This is our third time visiting Jackson, Wyoming with our horses. It is one of our favorite places to visit. On our first stay about twenty years ago, we didn’t have the living quarters trailer. We stayed at The Rustic Inn Resort and boarded our horses at The Game Creek Ranch (which has since been sold).
Valar Stables is pretty much the only horse camp around Jackson unless you are willing to boondock. There are plenty of places in the area where you can park your trailer, set up temporary fences for your horses, and camp. Valar offers electric/water hook-up, a portable sewer caddy, a hot tub, and Pia Valar - who is the big selling point. Pia, the owner, could give seminars on how to be a welcoming camp host. She is pricey - $60/night for the LQ parking and $50/night per horse in a stall with run-out area. So, we are paying $160/night for our stay - which is almost as expensive as Black Prong Equestrian Center in Florida. Weed-free hay can be purchased for $23/bale. We rented a trailer for two days of our stay at $40/day. We bought some hay from her as well, so this stay may run us close to $2,000 for a ten day stay. There is a pasture available for turn-out and both horses enjoyed the pasture.
On the second day of our stay, we took a float down the Snake River. We had to drive into downtown Jackson to check in for the trip and then a shuttle bus drove us down to the launch point.
It was an easy float with eight passengers (all seniors in the raft) and a guide who did all the hard work of rowing.
We saw several bald eagles along the bank of the Snake River, but no moose, elk or otter sightings.
Another outing took us to the Astoria Hot Springs, which is about 10 minutes from Valar. I didn’t like these hot springs as much as the ones in Thermopolis. The landscaping is beautiful, but they require you to reserve a two hour time slot in advance and charge $18 for the time period.
The first two pools are supposed to be for children and families and the remaining two pools are supposed to be in a “quiet” area. But nobody was enforcing that - including the parents of small children. So, it was highly annoying to be in one of the “quiet” area pools and have a small child cannonball into the hot springs and spray me with hot water. It put me in a foul mood and I didn’t enjoy the visit. It probably would have been better to schedule the visit in the evening after dinner when it was less likely for families with young children to be there.
We also attended “Annie Get Your Gun” at the Jackson Playhouse ($65/person). The playhouse building is over a century old and has been lovingly restored. The cast was extremely enthusiastic and we enjoyed the show.
You can access a local trail from Pia’s place…last time we stayed here, we trailered out everywhere. You can actually ride down to the Snake River.
We trailered out on Monday to Fish Creek Veterinary Clinic to get a renewal on the horses’ health/travel papers. The clinic is only about 30 minutes from Valar and they were able to give us another six month EECVI for each horse at $100/horse. The vet listened to Lennox’ heart and said it sounded good and thought we would be able to ride him locally.
Pia recommended we ride a specific trail, but when we got there the road was under construction and they weren’t letting horse trailers or RVs through.
We ended up riding in Teton Village, which I don’t recommend. We rode mostly on the bike paths. I was impressed they have these bike stations installed along the bike paths and it has various tools as well as an air pump to help you fix your bike if it breaks down on you.
We attended several yoga classes at Home Yoga near downtown Jackson. They had a deal where you could purchase a five class package for $90 and we could split the classes between the two of us and share the classes.
On our last day, we trailered to Horse Thief Trail - about ten minutes from Valar’s. There was plenty of room for the trailer at at the trailhead. This is one of the places you can boondock, if you prefer.
You are riding in the Gross Verde Wilderness Reserve.
Both horses did fine and we rode up to the top of a ridge and enjoyed some beautiful views.
Tomorrow we head to the Diamond P Ranch, west of Yellowstone in Montana.
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