Whitefish Things to Do

4 more images

The Bar W has developed the most advanced and diverse equestrian program in the West. As you may have already guessed the Bar W Guest Ranch is a very horse oriented ranch with a diverse horseback riding program and some of the most experienced training available anywhere.

The Bar W offers exceptional horseback riding in the mountainous Montana terrain surrounding the ranch, the foothill country of the Rocky Mountain Front range, and the wide open prairie of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, in addition to our indoor and outdoor arenas. The Bar W is a horseman’s dream.

In addition to the exciting and challenging ranch sorting and team penning in the arena, some cattle work is also available on the ranch.

Your vacation on horseback will begin with the proper matching up of you and one of our well trained ranch horses, followed by a morning clinic. The clinic is designed to help you begin to get your “seat.” Emphasis is always placed on your safety and the welfare of the horse. That’s the idea. By the end of the first morning you’ll be doing barrel patterns in the arena and ready to begin putting on the miles.

Your rides during the course of the week can incorporate a variety of horses or if you find the horse you like and want to request it for the week – we’ll be happy to oblige.

Horseback riding in the mountains is normally more deliberate with attention paid to moving up and down in elevation while keeping an eye open for wildlife and the next spectacular view of the Rockies just ahead. Riding the foothills is generally a more aggressive, faster ride moving through more open country with a trot or a lope thrown in. Many of the foothill rides are all day rides with lunch in a meadow.

You’ll begin to recognize names, like the Flathead, the Two Medicine, Buffalo Bridge and the Marias Rivers. Finally, when you horseback ride in the wide open prairie of the Blackfeet Reservation you’ll think you’ve arrived at heaven on earth! There may be no other place quite like it on the face of this earth – there really are “purple mountains majesty.” Furthermore, if there are cattle to be moved that week, you’ll be moving back in time to an era when life was difficult but simple. No cell phones, faxes, e-mails, or palm pilots. Just horses, cattle, mountains, grass, your cowboy and cowgirl compadres and you!

Your horseback riding experience will last you a lifetime.