Rustle up some fun in Wyoming
Anyone can ride the trails like a real cowboy in the Gros Ventre River valley
“I hate trotting, too,” James, our wrangler, said without a trace of irony.
He had turned halfway around in his saddle to encourage me to cowboy on despite my sore behind, and he somehow maintained the posture, with no apparent discomfort, for most of a four-hour trail ride through Wyoming’s Gros Ventre River valley. We were guests at the nearby Goosewing Ranch.
Eighty kilometres or so to the south, the jagged grey crags of the Tetons occasionally came into view between the gentler curves of the sage-strewn foothills through which we travelled. The Grand Teton rose above the others, capped with snow. These majestic peaks are the first environmental feature you notice when debarking the plane in Jackson, as clear in the distance as if they were at your fingertips. The second is the air itself: also crystalline, without a hint of humidity.
The drive from bustling Jackson to our dude ranch near Kelly, Wyo., took an hour and 15 minutes, the last third of it over progressively more rutted dirt roads that we were told become impassable in the winter months. They were bone-rattling enough then at the start of August.
Francois, the French owner of the ranch, was a gruff, but excellent, host. Over the decades he’d owned the ranch, he had developed it from a few dilapidated structures into a cosy compound centred on a well- appointed guest lodge complete with a gazebo and pool. Nestled next to the lodge was a pretty little pond and lush lawns where one could throw horseshoes or just take in the breathtaking views. Strewn across the grounds were 10 guest cabins and a sprinkling of outbuildings and activity areas — think hatchet-throwing into log chunks and roping saw horses near a teepee.
I’ll never forget the ride we took that first day. On our way home the temperature plunged and a cold rain lashed our faces. The horses put their ears back and trudged into the wind; our hands clung numbly to the reins. Our cheerful guide, Darby, called over the howl: “If you don’t like the weather around here, just wait 10 minutes!” Sure enough, that evening we were enjoying drinks on the deck as we watched the sun set.
Mid- week, saddle- sore, we decided to take a break from ranch life and make our way into Jackson for a day. We took full advantage of the ski town in summer, cramming in whitewater rafting on the Snake River, an alpine slide run on Snow King Mountain, and a night at the rodeo before heading back to Goosewing. My mom subbed a historical walking tour for the rafting and was left with a sense of awe for the early settlers who forged the town from a wilderness that then, as now, could see 20 metres of snow in a winter.
One of the pleasures of Goosewing was fly-fishing for wild trout — beginning with taking the UTV along the rutted roads to find spots Francois had marked on the map. And those spots were doozies.
The first day, I hit a tributary of the Gros Ventre called Fish Creek, and my second cast into a bubbling pool below a cluster of boulders produced a spirited 30-centimetre brook trout. That was the first of dozens, all on big yummy attractor flies the seldom-angled-for trout couldn’t seem to resist. This fishing wasn’t exactly for beginners: it required long casts to the tail of pools, with lots of skinny water in between. But once I cracked the code, I was in angler’s heaven.
At a campfire cookout on our last night, with the sun painting the clouds behind him and horses whinnying in the distance, one of the cowboys, Wayne, spun tales about Bill Cody and some lesser-known but equally colourful characters. It made for a memorable trip-ender.