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Alaska Horse Riding Vacation Kenai Peninsula, Alaska, United States
General Info
Short horse pack trips to historic cabins in the mountains of the Chugach Forest on the Kenai Peninsula.
Designed for small private groups of two to six people. This is a great horseback riding vacation to pair with a cruise or other Alaska adventures.
Alaska is a dream destination, especially for people who love the great outdoors. This is a state where you may feel like animals instead of people are running the show, where travelers can feel like true explorers and where the beauty of nature can literally take your breath away.
If you really want to get deep into the woods and see Alaska’s dramatic scenery, riding a horse is one of your best bets. The Alaska Horse Riding Adventure is truly a unique, a once in a lifetime Alaskan experience, taking you into the wilderness to destinations that many locals don’t even see.
Take a horse pack trip into the mountains of the Chugach Forest on the Kenai Peninsula with Alaska native Bree Bardarson. Bree grew up riding horses in Alaska and is still awed by the rugged beauty of the land. For over eighteen years, she’s been traveling into the Chugach to the two private cabins where you will sleep, which are located in a secluded valley and listed on the National Historic Register. This adventure is for small groups, of two to six people and for a minimum of two nights and three days. This Alaska equestrian vacation can be added into your Alaska vacation, whether you’re taking a cruise before or after or driving throughout the great state, or to plan your vacation around. It’s available to beginning or advanced riders.
Riding with Bree will allow you to get deep into Alaska’s wild spaces. You and your friends or family will not be paired with any other travelers. All departures are private. Bree will be your riding companion and private guide for your multi-day trek to the historic cabins, the only private cabins on the Resurrection Trail system. The cabins were built in the 1920's and have been recently restored, but are very basic. There are countless surrounding trails for you to ride each day and the itinerary is up to you. Bree will tell you about the history of the area and point out local plants and wildlife, like moose, caribou, bears or wolves. You will eat well on your horsey wilderness adventure in Alaska.
Awards & Accolades
Bree was featured in the Equitrekking Alaska episode, part of season three of the Emmy award-winning Public TV series Equitrekking.
Packing
Please see Equitrekking Travel’s General Packing Recommendations.
For this trip, you will be provided with saddlebags. All personal gear must fit into your saddlebags. Extra jackets and rain gear can go on pack horses. Most of Alaska is still wilderness and can be unforgiving to the unprepared. Weather is never predictable, so always be ready for rain.
Clothing should be comfortable outdoor clothing that can be layered for temperatures ranging from the low 40's to the mid 70's Fahrenheit. Besides toiletries and clothing, be sure to bring boots, rain gear, a hat, gloves, and your camera.
About the Horses
On this Alaska Horse Riding Adventure, you'll mount strong Quarter horses and Draft horse crosses that are used to the mountainous terrain in the Chugach National Forest.
Activities/Events
Area Activities
Seward Highway National Scenic Byway- Drive this scenic 127 mile highway, which stretches from Seward to Anchorage before or after your riding adventure. The Seward Highway has been called one of America’s Most Scenic Drives. Leave extra time to make stops by glacier fed lakes, snow capped mountains, dense evergreen forests and local wildlife.
Kenai Fjords National Park and Exit Glacier
Alaska Railroad- The train docks in walking distance from the Seward small boat harbor.
Alaska Sealife Center in Seward
And more! Talk to Equitrekking Travel’s preferred provider of travel services about adding on additional activities, sights or an Alaska cruise.
Accommodations/Food
Accommodations
The two historic cabins located in a secluded valley in the Chugach National forest were built in the 1920’s by a miner and have been restored in keeping with their history. They are listed on the National Historic Register. Each is comprised on one large room inside. The larger cabin has four bunks and a cot, each equipped with simple mattresses. The smaller cabin has three bunks. There is no electricity, running water or plumbing, but there are beds. You’ll be provided with sleeping bags, a pillow, towels and three meals a day during your stay.
Food
Three meals a day plus snacks included. Typical dinners might include steak, pork chops or salmon. Vegetarian and special dietary requests accommodated with prior notice.
Drinks
Guests should bring the alcohol they would like and it can be packed for the trip.
The Ideal Traveler
Outdoor enthusiasts who are looking for a unique Alaska horseback riding adventure with their own self-formed group and may want to combine a horse riding adventure with other Alaska excursions.
Horseback Riding in Alaska
Dates and Rates for 2012:
July 1st to September 1st
Self formed groups of 2 to 6 people. Please enquire about dates.
Minimum of 3 days/ 2 nights or 4 days/ 3 nights
2 people= $571 per person/per day + tax
3 people= $415 per person/per day + tax
4 people= $364 per person/per day + tax
5 People= $ 312 Per person/ per day + tax
6 People= $312 Per person/ per day + tax
* Price includes all meals, private guide, horse, and cook, cots and bunks for sleeping with a sleeping bag and pillow in private cabins.
The night before or the morning of your horseback adventure, guide Bree Bardarson will meet you in Seward and help pack your stuff into saddlebags in preparation for your Alaska pack trip. Your adventure starts at Devils Pass trailhead, which is maintained by the U.S. Forest Service. The ride to camp takes about six hours, taking you deep into Alaska’s wilderness.
You’ll pass through some of the most beautiful country in Alaska on your way to the campsite, a picturesque valley with two historic cabins. You will be sleeping under the stars, but inside a cabin on a cot or bunk. You’ll start out at 500 feet above sea level and climb up to 2500 feet, through mountains, valleys, rivers, from Devils Pass to Resurrection Trail. Then you’ll take a secret trail to your basecamp for your riding adventure.
Your group will stay in one or two private cabins, listed on the national historic register while horseback riding in Alaska. The two cabins in this secluded valley were built in the 1920’s by a miner and have been restored in keeping with their history. They are located far away from civilization or plumbing, but there are beds with sleeping bags and fresh towels provided! You’ll be roughing it Alaskan style, as there is no electricity or running water this far into the wilderness.
From the cabins, take day rides into the Chugach Mountains into country that many Alaskan locals haven’t even seen. Wildlife might include moose, caribou, black bear, brown bear, Dall Sheep, wolves and mountain goats. Because your fellow travelers are your own private group, you can decide which trail to conquer each day. Bree knows them all, as she’s been coming to these cabins for over eighteen years.
Opt for the Wildlife Ride, a four and a half hour ride to look for brown bear, caribou and other Alaskan creatures. Take the day ride to top of a nearby mountain to view Swan Lake and what seems like endless views. There more choices for day rides than there are days!
You’ll be provided with saddlebags for your personal gear, clean sleeping bags, water, towels and homemade meals each night. This is a great short trip to give you a taste of Alaska’s wilderness. It can be added on to your vacation in Alaska, perhaps before or after a cruise or other land adventure. You may want to add in more Alaska activities surrounding this Alaska pack trip.
Equitrekking Travel’s preferred provider of travel services is happy to arrange other adventures in Alaska, including a cruise. Contact Us.
Traveler Reviews
Bree Bardarson, who guides this Alaska vacation, was featured in Equitrekking host Darley Newman's 10 Great Places to Go Horseback Riding in USA Today.
Reading List
General Guidebook
Alaska's Kenai Peninsula: A Traveler's Guide (Paperback) by Andromeda Romano-Lax
Considered Anchorage's "backyard playground" and mecca for fishing fanatics, the Kenai Peninsula is a magnificent place, a microcosm of the best of what Alaska has to offer. Mountain peaks and blue glaciers, rushing rivers and aquamarine lakes, coastal islands and seaside towns-yes, all these. But the Kenai Peninsula is also blessed with an abundance of wildlife from moose to brown bear, Dall sheep to sea otters, seabirds to record-breaking king salmon. Just over an hour from Anchorage, the Kenai is still steeped in early history, with Russian Orthodox families next door to '60s hippies. Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula is the perfect take-along volume, pocket-sized and priced right, filled with color photos and easy-to-read sidebars on natural and human history.
Non-Fiction
Coming into the Country (Paperback) by John McPhee
Amazon.com Review-- Residents of the Lower 48 sometimes imagine Alaska as a snow-covered land of igloos, oil pipelines, and polar bears. But Alaska is far more complex geographically, culturally, ecologically, and politically than most Americans know, and few writers are as capable of capturing this complexity as John McPhee. In Coming into the Country, McPhee describes his travels through much of the state with bush pilots, prospectors, and settlers, as well as politicians and businesspeople who have their eyes set on a very different future for the state.
Novel
Into the Wild (Paperback) by Jon Krakauer
After graduating from Emory University in Atlanta in 1992, top student and athlete Christopher McCandless abandoned his possessions, gave his entire $24,000 savings account to charity and hitchhiked to Alaska, where he went to live in the wilderness. Four months later, he turned up dead. His diary, letters and two notes found at a remote campsite tell of his desperate effort to survive, apparently stranded by an injury and slowly starving. They also reflect the posturing of a confused young man, raised in affluent Annandale, Va., who self-consciously adopted a Tolstoyan renunciation of wealth and return to nature. Krakauer, a contributing editor to Outside and Men's Journal, retraces McCandless's ill-fated antagonism toward his father, Walt, an eminent aerospace engineer. Krakauer also draws parallels to his own reckless youthful exploit in 1977 when he climbed Devils Thumb, a mountain on the Alaska-British Columbia border, partly as a symbolic act of rebellion against his autocratic father. In a moving narrative, Krakauer probes the mystery of McCandless's death, which he attributes to logistical blunders and to accidental poisoning from eating toxic seed pods.
Historical Fiction
Alaska: A Novel (Paperback) by James A. Michener
Library Journal Review-- Another told-from-the-beginning-of-time Michener saga, this one featuring Alaska. The book begins a billion years ago. Its first characters are the mastadon and the woolly mammoth, followed by such other settlers as the Eskimos, Athapaskans, and Russians. Vignettes of characters as varied as the Danish navigator Vitus Bering, who explored Alaska for Russia's Peter the Great, and Kendra Scott, the young Colorado teacher who taught the Eskimo children during the recent Prudhoe Bay oil boom, illustrate the colorful history of this vast and exploited land. Early on the book is vintage Michener, but the momentum encounters an Arctic chill midway. Final sections are trite, uneven, and overloaded with stereotypes. Too cumbersome to be called fiction, but Michener fans will demand it anyway.
Equitrekking Coffee Table Companion Book & DVD's
Equitrekking Travel Adventures on Horseback by Darley Newman with Photographs by Chip Ward available at ShopDarley.com
This companion to the PBS TV series, Equitrekking, proves that the world's most beautiful views are often best seen from atop a horse. This gorgeous book features dozens of scenic rides in the U.S. and around the globe. Denver Post review: For horse folk and dreamers, as well as fans of the show, it's a beautiful trip through stunning equestrian-friendly possibilities.
Equitrekking: Season 1-4 DVD sets featuring Emmy winning PBS episodes, including Equitrekking Alaska featuring riding with guide Bree Bardarson on the Kenai on the Season Four DVD available at ShopDarley.com
Get off the beaten path to see some of the world's most beautiful horses and classic riding destinations with host and equestrian travel expert Darley Newman with Emmy Award-winning Equitrekking, the horseback riding travel series on PBS.
Season One: Vermont, the Carolinas, Georgia Coast, Wyoming, Colorado and Spain.
Season Two: Iceland, Coastal Ireland, Hawaii's Big Island, Irish Countryside, Maui, Virginia Hunt Country and California Wine Country.
Season Four: Southern Spain, Alaska, Central Turkey, Quebec City and Beyond, Scotland and Wales.
Equitrekking Coffee Table Companion Book & DVD
Equitrekking Travel Adventures on Horseback by Darley Newman with Photographs by Chip Ward available at Amazon.com
This companion to the PBS TV series, Equitrekking, proves that the world's most beautiful views are often best seen from atop a horse. This gorgeous book features dozens of scenic rides in the U.S. and around the globe. Denver Post review: For horse folk and dreamers, as well as fans of the show, it's a beautiful trip through stunning equestrian-friendly possibilities.
Equitrekking DVD's featuring Emmy winning PBS episodes, available in the Shop section of Equitrekking.com
Get off the beaten path to see some of the world's most beautiful horses and classic riding destinations with host and equestrian travel expert Darley Newman with Emmy Award-winning Equitrekking, the horseback riding travel series on PBS.
Season One: Vermont, the Carolinas, Georgia Coast, Wyoming, Colorado and Spain.
Season Two: Iceland, Coastal Ireland, Hawaii's Big Island, Irish Countryside, Maui, Virginia Hunt Country and California Wine Country.
Season Four: Southern Spain, Alaska, Central Turkey, Quebec City and Beyond, Scotland and Wales.
Good Books for Horse Lovers and Equestrians
Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior (Paperback) by Temple Grandin
Philosophers and scientists have long wondered what goes on in the minds of animals, and this fascinating study gives a wealth of illuminating insights into that mystery. ---Publishers Weekly
The Horse: A Miscellany of Equine Knowledge (Hardcover) by Julie Whitaker with Ian Whitelaw
The Horse is an informative gallop through everything to do with the horse: evolution, history, biology, breeds, behavior, training, competition, health, and care—all gathered into an accessible gallery of solid information, essential facts, and fascinating trivia.
Hunter Seat Equitation (Hardcover) by George H. Morris
A classic by a world-renowned teacher and master equestrian--the definitive work on the art of teaching and riding the hunter seat, now updated to include refinements in Morris's insightful program of riding instruction.
The New Encyclopedia of the Horse (Hardcover) by Elwyn Hartley Edwards
Chronicling the history of the horse, this guide encompasses the early domestication of the horse, classical riding styles, as well as a survey of the great stud farms and current international sporting events.