By Steph
After breakfast this morning, our last guests of the season will check out and head home. We closed out the winter season with a fabulous final day yesterday. The 12 guests attending the horsemanship clinic rode hard, laughed a lot and finished strong. The energy in the indoor arena was wonderful when I went down to watch them ride yesterday. There were four wranglers in there teaching, each sharing their own perspective on horsemanship and helping give tips to the guests as they tried out complicated maneuvers with their horses. Nate, Mandy, John and Terry were instructing and helping our guests understand the nuances of how they were using their bodies to send cues to their horses. It was fun to watch Terry and John relish in their last time teaching at the ranch before they both head off for their next adventures in life. And it was great to see Mandy and Nate step up to the plate and establish themselves as talented teachers with their own style, preparing to step into their new roles as trainer and head wrangler at Vista Verde.
In the afternoon, Melissa and I walked over to the other side of the river to celebrate the graduation of our first “class” of guest guides. In our inaugural Guide Training for Guests we had 3 guests try out the course. It was everything I could have imagined and better. Steve, Kelli and Brandon put together an amazing, information packed course for these guests to learn how to head out into the backcountry safely. Anyone who likes to hike, fish, bike, ski, snowshoe, you name it…..should take this course. Our guests learned about the dangers, reading the land, navigating, first aid and safety, proper dress, shelter building, and the list goes on. I enjoyed hearing them share their new knowledge and realization that they can’t believe they used to go out without all this information before. Congrats to the class of 2014, and happy trails.
Today brings a flurry of cleaning, closing down cabins, deep cleaning the kitchen, putting away the skis, and wrapping up the winter season. Tomorrow we’ll get the key players to sit down and hash out all the ins and outs of this past winter, what worked, what didn’t, what changes do we want to make next year. Friday night the staff will come over to my house for dinner before heading off to watch KP and Bubba dance in tights (ok, that’s just our joke….they’ll be in their cowboy boots and jeans we hope) at the annual Steamboat Dance Showcase. Then many of the staff will be loading up their cars or hopping on planes to head off to vacation or their next step in life. A small group of us stick around in the off-season and start hitting our to-do lists. Mine’s a mile long, and I’m looking forward to some quiet days of catching up, but also sneaking out to play a bit. I’ve got my eye on a little mare down in the barn and there’s still some snow out there to enjoy before it melts away completely.
Thank you to all the wonderful people who made this past winter season at Vista Verde so fun. We loved watching families try out a snow vacation for the first time. The honeymooners here on a snowy honeymoon were sweet and fun. The couples rekindling the romance, the singles coming to share their experience with friends, the girlfriend getaways, and all the other ways people found to experience Vista Verde in the winter made this a memorable and action packed season. Thanks for playing with all of us at the ranch this past winter.