Yurts and an all day horseback ride in Kelly WY

I recently went on an all day ride with ranch guests. The six horses were trailered behind the truck to nearby Kelly, WY (20 miles away), and our ride started there.

 
Kelly, Wyoming was initially a modest but thriving rural town located on the banks of the Gros Ventre River. Around 1925 the town had many amenities: mercantile, Riverside Hotel, blacksmith, flour mill (1917-1921, burned), dance hall and sawmill (removed 1918). In 1904 the first school opened on the Warren Henry homestead. By 1909, families from the surrounding area began constructing small cabins in Kelly to stay in while their children attended grade school. In 1914 the town was approved for a post office, which remains open today. Prior to this, Kelly was known locally simply as “Bridge.” The name illustrates the importance of the timber bridge that spanned the Gros Ventre River, one of the few early bridges built in the valley. There were few options in the valley for safe river crossings, and the Kelly Bridge was one of four until the mid-1920s. Kelly was devastated by a flood in 1927 and again by a fire in 1971, but still exists today.

 

Kelly is also known for its yurt colony (above). There are 12 round canvas dwellings, a little unsightly, but grandfathered in and allowed to be there by old laws. Residents share a common bath house and get water from a well. The structures are heated by wood-burning stoves and have sky lights in the middle of the domed roof. Anyway, that's Kelly, WY. Back to our ride... it was cool (70), sunny, with low humidity. A perfect fleece day.

We unloaded the horses, and I rode Serenity again. I was joined by a nice couple from MD and one from NC, along with a ranch wrangler. Off we went, rounding hills, passing through sage brush and pine forests and eventually climbing steep ridges. The all day rides are strictly walking so as not to tire the horses... and riders. 

 

There's a little pond in the photo above and a lone, tiny cabin... good luck finding it. At the top of one ridge, I had one of the most incredible views of the valley and Tetons that I've seen yet. Usually, I'm IN the Tetons looking down on the valley and towards the Gros Ventres (locally pronounced "grow vont") range. We stopped for photos. 

 
For perspective, we began our ride on the back side of the hill in the center
of the photo above.

           It was hazy and smelled like smoke because of wildfires nearby in Idaho
           and Yellowstone...yikes!

This picture reminds me of those old Westerns like Big Valley and Ponderosa. After a couple of hours, we stopped for lunch on top of a ridge, tying the horses up and eating sack lunches packed for us in saddle bags by the ranch (sandwiches, chips, apples, carrots, cookies, water, lemonade). It turns out the NC couple knew a friend of mine from home so we took a photo together to send to him. Small world.

 

 

                                                  With our ranch wrangler

Sweetest horse ever, head buried in my chest, eyes closed, letting me scratch her face and head ;) After making sure we had all our trash, we remounted and made our way back down the ridge line through a beautiful narrow trail in an Aspen forest. It was a little shorter on the return, and the horses seemed a bit tired, more hesitant and prone to tripping on steep or rocky portions of the trail. That always scares me a little. Just last night, a wrangler told me that when your horse goes down, the trick is to stay on and not try to hop off. Good to know. I broke my shoulder in college doing just that. Swung my leg over the saddle and when the horse got back up, my right foot was caught in the stirrup and I got jerked down on the ground.. hard.

 

As we neared the valley floor, we crossed through tall grass that looked like wheat. Completely new terrain, once again. It was beautiful. Another great day in Wyoming!