Horse Sense

Dateline: Colorado Horsemen's Convention, Denver, CO
The Colorado Tour

Peggy Rounds-up Her Leave No Trace Posse

The Colorado Horse Development Authority and the Colorado Horse Council (CHC) organized this year's inaugural Colorado Horsemen's Convention in order to learn and share ideas about growing the horse industry in Colorado. We jumped at the invitation to address the convention gathering on environmental and recreational impact topics, and to discuss our long-standing collaborative partnerships with various industry players such as the Back Country Horsemen of America and the American Horse Council. As the first winter storm of the season raged outside, we manned our busy outreach booth within the warm and comfortable confines of Denver's renowned National Western Stock Show Complex, the center of the horsemen's universe.

Colorado Horsemen's Convention

In addition to engaging an interesting variety of folks throughout the day at our booth, we had an opportunity to present an hour-long session where we talked about the genesis of the Leave No Trace program, the history of the Center for Outdoor Ethics, and the challenges of educating folks about the foundation principles of good, responsible outdoor stewardship. We were particularly pleased by the discussion that our presentation fostered about the need to promote constructive engagement and dialogue between diverse outdoor resource user groups (horseback, mountain biking, hiking, trail-running, hunting, fishing, etc).

Rhinestone (Leave No Trace) Cowgirl

CHC executive director Bill Scebbi and his staff put together an excellent program, and we really appreciated the opportunity to participate. We hope that the Colorado Horsemen's Convention becomes an annual forum for exchanging ideas (and good, old-fashioned horse sense) about how best to conserve and promote sustainable outdoor values for all types of horseback recreation.

...along the Colorado Trail,
Peggy and Barrett