TRAVEL MONITOR Arizona sights from the back of a horse.(Travel Column).

Beaver Creek Stables - Beaver Creek Lake Ride, originally uploaded by ktcconsulting.

By Colin Haskin An Arizona trail-riding outfitter has just the thing for city slickers who dream of climbing into the saddle: inexpensive trips into a still-wild west.

Don Donnelly stables is a full-service western riding outfitter located at the base of the Superstition Mountains, 60 kilometres east of Phoenix. Trips are guided, well-paced rides that take customers into the foothills and wilderness areas of the Superstition Mountains. These mountains are rugged, yet scenic with abundant cacti and animal life. The Superstitions are sacred to the Apache tribe as the home of their Thunder God, and are renowned as the site of the legendary Lost Dutchman Goldmine and Peralta mines.

Daily destinations are the Monument Valley on the Navajo reservation; the White Mountains, a remote wilderness within the Apache reservation, the Mogollon Rim near Payson and, nearer home, the Superstition Wilderness.

The rides are five-, seven- or eight days in length. Some rides, such as to Monument Valley and the White Mountains, have a base camp from which guides take a different loop route each day. Others are progressive rides on which the camp moves to a new location each day. On these rides, the camp is struck and set up each day by staff.

In general, rides are six to eights hours each day, covering 20 to 30 kilometres, with plenty of time for comfort and photo breaks and a long lunch stop. Rides are planned to be comfortable enough to be a vacation, with good food, hot showers, wash basins, toilets, spacious tents with cots. Each ride, however, is also designed to be challenging, with conditioned horses, scenic trails and well-paced riding. Overnight trail rides are $75 (U.S.) per day, all-inclusive. Other less ambitious programs are centred on activities at or near the stables.

Source Citation
"TRAVEL MONITOR Arizona sights from the back of a horse.(Travel Column)." Globe & Mail [Toronto, Canada] 11 Jan. 1992: F6. Popular Magazines. Web. 3 Nov. 2010.
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