60 gallons of horse water in the bed of the truck.  We did find some small streams of water during the rides as we rode up the canyons, and made sure to give the horses opportunity to drink during the day.  This year the canyon looked like this:

Two years ago it looked like this:

So a big difference in snow melt this year.

The two Mikes had forgotten their Coggins health papers, So they could not enter Bryce Canyon National Park, So all of our riding was down in the areas outside the park boundary. Which is fine with me. You rarely see other people on the trails outside of the park vs the crowds of tourist inside the park.

The two Mikes as we crossed over the top between Losee Canyon and Casto Canyon.

The lower elevations of these canyons are bright red. As you climb the soil color changes and so does the vegetation.  You get into more forest of Ponderosa Pines, Mountain Mahogany and some bitter brush.

About half way around our loop we bumped into a single horseman.  His name was also Mike.  He said he was a former Hippie from San Francisco area. Now retired and riding in Utah for 3 weeks.  He was riding by himself.  I gave him a few suggestions of where to ride and finally decided it might be easier to just invite him to come with us tomorrow.

The next day, The three Mikes and myself headed down into the Grand Staircase Escalante to ride some canyons.
The new Mike is the one in the Fedora vs a straw hat.

The new Mike proved to be good company, his Peruvian Paso was game to keep up with our foxtrotters and at the end of the day he proclaimed that was and probably would be his best ride of his trip. He was grateful to have had the company and be shown a trail he never would have found on his own.

Neither of our rides were extremely long.  More in the 12-14 miles long. The two mikes were ridding barefoot horses and mine horse seems to have developed welt or sore spot on his loin and he was short stepping his walk and acting slightly lame.

I guess I'm off to a vet visit this week, or maybe try and find a Equine Chiropractor to try and figure out what has caused that.  I am using the same saddle I've used on this horse for 6 years. It's never caused him any problems in the past. It didn't rub him raw or cause any dry spots, but it sure raised a welt or bump right behind where the rear skirt sat.

Sorry.

I definetley plan on riding Utah one day

Everybody should ride the Bryce Canyon area once in their life. Luckily there is a good outfitter there to help those out who can't haul their own horses that far. But Utah has such diversity in it terrain, there are so many other trails and types of scenery to enjoy, that it's hard to champion just one area of the state.

I'm fortunate to be able to ride the desert areas in the colder months and head to higher alpine trails as the seasons warm up.

Understand I have nothing to do with these folks, Just see them along the trails and in the trail heads. But all reports I've read, say they do a great job.

http://www.rubysinn.com/horseback_rubys_inn.html

very nice

In Sheep Creek Canyon

Tired horses in camp after a days ride.  I just primitive camp out in the Pinon and Juniper trees.  But there is an equestrian camp at Coyote Hollow that has 4 camp sites ( picnic table, hitching rail, outhouse)  And there is a Horse Motel at Ruby's Inn.

This is on the trail that crosses over from Losee Canyon to Casto Canyon.