I rode Galisteo Basin Preserve on November 20, 2015 and I decided to write a review based on horseback rider's personal review. Mine.
Before riding at GBP, I was given a printable trail map from Karen Dennison, highlighted to show the approved horse trails, and I made sure to bring that with me because I was warned that mountain bikers have been complaining about seeing horses on certain trails that they designed and built only for hikers and mountain bikers.
But the map is also one of the issues that probably needs to be looked into.
1)Since none of the posted trail signs show any trail names, only numbers, the map should have the numbers printed much larger than they are, with less emphasis on the names.
Personally, I believe it would be much easier for trail users if the names of the trails are used and not the numbers.
As horseback riders we kept having to pull out the map and squint trying to locate and read the tiny, blurry numbers all while keeping our horses standing still and dealing with wind blowing the map around.
Trail names are just easier to read and remember than numbers are.
2)Trail Signage. There were a few small, faded, paper maps posted on short posts, but again, for horseback riders the signs are too low for us to see in detail without dismounting at every junction. And again, the numbers are just too tiny to read even for those of us old timers that don't need reading glasses.
In addition, we saw only one post that had a 'No Horses Allowed' sign at a trail junction, just below one of those small maps. And quite a few posts had no numbers, maps or signs on them at all. I am sure we ended up riding on a couple 'No Horses Allowed' trails, but we had no way of knowing without any signage and with the numbers on our map being too tiny to decipher.
As for our ride experience, we began our ride from the Cowboy Shack and rode to Trenza Overlook. But we had to turn around and ride back because, even though the map shows a loop trail, we rode around at the Trenza Overlook and could not find where the southern section of the loop picked up from the Trenza Overlook. We were disappointed that we had to do an out- and-back, especially on a basically uninspiring, dusty dirt road type of trail.
After we rode back to the Cowboy Shack we picked up the trail that travels southeast beside the arroyo. Again, no idea what trail it was because it had no number or name on the post.
This trail was pleasant and crossed the arroyo several times, but it eventually dumped us out onto the gravel covered Thornton Rd.
Not wanting to backtrack yet again, we traveled the road south for a bit, then we bushwhacked through the trees above the road until we finally arrived at Cottonwood Trail head, where we picked up a trail heading south and through an arroyo. We had given up trying to match the sign numbers to the numbers on the map by this time. We just wanted to enjoy our ride.
We turned off on a brand new trail and we all loved the single track and how it snaked it's way through the juniper and pinon trees with expansive views south and east. But we soon decided it was time for lunch and tied up our horses.
We were able to find a place behind some trees to get out of the wind so we could enjoy our lunch.
Afterwards we decided to turn around and head back to the Cowboy Shack because it was getting late in the day. We were all a bit disappointed because that new trail looked promising and we could see it beckoning to us far in the distance. But we had wasted so much time trying to follow a map that led us astray so many times, that we had to head home before we had even ridden more than a few miles.
I'm pretty sure we rode Annie's Amble back to the Cowboy Shack, and we all enjoyed it. The trail surface was smooth, the views were great and there were interesting things to look at, like large white boulders.....
a pond....
and an eroded arroyo leading to a small canyon.
We saw a few sign posts with numbers, but again, we didn't bother trying to match up post numbers to the tiny numbers on our map.
Looking at the map, I could see that all trails that branched off of Annie's Amble were off limits to horses so we didn't even bother. We could see the bike tracks on these trails, so we knew they were expressly for bicyclists, which was a shame because those side trails looked like fun and beautiful adventures compared to the flat, road-like trails we horseback riders have been delegated to.
I was aching to get up onto those high ridges like I had ridden in the past, but horseback riders are denied that opportunity in GBP now. Such a shame, too because up on the high ridges are where all the amazing views are.
Quite frankly, my horse and I soon grew bored with the flat, road-like trails, and the arroyos were too much sweat effort to ride in, with the deep sand. In fact, my riding partners' horses kept trying to lie down and roll in the deep sand, so we avoided riding in the arroyos as much as possible.
Ultimately we enjoyed riding at Galisteo Basin Preserve and look forward to riding there again, but we would much rather park at Cottonwood Trail head, even though Cowboy Shack parking area has been improved for trailers. There are more horse-friendly trail options from Cottonwood Trail head, and the parking area has an easy to navigate access loop so rigs don't get blocked in by other non-horse vehicles.
On Friday, we were the only two horse trailers parked at Cowboy Shack trail head, with only a few cars sharing the parking lot. But, on a busy weekend, with a few more horse trailers and more cars, there would probably be parking and access issues.
Also, while riding, we stopped and spoke with a hiker, who lives nearby and hikes Galisteo Basin Preserve often, and we asked him for directions on the Trenza Overlook trail. We mentioned that we wished that there were trails that we could ride up onto the ridges above us. And he answered, "You should just go ahead and ride up there. I see horses on all of the the trails every time I hike here. (So apparently, many horseback riders aren't following the GBP rules or trying to stay on the horse approved trails on the map and they just riding wherever they want).
In his opinion, "Horses should be allowed to ride everywhere in this preserve. This is old historic ranch land afterall. Horses and cattle were here long before hikers and mountain bikers."
I told him I agreed 100%.
But I also told him that after riding in Galisteo Basin Preserve with all of the changes with user access, I now understand how mountain bikers feel when they are denied riding on wilderness trails.
Even though I also mountain bike, I'm not skilled enough to bike the rugged, steep, narrow mountain trails that my horse navigates with ease, so I have never thought much about it.
But now that we horseback riders are the ones being denied access to the fun, challenging, more interesting trails up on the high ridges of the preserve, I understand how mountain bikers must feel. And it's not good.
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