Fall Cattle Round-up

• Help a local rancher find, gather and move hundreds of cattle from the high mountain summer pastures. Long, but rewarding days in the saddle. This is for experienced riders only, and we take only a limited number of riders. This fall week is one of our personal favorites.

Our fall cattle roundup is held the 3rd week in September. We help the local cattle ranchers gather their herds, bring them home, and move them from place to place on their home ranches. That time of the year marks the end of the US Forest Service grazing allotments, and it is imperative that the ranchers move their cattle off of the National Forest.

If you are looking for a “cattle drive”, and mean by that the moving a single herd of cattle for several days over a long distance, we don’t have a cattle drive per se, but we do dedicate this week in September to helping the local ranchers gather and move their cattle. Sometimes we move a herd for many miles, other times we are searching for strays and cattle that don’t want to be found. We do stay at Latigo each night, and have breakfast and dinner here. We are usually away from the ranch during the day and pack lunches. The days are relatively long, but beautiful and enjoyable. We encounter all kinds of weather and riding terrain. We often trailer the horses up into the National Forest or over to a friend’s ranch at the start of a day.

The most difficult part of the week for most riders is the length of time in the saddle. Depending upon our work for any particular day, we will spend between 5 and 10 hours in the saddle that day. We don’t usually ride fast, but we are in some rugged country in all kinds of weather. Since you will be riding independently, it is most important that you recognize your own abilities and the capabilities of your horse. If a rider wants to take a break on a given day, that is not a problem for the others. We do work as teams, but the number of riders on a team and their assignments vary each day.