Iron Mountain Horse Farm

Ivanhoe, Virginia

We needed to fill in a couple of days since we cut our visit at Love Valley short. Joan Burlingame, another full-time equestrian and blogger, recommended Iron Mountain Horse Farm in Ivanhoe, VA. It was relatively close by - about an hour away - and I had heard good things about it, so we decided to spend a few days in the Virginia Highlands.

Driving windy, mountain roads is stressful. Driving windy, mountain roads when you are towing a long horse trailer is double stressful. I use an app on my phone called RV SmartRoute that is supposed to recommend the best route for large RVs and trailers. The app directed us down 602 - to a closed bridge. Apparently, this bridge has been closed for YEARS, but the app had no idea. Luckily, there was a driveway right before the bridge that allowed us to turn around. Even more fortunate, some locals helped provide us with better directions that got us back on track and to the campground.

Once we arrived at the campground (with sincere sighs of relief), we were given our pick of campsites. I had been warned that this campground gets super crowded, but I guess it is early enough in the season that we had very few other campers. The owner told Ari that this time of year there are hardly any insects - ticks, gnats, or mosquitos - so I would say come here in early Spring or Fall, if you can.

Campsites had water/electric hook-ups and our horses got nice roomy stalls with fresh shavings. $73/night for the campsite and two stalls. My only complaint was no cell service and really lousy internet reception on our WIFI. There is WIFI at the camp office, but it also wasn’t that great.

This would be an excellent destination for endurance riders. The trails are intermediate level and there are literally miles and miles of trails - all through the mountains, narrow and wide, lots of water crossings and other obstacles to keep your horse thinking.

We rode barefoot and our horses had no problems, but if your horse is tender-footed at all, you will need shoes or boots.

We had several water crossings and our horses stopped to drink about half the time. Virginia mountain water is for “lovers”, it seems. There is a herd of wild horses somewhere in this region, but we didn’t come across it. The wild horses are descendants of escapees from early settlers.

We followed this group of riders out our first morning. You can see it is pretty muddy, but it wasn’t awful. We did have to be careful not to slip going down a few slopes.

You can tack up next to your trailer. We had a lovely babbling brook right behind our campsite. It was very calming just to sit outside and read and enjoy the birdsong.

There is an RV dump you can use as you exit as well as a shower house.