Great Rides of Today's Wild West by Mark Bedor

Author:Mark Bedor
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse
Published: 2014-10-14T16:00:00+00:00

Red’s Meadow no longer offers the Bishop to Bodie Ride.

However, Mammoth Lakes Pack Outfit does.

Get details at www.mammothpack.com or call 888-475-8747.

TRUE WESTERN

THE WHITE STALLION RANCH & SAGUARO NATIONAL PARK

TUCSON, ARIZONA

“Drier than dust . . . and here’s a beautiful yellow flower coming up out of the ground.”

It’s a cool but sunny January day outside Tucson. I’m soaking in the quiet beauty of the pristine Arizona desert from the back of a fine horse. I listen to the steady and soothing clip clop of Cody’s hooves as I gaze at the surrounding rugged mountains and look up at the giant saguaro cactus I ride by. Each one is different, and all a bit mysterious in some strange way. Even though I’ve been to this ranch at least half a dozen times, it is always an amazing experience. And it’s one the White Stallion Ranch has been providing for people from all over the world for nearly 50 years.

“We had a lady that came in 1965, my parent’s first year,” tells owner Russell True. “She didn’t come back until four years ago. And she said at the end of the week, ‘Everything is different . . . Everything’s the same.’”

Russell calls it the highest compliment he’s ever received.

Fact is, when you’re horseback on the 3,000-acre ranch, you’re riding the same trails that woman rode nearly fifty years ago. Neighboring Tucson has exploded with growth during that time. But in this protected bowl where the White Stallion sits, surrounded by mountains and bordering Saguaro National Park, you have no idea that city is even there. And the view from the back of a horse looks pretty much like it did in 1880.

You can thank a Denver snowstorm for that. Russell’s father Allen came home from work one day in a blizzard, announced he’d had enough of winter for one lifetime, and was moving the family to Tucson. The oilman was soon on a plane, and scouring the desert city for business opportunities. They included hotels, restaurants, and dude ranches. The Tucson area still had thirty or so dude ranches at the time. Five were on the market. True chose the 200-acre White Stallion, despite the objections of his wife Cynthia. Russell was five years old at the time. “This is a bad idea,” he remembers his mother pleading. “We don’t know anything about hospitality or dude ranching . . .”

But the scenery changed Mom’s mind. “As she loved to tell the story,” Russell relates, “she said, ‘Okay, okay . . . if I can look at those mountains every morning . . . I’ll let you throw our lives away.’”

It worked out a little better than that. Tucson was booming in the 1960s, and developers would eventually gobble up nearly every dude ranch in town. Allen True picked the White Stallion because of its protected and defensible location. He then went to work buying up every adjacent piece of ranch property he could, eventually expanding the White Stallion to its current 3,000 acres. “They sacrificed and struggled and put this piece together,” tells Russell.

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