OK, just got home this afternoon from our 4 day camping and riding trip to Ft. Valley Ranch in Northern VA. We had a very good time and really enjoyed the trip. I’ll show some pics in a minute but wanted to say that we’d definitely go back and hope to do that in the Fall.
First of all the facilities were pretty decent. They had nice sized pens set in a shady area for the horses. No one could touch or sniff other horses either which was nice. Tools were provided to muck with. My only beef was that water was a ways from the pens but it wasn’t a big deal and several campers put together hoses to make washing horses and watering easier. The pens were a bit muddy but they’d had an enormous amount of rain. The owners provided free shavings to those whose pens were very wet so that was very nice.
Our horses:
A pic of the grounds.
From a camping standpoint, the sites were pretty decent. Most were shady to some degree. Electric hookups are limited. We had originally only had a primitive site but an electric/water site opened up and we decided to move so we could have AC. It was HOT and it kept us a lot more comfortable.
The campground was pretty quiet and tame compared to some horse camps I’ve been at. That was very nice. We met a lot of really nice people and the owners, Bill and Laura, were fantastic.
There were trails all around the campground and some did require some riding along gravel forest service type roads and a short ride along a lightly used secondary road. In some cases, you could ride a mile and a half on the gravel FS roads to get to a trail head. They were somewhat busy with the holiday weekend but for the most part the drivers were very courteous. My only scary moment was a fire truck that pulled in behind us to fill up at a pond frightened my mare. That was pretty unusual…and it was good training.
The trails ranged from deep sucking muck to pure rock…it just depended on where you were. Due to the rain, they could get really really slippery on some of the steeper spots. Mostly though it was decent.
Some of the places we rode:
Light gravel
Clay/rocks…in this area the trails were shared with ATV’s also. We didn’t ride much in this area (Tasker’s Gap) due to the high volume of ATV’s and noise as a result.
Pure rock…the higher you go, the more exposed rock. Boots that stay on (which we used Easyboot gloves with very little problems) or shoes are a must for all four hooves. Several folks showed up with barefoot horses and one ride up on a trail like this and they were sore.
Last some pics of me on my mare:
My husband on his gelding. Interestly we found out by our rides on the open gravel roads moving out briskly that my husband’s gelding will rack or singlefoot…he’s gaited. Many of the Spanish Mustangs can/will gait but we didn’t know he would until this weekend. A nice surprise! Now if only my mare would figure out how to do it also but she was bred to be a dressage horse and I don’t think that’s likely.
Bottom line…we’d go back tomorrow and live there. I loved the place. I would have liked to have had more trails a bit closer and more smaller loop type rides as it was hard to go on a shorter ride without having to turn around and retrace your steps. The maps were a bit confusing at first but quickly explained by the owners and it really wasn’t that hard to follow them. Overall a thumbs up! 
