Saddling up in Colorado

It doesn’t take me long to feel at home at Tumbling River Ranch. Owner Megan Dugan gives us a heartfelt welcome, before showing us around the historic property. It’s been a homestead since the 1880s and a ranch since the 1940s.

Her parents bought the ranch in 1975 when she was just 18 months old. It is littered with furnishings and adornments from her family’s collection, and for breakfast, lunch and dinner, all included in the price, menus are based on family recipes.

Half the ranch’s guests are repeaters, and in our welcome meeting, always on a Sunday, many cite personal recommendations as the reason they have come.

The ranch can accommodate around 50 guests at one time. For smaller family groups there’s a collection of wood cabins, mostly two-bed, two-bath. They each have a wood-burning fireplace, a popular feature, confirms Dugan.

“We help guests light the fires,” she says. “It’s a real perk in every cabin to have a fireplace, and they do get used.”

Home comforts

Larger groups can take advantage of the Pueblo House. This was built in the late 1920s for the daughter of Adolph Coors, the founder of Coors Brewery, and the breakfast loaves are still baked in the original ovens. Set apart from the main complex, the house overlooks a pond, endowing it with a serene peace. It sleeps 20 at a squeeze, but 12-15 is “more comfortable” says Dugan. The occupants can have their meals here, or in the main ranch house with the other guests. Sociability is definitely encouraged – a cosy bar was added just this summer.

Dugan recommends families fly into Denver (two hours away) on the Saturday, to allow an extra day to get used to the altitude – the ranch sits at 9,200ft. An airport shuttle is on offer for those who want a car-free holiday. Although shorter stays are available in the shoulder season, you can only book a full week in the peak summer period.

“An important part of the dude ranch experience is a week-long stay,” she explains. “We have guests in for seven days to make connections and you see that when they leave. We need to work on them for the first few days to build confidence. It’s a challenge to get people to trust our trails, our wranglers, our horses, but the rewards are there.”

Horse riding, naturally, is the number one activity – the ranch has 85 horses. The week starts with a clinic and there are trail rides every day. Tumbling River is in a canyon in the mountains, so the riding is not for the faint-hearted. We saddle up and tackle a steep forest trail with 22 switchbacks.

It doesn’t quite fit with my preconceived notion of a ranch, where you canter across open spaces, but the scenery more than makes up for it. At the top of the trail, we ride into an alpine meadow, framed by the distant peaks of 14,000ft mountains. An obliging wrangler lends me his cowboy hat, and I pose for the picture that instantly turns me into a bona fide cowgirl. In that moment, under a blue sky, I wouldn’t change places (or horses) with anyone on earth.

Even after a couple of hours, my muscles tense up so I can see why you’d want a break from the saddle. That’s easily done, with fishing, hiking, white water rafting and yoga all on offer… not forgetting the godsend that must be a full-body massage after days in the saddle.

Some activities are fixed into the weekly programme – Monday is for the hayride, Friday is square dancing, Saturday is rodeo. The aim is to bring families together, but should parents want some quality time together, there’s a kids’ programme for all ages and even a babysitting service.

A ranch photographer is on hand to immortalise the memories. Dugan recommends a photo shoot at the start of the week: “We do it on Monday before guests are covered in sunburn and scratches, and the kids are still in clean clothes.”

Even with a packed programme, she rates the simplest pleasures as the most rewarding: “We offer a million things but at the end of the day I just like to see guests sat on their porch relaxing.”

Book it: Frontier America offers seven nights at Tumbling River Ranch, plus a night in Denver, with flights and transfers, for a family of four, from £4,269 per adult, with a saving of £90 for teenagers and £430 for under-12s. (Ranch closed November-May)