European horseback riders on CDT visit Silver City 051618

Photos and article by Mary Alice Murphy

Three European horseback riders and their driver began their Continental Divide Trail trek on May 11, at Antelope Wells, New Mexico, on the border with Mexico.

Their driver, Juergen Goldmann of Germany, stayed with them until May 17. "I retired to Pagosa Springs, Colorado, but I've worked with Peter before. I was available for this part of the trip to provide water to the riders and horses."

Peter Van Der Gugten of Switzerland, now also living in Colorado, said he has led rides on many trails in Europe, Mongolia and Argentina, "but I've never led a ride on a U.S. trail. We've done the Canadian extension of the Continental Divide Trail, so we wanted to do this trail this time."

One of the riders, Zsolt Szabo, owns a ranch in Hungary. "It has been a long dream of ours to ride U.S. trails. Peter and I have taken horses many times on trails in the Alps."

The third rider is Mark Wallis of Scotland. He will be filming the adventure for a documentary. He is using GoPro cameras and a drone for much of the filming.

"We ran out of trails in Europe," Van Der Gugten said. "Since 1972, I have lived in Europe. My wife is from Alaska and my daughter lives in Colorado. The horses are from the U.S., except for one—a Criollo from Argentina. It is like a quarter horse. We brought it to Colorado."

He said the Criollo horse, whose name is Ahí Veremos Resero, which he translated as There We See the Hustler [Editor's Note: The word actually translates as cowboy or herdsman], has a storied ancestry, which Van Der Gugten recounted. The horse is now 7or 8 years old.

The horse is descended from a horse that Aimé Félix Tschiffely, a Swiss-born, Argentine professor, author and adventurer, rode from Buenos Aires, Argentina, to New York City, beginning the three-year journey in 1925 on two Criollo horses named Mancha and Gato. The story is recounted in the book entitled Tschiffely's Ride or The Ride or Southern Cross to Pole Star.

Wallis and Van Der Gugten met in Argentina when Wallis' professor, Ross Birrell, was part of a film project for which Van Der Gugten served as the wrangler. "That's how we got acquainted."

After that, Birrell and Van Der Gugten teamed up for a ride, documented in a film, "documenta 14," which connected two art exhibitions in Athens, Greece and Kassel, Germany, where Birrell's work was being shown. The ride left from Athens on the Old Balkan Road and ended in Kassel, where the second exhibit was.

The three other horses are mustangs purchased from the U.S. BLM, after inmates at the penitentiary in Cañon City, Colorado, broke and trained them.

Van Der Gugten said obtaining the horses was done through "lots of paperwork." He had wanted to choose the size and temperament of horses that he wanted, but when he called saying he wanted to look at about 30, they told him he could see four.

Because he was going into the prison to see the horses, the FBI had to check him out, he said. He went, looked at the four and took home three of them after having them checked by a veterinarian.

One mustang had only recently been broken, but when Van Der Gugten put a pack on it, it stood still and didn't try to buck it off, so Kino Guarini became the pack horse. The other two horses are Cherokee and Apache.

Wallis said the riders usually rise at about 5 a.m. and begin riding at 6 a.m., until it gets hot around midday, and they stop to rest around 2 p.m. They continue riding into the evening. They try to make at least 30 miles a day.

The plan is for them to get to northern Colorado by the end of July, take a break for about a month and then resume the ride in September and October through Wyoming and Montana.

[Editor's Note: This interview took place at Doug Dexter's house, where the riders showered, ate, repacked, and spent the night. Doug, as the president of the local Back Country Horsemen group, was contacted about the ride and offered to host the riders. The horses the Europeans rode and used as a pack horse spent the night in Cassie Carver's arena nearby. She is the daughter of Doug and Dixie Dexter.]