Arrowhead Ranch: Golden Open Space Ride

Another favorite place of mine to ride is Golden Open Space. Technically it's not in the town of Golden, nor do you drive anywhere near Golden to reach the trail head. But, as the crow flies, the tiny town of Golden is almost within sight of some of the trails within the Golden Open Space.
I had invited a couple of my friends to join me at Golden OS so I could show them the trails. They had never been before, nor had ever heard of it. Golden OS is definitely off the beaten path and requires about a 20 minute drive on twisting asphalt road, followed by another 20 minutes on a gravel road.
And the trail head parking area can be a bit tricky for horse trailers as it's basically just a pull off on the side of the gravel road.
But we were lucky this day and there were only two cars parked at the trail head and they had parked on the far northern end, so we had enough room to pull in and park our two trucks and horse trailers.

The trails in the canyon are so much fun. They travel up and down and twist and turn, much like a zippy little roller coaster. When the trails wind into and out of the smaller canyons, it's fun to take photos of your riding companions on the other side.

The different colored rocks and the geology of Golden OS are truly impressive. There is something to ooh and ahh at around every turn.

One of the newest sections of trail, my son and I helped build. It's not a trail for the height challenged or the faint of heart.

The trails at Golden Open Space are all built by volunteers, which is impressive when you actually get out and ride them and see all the work involved. This trail didn't even exist two years ago.

Check out that amazing rock and boulder work used to firm up this section. All that was done by volunteer hands and manual tools.

My riding companions were more focused on keeping their horses in the center of the trail.

While I was having a blast and enjoying the gorgeous vistas as we climbed up towards the mesa top.

Oh yeah, baby! Can't forget another one of my "Happy to be riding my awesome horse out in beautiful nature" selfies!

Golden Open Space!

A zoomed in photo of the lower, narrower canyon, with it's amazing high, red, rock walls!

If you look down at the center of that hill, you can just make out the trail that we rode across, both up to the top and then back down.

The trail work is so beautifully detailed with rocks lining the trail in places.

At the top of the mesa we decided to stop for lunch. (Notice the ski runs at the top of the Sandia Mountains behind my riding buddies.)

Apache always waits patiently when I stop for lunch. She usually takes advantage of the rest stop by taking a little nap.

Time to head out again......not much of a trail, though. We need more hikers, mountain bikers and horseback riders to use this trail to make it wider and more permanent.

It's definitely not a boring trail, though.

When we reached the bottom of the canyon, I led my riding companions into the lower, narrower canyon with the high, red rock walls. They were quite impressed.

Apache and I pausing for a moment to enjoy the gorgeous scenery.

Riding between the red rock walls.

Just amazing!!

Such a beautiful place to ride, but not in the summer. It can get beastly hot down in this canyon because the red rock reflects the heat and prevents any cool breezes from reaching down here.

But this is the perfect late Fall, Winter and early Spring ride.

My riding companion in this red rock wall photo gives an impressive perspective of the size of these canyon walls.

Most of my riding friends aren't skilled in photography, so the photos aren't as useful to show scale or perspective, and often showcase the wrong things, like the dirt, rocks and grass in the foreground, instead of the rock wall towering above me and my horse.

But I'm still grateful to have them take a few photos that show that my horse and I were there riding, too.

I put a lot of thought and focus into my photos so they more accurately show what I am seeing because I believe that photos should tell a story. Placement of my subject, angles, perspective, lighting, the focus of my subjects, rule of thirds, distance, and so much more, are all important to me when I am taking a photo.

After we explored down in the lower canyon for about 30 minutes, we made our way backup and out of the main canyon.

Just me and my horse loving what we get to do!

Now here's a photo that I took of my riding companion and her horse that gives a true sense of scale and perspective of the canyon walls inside the main canyon.

And check out this swirling, white, rock wall within a deep arroyo that travels through the main canyon. My riding companion posed for me to give a sense of perspective to my photo.