Reprinted from the ASSOCIATED PRESS. Old-style operations - working ranches where guests sweat and toil through their vacation are still around.
Old-style operations - working ranches where guests sweat and toil through their vacation - are still around.
But now there's a new breed - part resort, part riding school, part environmental retreat and part consciousness-raising experience.
In addition to trail rides, nature hikes and a week's end rodeo for the more adventurous, they offers activities such as yoga, meditation classes, a pipe and sweat lodge ceremony, and a Medicine Trail hike, where guests learn the edible and medicinal properties of native plants.
"We always wanted to go to a Dude Ranch," says Peter Weertman, who spent a recent week at a ranch in northern Idaho with his wife and two children.
"Last year, we had a family reunion there. We had such a great time. The kids liked it better than Disneyland," Weertman says.
There's a lot of stuff you can do there that you can't do at Disneyland," says daughter Renee, 11. "I really like riding horses, but you also get to sleep in teepees, do archery and go swimming."
The kids put in busy days and get together with the adults at dinner time.
"It's a very stress-free vacation says Renee's mother, Michelle Weertman. "The kids have a lot of freedom and it's very safe and relaxing."
Dude ranches have been around since the 1880's, but there's been a resurgence since the late 1980's - in part due to Hollywood and movies such as "The Horse Whisperer" and "City Slickers," says Jim Futterer, executive director of The Dude Ranchers Association, a LaPorte, Colorado-based non-profit membership and regulatory organization.
Between 300 and 400 guest ranches operate in the western United States, Futterer says. While it's difficult to know exactly how many new ranches have opened recently, he says membership in the 68-year-old association has doubled - from 50 to more than 100 - in the past 10 years.
Member ranches gross a total of about $55 million a year, and Futterer considers them the cream of the crop, citing association standards for guest accommodations and horse treatment.
"It's not just having a room and a horse to ride," Futterer says. "It should be a home away from home."
Visitors these days want more options - and they don't want to "do housekeeping chores," he says.
"It was my childhood dreams to ride western in a place like this," says Billy Thompson, an experienced horsewoman from Edinborough, Scotland, who recently spent two weeks at a ranch in northern Idaho with her husband Sandy and their 7-year old son, David.
"I think we've found something really special," Mrs. Thompson says, her eyes following the flight of an osprey soaring over the ranch's pine-studded hills and valleys near lake Coeur d'Alene.
The cost of a one-week stay at a dude ranch ranges from about $700 for a smaller, out-of-the-way facility that has some horses and a few planned activities, to $2,000 or $2,500 for some of the more all-inclusive retreats, with discounts for children.
There are many ranches near national parks that offer forest trail rides with naturalists. Others get wildlife rescuers to bring in native animals such as eagles, hawks and owls, allowing guests a close-up look.
A cross section of guests at a typical ranch reveals many repeat visitors - often more than 50% of the visitors - a statistic envied by all others in the travel/lodging industry.
Guest ranches or Dude ranches, part of the American vacation scene for more than a century, are doing land-office business these days - and some are offering a very '90's perspective on the West.