their YouTube channel<\/a>, \u201cDasher: The Outlaw Mustang.\u201d<\/p>\nWhen asked why he\u2019s doing this, Mickelsen said, \u201cIt\u2019s just a dream.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI just wanted to do it!\u201d Mickelsen explains. \u201cThe ultimate dream is to ride from Canada to Mexico. This is just the first leg of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Next spring, his goal is to ride from Roberts to Utah and then later in the year, begin in Utah and ride through Arizona.<\/p>\n
Mickelsen began the trip on July 27 and says he averages about 60-80 miles a week. A 12-mile day is a light day and a 20-mile day is a strenuous pace. Mickelsen says he tries to keep it between 12-15 miles a day.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy horse\u2019s welfare comes before anybody else\u2019s,\u201d says Mickelsen. \u201cSometimes, we\u2019ll go for a day or two and I can just feel that my horse is tired. Then we\u2019ll take a day off and let his legs recover. A lot of times, I\u2019ll hop off and lead him for a while just to take the weight off his back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dasher is one of 12 mustangs Mickelsen and his wife adopted last year. Dasher was a breeding stallion running wild in Murderers Creek, Oregon and he was \u201ca crazy animal.\u201d Taming Dasher over the last year has been quite the ordeal, according to Mickelsen. He says he\u2019s been in the hospital three times to get him to this point.<\/p>\n
Mickelsen says he\u2019s never had the right horse for a cross-country journey, until now.<\/p>\n
\u201cDasher was the meanest and the craziest and I thought, He\u2019s perfect for this ride!\u201d Mickelsen says, laughing.<\/p>\n
Mickelsen\u2019s love of horses stems back to childhood. He and his wife opened a horseshoeing school in Roberts in 2020, which has allowed them to work with students and horses across the country.<\/p>\n
During the journey to Canada, Mickelsen says he\u2019s seen a lot of pretty countryside. On day 11, he met Diana Morris. She and her husband, Bill, own the Morris Ranch, which is featured in Taylor Sheridan\u2019s \u201c1923.<\/p>\n
Mickelsen says the ride from Kilgore to the Montana border has been his favorite stretch so far.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was really secluded. Everything was green and it was cool (referring to temperature),\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
In contrast, he says dropping into Dillon, Montana, was difficult.<\/p>\n
As of Monday, Mickelsen says he\u2019s making his way through Flathead National Forest in Swan Lake, Montana, which he also describes as a beautiful ride.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you\u2019re moving at the pace of the horse, you sure get to look at things for a long time,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Challenges and lessons learned<\/p>\n
Along the way, Mickelsen says it\u2019s been eye-opening to discover the challenges of taking a cross-country trip on horseback. Secluded trails ultimately lead back to civilization, and he says the United States \u201cisn\u2019t built for horse travel anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mickelsen says the No. 1 thing he\u2019s learned on the trip is \u201cgetting around with my horse in the modern world.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve ridden my horse under overpasses, around roundabouts, through gas stations and Walmart parking lots just trying to find the best way to get through places,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
The hardest part, he says, has been dealing with passing vehicles and finding camping spots.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t just tie your horse to a tree at a public park and pitch a tent,\u201d he says. \u201cUnless I\u2019m in national forest or U.S. Bureau of Land Management ground, it\u2019s really hard (to find a place to camp).\u201d<\/p>\n
Mickelsen says his wife \u201chas done all the heavy lifting\u201d for this trip and he couldn\u2019t have done it without her. She and the kids are making the journey with him in a pickup and horse trailer. The trailer has a 250-gallon water tank and she catches up with him every 10-15 miles to water the horse.<\/p>\n
She also helps plan his route and keep him out of harm\u2019s way.<\/p>\n
When he arrives at the border, Mickelsen says his wife will be there waiting with the pickup and horse trailer so they can load up the horse and drive back to Roberts.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I would\u2019ve done this alone, it would\u2019ve been miserable,\u201d says Mickelsen. \u201cHaving my wife and kids along the way has made it a lot of fun.\u201d<\/p>\n
This article was originally published by Rett Nelson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ROBERTS, Idaho \u2014 Riley Mickelsen set out on a 500-mile journey on horseback last month that will take…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":183628,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[57931,17,39348,57932],"class_list":["post-183627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-boise","tag-canada","tag-idaho","tag-treasure-valley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}