This 80-mile Horseback Ride Across Idaho's Wild Plains Is the Ultimate Horse Girls' Trip

Travel + Leisure

14 hours ago

In front of me were six miles of open plain, distant peaks, blue sky, and a herd of nearly 50 horses thundering through sagebrush and wildflowers, flinging rocks from under their shoes. I held the reins in one hand and used the loose ends to thwap my mare, Honey, to keep her moving. She kicked out as if offended, then abruptly stopped and grabbed a mouthful of grass. I swooped her around and drove her back to the pack with a 'Yeehaw!' On the other side of the herd, my best pal, Victoria, was flying on her paint horse, Axel, and smiling from ear to ear. From Left: Silver Spur riders making camp at Warm Springs, south of the ranch; a decorative bit.
Form Left: Carrie Dennis; Silver Spur Ranch
We had just begun a three-day, 80-mile horse drive across Idaho, a trip Vic and I had booked impulsively a year and a half earlier. Well before that, the two of us were second-grade friends who held invisible reins while hauling ourselves over brooms balanced between two lawn chairs.
Sometime before we turned 10, we started riding real horses and spent summers at our trainer's 15-acre farm in Pennsylvania, waking up at 6 a.m. to haul feed to a dozen horses. It was bliss. So when Vic, who traded our native New York home for Los Angeles more than a decade ago, suggested we reunite for the ultimate horse-girl vacation, I said, 'Let's go.'
There are different flavors of horse girls. Some show, some barrel race, some have never ridden a horse but love the works of Marguerite Henry. When we were kids, Vic and I just wanted to choose horses and pretend they had preternatural connections to us and no one else, get crud under our fingernails, and go fast and jump high. Not much has changed, except we both now live in places unfriendly to horses galloping free.
We booked the trip through the family-owned Silver Spur Ranch in Dubois, where trout-filled creeks nourish willow trees that moose nibble at all year long. Visitors can also look for antelope, mule deer, and badgers; harder to spot are coyotes. If you're really lucky, you'll see a cougar. Cattle, by law, have the right of way. LT and Lana Tomlinson founded the ranch 30 years ago on a slice of Lana's grandfather's land. Cowboys in the area didn't understand what the couple was building; they were skeptical that anyone would pay to taste their rugged way of life.
But the Tomlinsons' vision resonates with guests, who come to ride across a medley of family-owned and public property. Running the show is LT and Lana's son, Dax Tomlinson, and his wife, Kylee, who lead drives with hired guides like Wyoming-born Stetson Curtis, whose name really is Stetson. A rotating cast of grandkids and family friends cook, serve, and strike camp.
The herd drives are part ranch tourism, part hands-on horse training. It works like this: vacationers mount experienced horses and then drive dozens of unridden steeds across the terrain, weaving through trees on steep forest paths, to teach the herd to be more surefooted. Some of these novice animals then stay with the ranch; others are sold. For riders, the ability to control a horse is required, and stamina is also crucial: the horses will take you where you need to be without pause, if you let them. You'll be sorry if you don't have the muscle to endure the pace and the fortitude to endure chafed thighs for the sake of fun.
Our first day was a six-hour, in-the-saddle orientation to get the 13 of us—almost all women, all weird and wonderfully tough—used to our horses and comfortable in our stirrups. It was also a filter intended to weed out anyone who wouldn't be able to handle hours at a fast trot. (There was one man among us, a bemused trail-riding electrician from Saskatchewan.)
To begin, Curtis loaded our tacked horses into a trailer with the help of another ranch hand, Bodie May, who is Dax's cousin. Then the group split up to find the herd horses. I climbed into the truck of a neighbor named Randy Grover. As his weather-beaten hands spun the steering wheel, Grover told us tales about his tractors, named Susie Magoo and Betsy; of a moose who cornered a neighbor on his porch; and local lore about a man dressed in a loincloth who went hunting on an area bison farm. (Later, May told us that Grover has something of a reputation for spinning dubious yarns.)
We spent the next three days riding hard, making sure to give the sassy white horse at the head of the pack plenty of space, so she didn't kick out and crush our kneecaps. We camped in sturdy tents, took baths in creeks, and fumbled toward creaky outhouses in the rain. At night, horses brushed against our tent as they grazed. It wasn't exactly roughing it, but it wasn't glamorous either. As Curtis put it, 'We want you safe, but not high-maintenance.'
During the day, we would stop at watering holes, tie our mounts to trees, and lunch on pulled-pork sandwiches and Laffy Taffy pulled from our saddlebags. Soon enough, Curtis's all-black border collie, Steve, and a ragamuffin of a dog, Jack, would emerge from the trees to beg for sandwich scraps. During one break, Curtis hopped off his horse and beheaded a rattlesnake with a stroke of his whip. He held up the body with a grin, daring us to squeal.
On our final day, I was out in front with Vic and a few other women when the trail crossed an unpaved service road. We inadvertently detoured down the road, a giddy girl gang yipping as we egged the horses on, faster, faster, our little wild herd. We were so distracted by our joy that we pushed beyond the view of the pack of horses we were supposed to lead­—the whole point of the trip. That untamed feeling, though, was also the point of the journey. May caught up to us, bellowing above the clamor of hooves for us to turn back. We stopped and spun our steeds around, just a few breathless, giggling horse girls, momentarily lost but free.
A version of this story first appeared in the July 2025 issue of Travel + Leisure under the headline "A Horse Girl Grows Up."