Trip To Royal Gorge
A Highlight For Horseback Riders

Thousands of hoofs click along the trail all the way up to the Royal Gorge Bridge. The year is 1948 and 527 participants grace this ride — 2,400 others wait at the destination for the trademark picnic at the top.

“The ride was so well-known,” said Jerry Higginson, president of the Colorado Rebels in the late 1980s, “riders from all surrounding states would ride.”

It is the height of success for the annual trip and an event set to take place for many years to come.

In 1939, the first group of horseback riders rode up to the Royal Gorge for a picnic lunch at the park.

“It was such a success,” said Pauline Stieha, member of the Rocky Mountain Back Country Horsemen in a 2001 newspaper article found at the Royal Gorge Museum & History Center, “that the Cañon City Trail and Saddle Club was formed to sponsor the event.”

During its first years, the riders trucked up the trail of Fremont Peak toward the Royal Gorge, but because deterioration was too extreme for safe riding, Priest Canyon became the route of the journey and the long train of riders began near city water works and ended at the park.

The original trail wouldn’t have been easy for the horses we know.

“The horses were more of the ‘cow-working class’ than of leisure riding types,” Stieha said in the article.

According to a 1989 Daily Record article, Jim Dilley, president of the Colorado Rebel Riders Club in 1981 and rider on the annual trip since 10 years of age, said the modern horses probably would have a hard time making the old trail.

He said one year a horse fell on a spot that was solid rock and broke its back. Each year, the event began a few days early with prisoners walking up the trail to check its readiness for 500 horses or so.

Jack Merris, a retired state prison guard, would “take a truck load of convicts up into the Royal Gorge Park,” stated a 1987 Daily Record article found at the history center. “They would work their way back down the trail on Fremont Peak with picks and shovels to make sure it was in good shape.”

The night before the ride, participants celebrated with a dance, and the ride became the prelude to the Cañon City Rodeo. The next day, the ride ended at the Royal Gorge with races and fun activities for the riders according to age and experience level.

“The events became rather wild,” Stieha said, “with some participants getting hurt. Eventually, the races were toned down.”

As time went on, interest in the ride dwindled and participation lessened into the late 1950s bringing the Cañon City Trail and Saddle Club to an end. The ride was up and running again when the Colorado Rebels Saddle Club took over in 1963 by the Rocky Mountain Back Country Horseman, the 1987 article noted.

Still, the ride brought in less interest each year, but ran a total of more than 60 years. The last piece of information found at the history center about the ride took place in 2001, but the ride will always be remembered by its horsemen.

“It gives the city people something to do,” Dilley said. “Some place to go.”

This Article Courtesy and Compliments of: The Daily Record in Canon City, Colorado 81212
Story written by: Melodie Head